Messages

121

General Mach Discussion / Re: Unequal Backlash

« on: July 12, 2015, 11:37:49 AM »

Hood

He's b-a-a-c-k!:)  (Yay!)

122

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Po' man's live tooling

« on: May 24, 2015, 10:51:32 AM »

Dude........dude...that is way cool. video please

Thanks jr.  Unfortunately I'm old school when it comes to video tech.  I haven't been able to find a port on my old 'puter to insert a VHS cassette...or 8 track tape for that matter.  Just visualize a tiny drill going in & out of aluminum with tiny little spirals flying out.  Probably a lot better in your mind's eye than what I could come up with.  Seriously though, I'll see if I can borrow son-in-law's camera if I can figure out how to post up a vid.

Rich I'll probably make some kind of index wheel system to go in the other end of the spindle if the need for precision arises.  For what I'm using it for now though, a fine point Sharpie's plenty good.

And yes, I've seen your Atlas accessories.  Very cool stuff indeed!

123

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Po' man's live tooling

« on: May 23, 2015, 02:57:54 PM »

I built this thing up recently with stuff I had lying around to save some time when making model airplane engine venturis for a friend.  The venturis have 4, #58 holes in them and I’d been drilling them in the mill using a square ER32 collet block.  It worked fine but my mill’s top speed is a bit slow for the little drill and it required tedious setup for each one.

With the part still chucked in the lathe and the hang-on QC drill’s offsets stored in Mach, it’s now easy-peasy with a little bit of g-code to drill the holes right on the money.  I just mark the 4 positions on the chuck flange with a magic marker and use a simple wire pointer to index the holes.  Their positioning isn’t super critical and there’s not enough torque generated from the little drill bit to move the lathe spindle around while drilling.

The motor is a 24VDC 3450 rpm Pittman given to me by forum member Jim Glass, thanks Jim!  I run it with a cheap ebay KB controller that I ordered by mistake.  It came with a Peco add-on board that runs off 36VAC so I used an old 36V transformer to power it.  With a few tweaks I got the motor running at a bit under 5000 rpm.  Still slow but it’s twice as fast as the mill & zips through aluminum like butter.  I tested it with bits up to 3/16” dia and they do great.

I made an ER16 chuck for it and was going to just press it on the motor shaft but my .3115” reamer somehow made an oversize hole.  Excessive chip buildup I think.  Anyway I drilled & tapped it for 4 setscrews and with a lot of cussing got the runout down to .0002”.  I would’ve liked to have used ER11 but don’t have the collets.  The drill bit holder shown was originally made to use in the mill but I’ll now make a shorter one to give more clearance.  The z-axis homing probe comes too close to the part for comfort.  If I bend that probe, after making a new one I’d then have to reset all 15 tools’ Z offsets, YUCK!

124

General Mach Discussion / Re: X-Axis Peck Drill in Turn?

« on: April 24, 2015, 08:18:37 PM »

Great, thank you very much!  Will try it later this weekend.

125

General Mach Discussion / Re: X-Axis Peck Drill in Turn?

« on: April 24, 2015, 04:19:36 PM »

Woke up thinking about this today...I know, I know; things usually go tango uniform when I think too much.

The "OD Groove" wizard in the standard Lathe Turning Wizards page already has all the pecking, depths, etc. needed for X-axis drilling but the "Groove Width, "Tool Width" & "Stepover %" input boxes screw things up.  I tried but wasn't able to cheat the box inputs to get it to work.  Would it be a huge VB editing job to kill those boxes and still have the needed inputs working?  Like my Pappy used to say: "Shouldn't be a hill for a stepper, son."

126

General Mach Discussion / Re: X-Axis Peck Drill in Turn?

« on: April 20, 2015, 09:15:52 PM »

Thanks gentlemen for the info & offer to help.  I'm still in the rummaging around phase at the moment; for both parts & knowledge.  Thanks to ya'll, the knowledge part is taken care of; the rest is up to me.

I found a brand new Astro Cobalt 020 motor left over from my r/c airplane days.  Pretty hot stuff way back before lipos & brushless motors.  It's got a machined aluminum can and endbells with good quality ball-bearings on both ends.  It has adjustable timing & will do the 18K I need with ease & should last forever doing the short run times I'd use it for.  Should be able to mount it on an AXA holder, spend some time getting it dead on center & the offsets saved in the tool table.  Should be able to machine an adapter reamed on one end to fit the 1/8" motor shaft (setscrew to hold it on) and drilled on the other end with the drill loctited in place.  With a quality #53 drill & the correct speed & feed programmed, it should last longer than I'll ever need.  That's assuming I don't drop it!

127

General Mach Discussion / Re: X-Axis Peck Drill in Turn?

« on: April 20, 2015, 05:18:12 PM »

I did some searching & found an old post with ref to a macro by "melee" that did X pecking in turn but was way over my head and I think it was for multiple locations??  I confuse myself very easily.

When I do these parts, it's usually multiples of one part design so a bit of hand coding will do fine.  As always, thanks for the input.

128

General Mach Discussion / X-Axis Peck Drill in Turn?

« on: April 20, 2015, 02:32:16 PM »

I'm in the thinking phase of cobbling up a QC toolholder with drill motor for cross-drilling 4 #57 holes in some small parts I make from time to time on my ORAC.

Presently I do the lathe ops, mount the part in a square collet block & drill the holes using the mill at the highest speed.  If I can rig a small high speed motor in the QCTP & manually index/lock the spindle the drilling could be done under CNC control.

Is there a way to make the X-axis do peck drilling without a computer science degree?

129

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Denford ORAC lathe retrofit.

« on: April 13, 2015, 11:36:25 AM »

Hi jr, thanks for noticing.

I scanned back over the thread and it brought back a lot of memories.  Hard to believe I started working on the thing almost 3 years ago.  Never dreamed it'd take that long and that it wouldn't be really "finished" by now.  Probably never will be though.  I learn new stuff every day.  If I was starting over, I would do a MUCH better job of marking the wiring & drawing up schematics.  One lives & learns hopefully.

130

General Mach Discussion / Re: Perfect Lathe threading

« on: April 11, 2015, 02:57:43 PM »

I think you missed the point 

No disrespect intended BR, I tend to try & be funny when I get around things I don't understand.

So this was done using Mach3 & a USB motion controller?  Definitely cool if it's solid, doesn't cost an arm & a leg & ain't Linux.