Messages

51

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: February 10, 2009, 05:16:55 PM »

More pics....

Temporary screen and keyboard while debugging. You can see the old DC drive in the cabinet. It is gone now.

Pics of the turret. I got it mounted a while back, but haven't had a chance to post any pics. I did get it moving around and all the switches and encoder work. Haven't tested the positioning solenoid yet.

Probably going to get slow again, because I have to try to make up for two weeks of lost work plus clear out all the limbs and trees. It's thundering now. I hope we don't get too much in the way of severe storms, because what is left of the power lines is held together with spit and bailing wire right now.

Monty

52

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: February 10, 2009, 05:09:38 PM »

I did make some progress in spite of it all.

carriage motor mounted.

Old 5 phase vs. new.

Cross slide motor.

New spindle motor mounted.

53

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: February 10, 2009, 05:06:50 PM »

Paid for my luck with the spindle drive with 1.5 inches of ice and no power for 10 days. Stranded at home for 4 because the driveway was blocked with downed trees and power lines.

The dog is worried he is going to run out of food .

I tried to save this tree when we cleared some land. It was about 20 inches in diameter and straight as an arrow. Peeled like a banana.

What a mess. I'll be cleaning up for months.

Monty

54

Newfangled Solutions Mach3 Wizards / Re: V2.82 ready for test, also for Tormach users

« on: February 10, 2009, 03:57:30 PM »

Ron,

I just had a problem with the cut a circle wizard. I was trying to cut an inside circle to mount a motor on a plate. The circle would cut properly, but the lead in would move outside the circle and then back in, resulting in a little half moon cut outside the circle at the entry point. The lead out worked properly and the circle was the correct dia. So the tool dia. compensation is working. I updated to the latest version of the wizards, thinking that was the problem. Unfortunately it still made the funny little move at the entry point.

I did manage a workaround by turning on the groove option. That caused the funny little move to happen above the part followed by a straight plunge into the material.

Not sure if I'm missing something or doing something wrong.

Monty

55

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: January 26, 2009, 10:43:15 PM »

Sometimes I question my sanity.

This past Saturday I got up at 0500 made breakfast for the BOSS. Slammed my coffee, grabbed the chocolate covered espresso beans and departed north into the freezing mist. 7 hrs, many frozen salted icy miles, and one fill up later I arrived in East Alton IL; a thoroughly depressing place, at least this time of year . I then loaded up my prize and headed back South. About 1500 hrs I finally got a chance to drain the morning's coffee and get a bite to eat. Then back on the road. Hurtling along at 80+ mph listening to anything to keep me awake, I suffer through a Christian demonic possesion program , and some song about driving a tractor that hasn't left my head two days hence . Finally I get back into the mountains well after dark and the folk sampler is on....bluegrass....much better than the contemporary stuff AHHHHHH.

Somehow I survived.

This afternoon after my work was done for the day I decided to pull the original spindle motor. Then the scary thing happened. The new motor fit the machine, no adaptor plate, no bushing for the spindle pulley, Same length shaft the whole bit. Looks like it grew there. The new spindle motor is brand spanking new, still had the connector and crimp terminals for the encoder in a little plastic baggie in the terminal box. I am quite terrified, as nothing EVER goes this smooth. Something must be wrong. It did have a little shelf rash, and I had to dust it off. Other than that it worked out better than I could have hoped for.

The Spindle drive needs an add on card to do positioning, that will have to wait.

Next I have to modify the axis motor brackets and mount the new motors. Then rewire the control cabinet.

Right now freezing rain is coming down at a pretty good clip outside. The forcast calls for around 1 inch of ice. Somebody needs to phone Al Gore and tell him to turn up the thermostat!

I hope I have power in the morning. The oil lamps are filled up and there is a good pile of wood by the stove, so I'll survive as long as the cognac lasts....

I'd rather be lucky than good any day .

Monty

56

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: 5 Axis Mill (Trunion type), with Arm ATC, and Pallet changer control.

« on: January 16, 2009, 02:59:45 PM »

Looks Great! Very professional looking cabinet. I'm going to be watching with great interest. My next victim is an ARTRAN 5 axis machine. It is a gantry type with C and B rotary axes. It has a winerack type tool changer and is totally enclosed. When I get a little farther along I'll post some pictures. First things first....I need to get my lathe sorted out.

Do you have any pics of the iron?

Monty

57

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: January 14, 2009, 10:52:03 AM »

Hood,

The chuck that came with the machine is a nice 6 in Maier forged steel unit. The pulleys are about a 2:1 ratio so I would be able to get about 4000 spindle rpm. I did find that EMCO made a 240 which looks exactly like the 140 except it has a powered tailstock and the machine is totally enclosed. It appears to have the same spindle as mine and was rated at 4000 rpm. Most likely the only time I would use more than 2500 rpm would be with small parts and a collet.

There is a reason I put a 1/2 in polycarbonate sheet in the door window, but I hope it is never needed .

Monty

58

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: January 13, 2009, 06:09:03 PM »

I just bought a 7.5 hp yaskawa spindle motor and drive on eBay. 0-8000rpm constant torque with positioning. Anybody know what rpm the spindle bearings in this lathe might be good for?? It would be nice for smaller parts to be able to go higher than 2500rpm quoted in the book. I'm not sure if the limitation was the spindle or the drive. I do know the thing is smooth as silk at 1700rpm with the current motor.

I also decided to stick with steppers rather than DC servos. If I upgrade to servos, I'll go with AC units. 

I misquoted my rapids in a previous post. In one of my typical episodes of mental flatulence, I had not calibrated steps/in yet . Rapids with the 5 phase motors are more like about 40 in/min which low and behold matches the original speck in the manual . I found an original data sheet on  the steppers on the machine. They are only 430 oz-in motors not 1280 like the later version. I guess you really don't want super fast rapids on a training lathe anyway . They really are marginal and have trouble compressing the counterbalance spring on the cross slide without missing steps. Its sad, but the little nema23 stepper I put in the turret would run circles around the axis motors . So off to eBay with them and the drives. I have a PacSci K33 that's been wanting to make itself useful for 5 years or so. I'll have to wire it bipolar-series to keep from frying the gecko drives, but it should be more than adequate. I'll put it on the cross slide. I ordered an 1800 oz in motor from Keling to put on the carriage, and I'll up the voltage to 50V. If that isn't good enough, I'll order a new power board and go up to 80V, but I don't think that will be necessary. I'm going to use gecko 203Vs.

On a positive note. I got the turret powered up and moving around. I had a terrible time with the encoder on the turret shaft. The position strobe has a 1deg window. Something that lends itself to bench adjustment, rather than on the machine. I took all day Sunday to get it adjusted. Tightening the set screw would disturb it, then finding it witout a scope was a real pain because of the time delay on the meter . All of the proximity switches and other stuff on the turret work fine. Programming is going to be a challenge for me.........Fortran, COBOL and basic are the last programming experience I had a loooooooong time ago. AHH well another adventure.

 

59

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: January 06, 2009, 10:57:23 PM »

12.5KW  that's a lot o' bananas!

I would settle for a tad less. But that would solve my spindle positioning dilemma too. Hmmmmmmm. Sure would solve a lot of problems....... I'm also thinking about going with DC servos on the axis drives. The spindle drive and the axis drives were a gamble. I didn't have much invested in the drives and it was worth a shot to try to use the existing motors, but.......Looks like a job for EBay!

Monty

60

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: My new project

« on: January 06, 2009, 04:15:57 PM »

After fighting with some noise issues and a bad connection in the crimp type parallel port connector, the axis drives are finally working  . Unfortunately the best I can get for rapids is about 180 in/min. The 5 phase steppers are quiet and smooth, but 24 volts just doesn't pack that much punch. I will probably update to newer steppers and gecko drives so I can get the voltage up. I still haven't gotten the bugs worked out of the main spindle drive. I just don't have the voltage available to get the RPM high enough. The motor is rated 2500-6500 rpm . So far I have gotten the spindle up to about 1700 rpm. The motor is turning about 3200 rpm or so. Not much more I can do there. The spindle is also not very linear in response, so tuning is a bit tough. I'm going to keep fiddling with it for a while, but I have a feeling that there is a new AC spindle motor in my future, or perhaps I will try a DC motor set up for our voltage. Most DC motors have too low an RPM rating to be useful.

Monty