Topics

31

Galil / Lathe Threading

« on: June 05, 2011, 07:16:55 PM »

Just wondering if lathe threading is  done yet as I cant really find an answer in searching the forum.
Hood

32

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Thrown together coil winder ;)

« on: March 05, 2011, 11:19:18 AM »

Have a big Aluminium welding job on at the moment and ran out of wire and the local stockists didnt have any of the 100mm dia rolls that I use in the spool on gun. I bought a big roll and started winding it onto the small rolls on my Triumph lathe but it gets boring and results are crap. Decided I could make up a couple of brackets for the front  turret in the Computurn  lathe and use my small winders screen and set up a new profile.
This is the result, its rough and not perfect winding but it will get me out of a scrape and with a bit of tweaking it will work well. Add to that the fact I get 20 wee rolls out of one big one, the big roll costs £47 the wee ones £7, so quite a saving if I dont have to constantly watch over it (dont tell my customers though )
Hood

33

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Bridgeport is getting an overhaul

« on: February 21, 2011, 05:05:39 PM »

I have a Boss 6.1 Bridgeport that was my second convertion to Mach, the first was a clapped out manual Bridgeport. I stripped all of the Bridgeport electrics/electronics and fitted the G201's, steppers etc that I had on the manual conversion. It worked well but when I finished the bigger Beaver mill I never used the Bridgeport, so it has been sitting idle for probably a year.
 I have now decided to haul all the electrics off and start again, this time I am using servos and will be putting a servo on the spindle. The motor I have for the spindle is 3.5KW so I am hoping that will be big enough, I do have a bigger drive/motor (8KW) but I am keeping that for a spare just in case the Beavers spindle/drive die in the future.

Anyway this is as  far as I have got so far, waiting on bits and pieces arriving from eBay and progress may be slow dependant on free time.
Hood

34

General Mach Discussion / Making a list of things that need fixed in Turn

« on: January 04, 2011, 06:28:36 AM »

Below is a list of the things I can think of that are needing sorted in Turn, would appreciate any others you know of.
Hood

Front/Rear Turrets

CSS

G83 (works in Mill but not Turn)

Current Tool DRO should show offset as well as tool number or another DRO should be made for Tool Offset.

Wear and Offset DROs should look at offset number to get which offset to update rather than Tool number

Tool Description label needs to look at offset number rather than tool number

Soft Limits need fixed

35

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Picture of Spindle sensor for the guys on the Yahoo group

« on: January 03, 2011, 02:59:26 PM »

I have seen requests from a few guys on the Yahoo group wanting to see pics of how a spindle speed sensor can be fitted to a Bridgeport with a QC spindle nose and decided to post here and link them to iit.
Here are a couple of pics of how I did it. I made the delrin part that holds the slotted wheel to fit into the top of the spindle then bored it and slotted so a bolt can pass through, I hexed the  inside end, at the bottom,  slightly smaller than the size of the nut then as  I tightened the bolt the nut was pulled into the shaft and the delrin  expanded slightly and gripped solidly inside the spindle.

Hood

36

General Mach Discussion / Heads up on CADCAM offer from Dolphin UK

« on: December 14, 2010, 02:32:51 PM »

Just thought I would post this here as it was posted on the Yahoo group a few days ago and I know a lot of the forum members dont look there.

Dolphin CAD CAM Systems Ltd have reduced prices for both

Hobbyist and Commercial Users, these prices will hold for the

month of December 2010 and are applicable to both new and

existing users.

Full details can be found at :-

Dolphin December Special Offers for HOBBYISTS :-

www.zen188344.zen.co.uk/download/Hobby%20offer%20Nov%202010-4.pdf

Dolphin December Special Offers for COMMERCIAL USERS :-

www.zen188344.zen.co.uk/download/Special%20offer%20Nov%202010-4.pdf

This may be especially of interest to Lathe users as reasonably priced CAM programmes for Lathes are hard to come by. I downloaded the demo and have been messing about with it the last few days and although it took a bit of getting used to it seems to work well. I have now purchased the Turn module and a Dongle so hopefully I will be able to report the code is as good as the simulations suggest

Hood

37

SmoothStepper USB / If you have noise issues this might be worth a try

« on: November 01, 2010, 08:23:37 PM »

I have 4 SmoothSteppers on machines and have not suffered from noise issues on three but the Beaver Mill would have problems in two distinct areas.
1. If the E-Stop button was pressed on my control panel then 90% of the time the SS would hang and I would need to restart Mach. My E-Stop not only sends a signal to Mach but also drops out all the contactors on my mill so things like AC power to the servo drives get cut.
2. If sitting for extended periods with Reset flashing the SS could hang.

I read with interest this thread and also the discussion on the Yahoo group http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,16186.10.html

I decided I would remove the capacitor and resistor that are on the SmoothStepper at the side of the USB socket, they are C4 and R5 and since removing them I have tried hard to make the SS hang by repeatedly pressing the E-Stop button and also have left Mach sitting for long periods with the rest flashing. I have not had a single hang and its now been 5 days of trying.

So it might be well worth users that have issues trying this. Its quite easy to remove the capacitir and resistor if you have two soldering irons, you just melt the solder at either side and then lift off with the irons. I actually just used one but had to go from side to side quite a few times easing the cap up slightly each time and after a while it came off. I also tried crushing the components with needle nosed pliers on a spare SS I had and this too was easy and worked well but I would recommend desoldering rather than crushing, I just did it that way as a test to see if it could be easily done. Greg has also mentioned another way, if your soldering iron can bridge the ends of the component you can drop a blob of solder on the top to bridge the component and this will then melt the solder pads and allow you to lift it off with tweezers.

So although my problem was not a serious one as it only ever happened at an E-Stop or whilst sitting doing nothing, I still want to thank David for his testing and findings as they have cured a minor niggle that I had.

Hood

38

General Mach Discussion / High speed spindle recommendations

« on: August 11, 2010, 05:29:30 PM »

Anyone know of a small high speed spindle that would be suitable for attaching to my mills quill. Only for engraving so doesn't have to be that powerful and small size and reasonable cost would be a big advantage. Looking for around 20,000 rpm and variable speed is not needed.

Hood

39

General Mach Discussion / Heads up on stainless keyboards

« on: April 09, 2010, 06:14:10 PM »

See here http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,14635.0.html

Hood

40

Promote and discuss your product / Ball screws in the UK

« on: January 14, 2010, 02:41:47 PM »

This is not my product and have no connection other than I just purchased some from them. I thought I would give the UK guys here a heads up as I think the deal I got was great. I was needing new ballscrews for the mill I have just done and was looking around for 32mm Dia 10mm pitch ballscrews, cheapest I could find was well over £300, in fact I think nearer £400 and that was for class 7 rolled with anti backlash nuts.
 I found these guys  http://www.motionandbearing.co.uk and ended up getting 1700mm and 1500mm long 32mm dia 10mm pitch precision ground class 5 ballscrews and antibacklash nuts,  all in,  including delivery I was £240.

Hood