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Messages - Allstar1

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31
General Mach Discussion / Re: burned a servo
« on: September 14, 2012, 12:06:00 PM »
It could be the encoder but I am thinking the Z drive or upstream of it. You overdrew current which is felt by the motor/drive evidenced by it getting hot. The motor survived but the drive took the brunt of the over current. Can you stick one of the other drives in the Z position? You have essentially done that when you piggy backed the Y drive to Z motor but that does not eliminate what's up-stream of the Z drive just yet. As you say it's not a Break Out board per say but whatever it is, it gives the Gecko its move instructions. The encoder is essentially feedback so it might be the problem but intuitively the drive or its control seems more likely to have failed. How tough is to get a spare encoder? Any existing parts servcie on this machine? Pictures are always good. You almost got this.


Like this one: http://cnccookbook.com/CCMillCNCConversionHome.html

32
General Mach Discussion / Re: burned a servo
« on: September 13, 2012, 05:22:08 PM »
I'm a doofus with the electrical stuff. This was a turnkey mill, I didnt build it.

coming into control cabinet, I switched parallel cable wires 4/5 (which is the Y axis) with 6/7 (which is troublesome Z axis). Y still works fine, but Z still does the same thing.

So that will rule out the parallel cables, computer, and parallel port.... I think?

Pretty good troubleshooting for a doofous. Can you measure volts between terminals coming from the bob Z axis when you do a jog move? You can compare to the working axis values. Maybe you did this? Your getting warm pun intended. Not sure if you covered the bob yet in your process of elimination. Your running out of things to check!



33
General Mach Discussion / Re: Myford Super 7 - adding ball screws
« on: September 13, 2012, 11:58:44 AM »
I was checking out some options where the ball nut spins and the screw is fixed ridgid(does not turn). Seems like other a hand full of companies there's not much out there for the DIYer. Maufacturers site lowered moment of inertia and space constriants as a few of the advantages, especially on applications with really long screws.

Robert

34
General Mach Discussion / Re: Myford Super 7 - adding ball screws
« on: September 07, 2012, 04:44:38 PM »
Take a look at this thread for info on how to make a zero-backlash nut out of acetal for a standard lead screw.

I used these methods to make a nut for the cross slide on my Clausing 5914 and it worked really well. It would have been very hard to replace that nut with a ballscrew nut as the space is limiited, you'll seen pictures of the nut I made towards the end of the thread.

http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/threads/43645-Making-Acetal-leadscrew-nuts-the-easy-way?highlight=acetal

Paul T.
www.springtest.com


That's a slick way to make a zero nut. I saw this awhile back and was totally impressed. I made my cross slide out of delrin by using an Acme tap and under drilling the pilot hole a bit.  X axis holds plus or minus .001" so I am happy with that. I am going to try to tap my leadscrew nut, if its still too sloppy I will get the torch out and try the old melt a thread method. Nice work and ingenuity on such a simple method.

Regarding the ball screw, I would like to see just how mr. c did his SB. Now that he mentions it I can visualize a simple way to mount it. Unfortunately by taper attachment holds my X stepper motor lol

35
General Mach Discussion / Re: Myford Super 7 - adding ball screws
« on: September 06, 2012, 05:07:13 PM »
The wee lathe I am updating at the moment is based on a Myford ML10 so not sure if that will help or not.
Hood

That's a sweet baby retro project Hood!

36
General Mach Discussion / Re: Myford Super 7 - adding ball screws
« on: September 06, 2012, 02:53:43 PM »
Hi John,

I have been working on a similar project to fit a Southbend 9" with steppers and yes the leadscrew is the more challeging axis to eliminate/reduce the back lash. I choose to use low back lash nuts but often toy with the idea of ballscrews. Because I want to toggle between conventional and CNC use I will make due with poor mans method of backlash reduction. Maybe you should post a picture of your lathe, particularly the carriage & lead screw shot to stimulate some of our resident guru's ideas on how to interface a ball on the long screw. Picture says 1000 words or thereabouts.

Robert

37
General Mach Discussion / Re: Lathe turret design
« on: April 12, 2012, 11:50:27 AM »
Gytarr,

You mention avoiding PLC's but my take on this is that a PLC could really simplify the design. I say that having 12 years in factory automation that almost eveything ran on PLC. My concept on this would be to use a combined mechanical and electrical/electronic solution much like the orginal turret. If you could index by turning the turret with a stepper or other motor to get you into the near vacinity, turn the motor off, then use a simple air cylinder to clamp the tool table secure with air pressure, you could get a secure repeatable position on every tool change. This is a bit oversimplified but you get the concept.

Regardless of my opinion I am fascinated by the concept of a tool turret and would like to keep tabs with you on how you work this out. Gang tooling is killing me!

Robert

38
General Mach Discussion / Re: PART CNC PART MECHANICAL
« on: April 12, 2012, 11:24:56 AM »
Gray

When I started with Mach, one of the first thoughts that popped into my head was how could I use it as a low cost DRO without having to turn/power the stepper motors. I guess when your trasitioning from conventional to CNC a part of your machining background keeps you thinking traditional. There may be an easy way to implement this concept, but like you I am no electronic/computer whiz however I like your thought process.

I am also working on backlash issues as well so I can relate.

Robert

39
General Mach Discussion / Re: PART CNC PART MECHANICAL
« on: April 11, 2012, 07:29:52 PM »
I think what you want is a rotary encoder to take the place of a stepper or servo keeping track of your conventionally turned screws on the DRO, much like any manual machine. The question is how do you feed that back to Mach as an input elctrically? Am I undestanding you here? That brings up the question other than a pulse generator is there an interface/input to make the DRO work based on position that is not tied to a motor but the axis turning. That could be an interesting feature for Mach if you wanted to kick into conventional mode for certain jobs.

Robert

40
Robert here. I am a facility manager by day for a large healthcare system in the San Diego area. When not working the day job I tinker with machining on conventional lathe mill and now miniature CNC of course! I started a hobby company several years ago dedicated to acoustic drum hardware called Allstar Percussion. It's a labor of love as certainly there's no real money in it, lol.

I started my Mach/CNC adventure by converting a Unimat mini lathe to CNC. I am still getting the hang of the Mach 3 but overall it is a terrific program. Certainly having hours of fun trying to figure it out. I will post pictures in the near future. A big thanks to Overloaded as he helped with the most fundamental problem I was having with setting up the lathe. This stuff makes you feel dumb sometimes.

Any of you who happen to like machining and percussion/drums please check out my website which has my contact email as well.

Thanks,
You guys Rock!
Robert
www.allstardrum.com

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