Messages

141

General Mach Discussion / Re: BT30 spindle from scratch - with power drawbar and ATC of course

« on: July 29, 2012, 11:14:01 AM »

You can spend a lifetime inventing new ways to do old things with little improved outcome of the results OR a life time making new parts and gizmos. I am with the patent people 99.9% of everything important has already been invented.

Sling some chips, (;-) TP

Yea but where's the fun in that
Seriously if I was running normal low RPM spindle speeds I would stick with my current setup. The lower overall height is appealing enough for me to make a stab at it.

The only reason I'm running it without the drive lugs is I have an opportunity to do this 100 piece job and I don't have my indexable VFD yet. I'm just doing light cuts in aluminum so slipping won't be a problem. I'm cobbing up a quick 6 position tray type holder and I'll auto tool changing!

142

General Mach Discussion / Re: BT30 spindle from scratch - with power drawbar and ATC of course

« on: July 29, 2012, 09:38:50 AM »

I think the reason the industry uses Bellevilles is the high drawbar forces they need to hit. I was seeing numbers in the 5000 lb range. I also realized early in my design the the more washers you have the less movement each washer needs to make and the less overall pressure applied to the equipment. Also like you said working bellevilles will tend to fatigue them so the more you have the better.
One thought I had before your valve spring idea was to reduce the length of the splined section on my spindle and replace that area with bellevilles. I would have to reduce the diameter to fit in the bore of the step pulley but I think there are some washers in that size range that would work. The math looks good on the valve spring so I'm going to go that direction first and see how it plays out.
A car running that spring probably works it more in one 1/4 mile pass than I would in a year or two of tool changes

143

General Mach Discussion / Re: BT30 spindle from scratch - with power drawbar and ATC of course

« on: July 29, 2012, 06:40:41 AM »

I have the same 4 ball gripper setup and BT30 as you on a BP clone. ( I was the one who emailed you about grinding my spindle). My quill is locked and I drive the knee for the Z axis so my spring choices were better than If I was using the quill. I settled into these Belleville springs from mcmaster 9712K84. I'm running 30 springs. This gives me 1000 lbs working pressure and leaves me about .375" of travel before my air cyl won't move it. I only need .225” for release. I made a sleeve  that goes 1.5" into the drawbar bolt hole and then steps out to the bore size of the top step pulley. then the sleeve is turned down to accommodate the springs. I’ve been running this setup at 6000 rpm the last couple of day’s with no real vibration issues. In fact it seems to be better than my stock drawbar. I’ve got a job I need to get through but unless someone chimes in why that valve spring won’t work I’m going to give it a whack. My working height is around 2.5” of spring so If I can reduce that with a valve spring I’m all for it.
As a side note I’m running drive dog adapter on the spindle nose but I wanted to see how much grip the BT30 had. I removed the dogs and put a piece of .625 cold rolled in a set screw holder. I cranked the screw down fairly hard and tried to turn the rod with vise grips. The rod spun in the holder after a lot of pressure but the holder never turned in the spindle. Not scientific but gave me a little more confidence in my rig.
I have 100 pieces to machine with 4 setups with 4 tool changes each setup so that should be a nice test.

Derek

144

General Mach Discussion / Re: Use an arduino to send estop texts to my phone

« on: June 08, 2012, 03:07:29 PM »

Looks good Tweakie but I think it needed some duct tape to make it complete!

Derek

145

General Mach Discussion / Use an arduino to send estop texts to my phone

« on: June 07, 2012, 05:35:33 PM »

I've been looking for a good starter project to get my feet wet with Arduino. I came a cross an article on make where a guy mounted a switch on his mailbox and he received a text whenever the door was opened.
Here is the link http://blog.makezine.com/2010/12/29/snail-mail-push-alerts/
I'm not quite sure how to trigger it with mach but it shouldn't be too difficult. I'm also thinking that with an additional output and a macro I could get a notification when it's done running. A power failure indicator would be nice as well.

I do a lot of 3d work and I run the machine 24/7 if necessary so an estop or power failure can cost me 12 hours or more depending on when it happens.

Any thoughts
Derek

146

SmoothStepper USB / Re: Does Verify work?

« on: January 26, 2012, 11:40:05 AM »

Thanks Jeff

147

SmoothStepper USB / Does Verify work?

« on: January 26, 2012, 06:57:02 AM »

Hi
I've got the usb smoothstepper working with mach R3.043.057 and V17efb plugin. Homing works fine but when I click on the verify button the Axis don't move. The weird thing is if I manually jog one of the axis away from the switch as soon as I release the jog button the axis rapids back to the start position and "Position Verified Successfully" Appears in the status window.

I saw this on the download page of warp9 "The Verify function was implemented, though it does not operate the same as the Parallel Port driver. To operate the same will require a change in Mach"

So does that mean I need to change a setting in Mach or Brian needs to make a change in Mach.

Thanks
Derek

148

General Mach Discussion / Re: dugong servoconfigurator3 settings

« on: August 31, 2011, 07:57:31 PM »

Great
Glad you got it worked out.

Derek

149

General Mach Discussion / Re: dugong servoconfigurator3 settings

« on: August 28, 2011, 05:12:13 PM »

It really depends on what servos your running.  The post I sent you to on cnczone has my numbers for the Kelling KL34-180-90 servos. I had some 600 oz surplus servos on there before and the numbers were wildly different.

Derek

150

General Mach Discussion / Re: dugong servoconfigurator3 settings

« on: August 28, 2011, 05:05:35 PM »

info@cncdrive.com