Messages

1721

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: May 16, 2016, 02:17:24 AM »

That some nice panels there Hood, I think i have only seen one keyboard like that come up and it was about £200!

Will look to go for the MPG module as well and fit jog wheel/selector switches.

This is all a way off yet so i'm collecting ideas of course.

First job is convert from leadscrew to ballscrew...

1722

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: May 15, 2016, 05:47:37 AM »

Control options...

Not sure we need a alpha keyboard for a mill, hows about a touch-screen monitor to do away with the mouse and a small numeric USB keypad?

Or

normal monitor (cheaper/stronger) and a track-ball and numeric keypad?

Looking at controls..
X/Y joystick
Z joystick
Knee up/down buttons
Speed override knob
Feed override knob
Cycle start
Feed-hold
Stop


Spindle motor...
This is currently run from a VFD but only at 50Hz, the head is the vari-speed unit with back-gear so i have 50-3000rpm but in two ranges and manual speed control. Whats a good option here - using the VFD won't address the variable torque ability of the vari-speed unit so can't just lock it in one spot.

Any cool options here to play with?

With a bit of fiddling the vari-speed changer could probably be motorised with a stepper and gearbox, not sure it's worth it?

Mach can obviously take over the Fwd/Rev function - still using the old switch but I wired it to the VFD so I can plug-reverse for tapping;) That was before i got the tapping head.

Any cool ideas?

1723

General Mach Discussion / Re: Odd behaviour?

« on: May 14, 2016, 05:17:27 PM »

As i said, i did read it somewhere, just buggered if i can remember where - it needed a carriage return at the end of the do-spin line.

I have added one as it was missing and will be running again tomorrow, see what happens.

1724

General Mach Discussion / Re: Physical buttons for plasma

« on: May 14, 2016, 05:14:43 PM »

Yeah, lots of ideas for the panel - that's the fun bit;)

1725

General Mach Discussion / Re: Physical buttons for plasma

« on: May 14, 2016, 03:05:21 PM »

Nice, thanks for that.

1726

General Mach Discussion / Re: Physical buttons for plasma

« on: May 14, 2016, 02:44:31 PM »

Sounding good Hood

Also an apt thread as it looks like i'll be needing some physical buttons for my mill conversion project, thinking of using arcade style joysticks for X, Z & Y jogging, plus the usual cycle start, hold, stop etc. Will be a similar setup I think as i'll be using the CSMIO/A unit.

Are the Macropump details in this thread?

1727

General Mach Discussion / Re: Odd behaviour?

« on: May 14, 2016, 02:05:10 PM »

Weird init

Will try with my edited version tomorrow.

1728

General Mach Discussion / Re: Odd behaviour?

« on: May 14, 2016, 01:56:00 PM »

would seem to be a reasonable addition, it is pretty important that the spindle is running i guess

1729

General Mach Discussion / Re: Bridgeport Knee Mill Conversion?

« on: May 14, 2016, 01:39:09 PM »

Yep, got it - pretty fast for an old machine i think, will have to service the lube system while I'm in there.

1730

General Mach Discussion / Re: Odd behaviour?

« on: May 14, 2016, 01:38:06 PM »

Hmm, odd.

I'm using the 2010 screenset so the macros came with that, not sure about the M03 though I think thats standard.

I'll give her a bit longer before reinstalling as its all working well apart from this very intermittent issue.