Messages

2001

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mini-Mills - any good???

« on: February 07, 2016, 04:10:29 AM »

Thanks,
i might just price up my own build to see what it comes out to, I'd want decent motors & drives, twin drive on the long axis with ballscrews probably, maybe HiWin rails. Water cooled spindle of some sort.

2002

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mini-Mills - any good???

« on: February 06, 2016, 01:55:51 PM »

Th BP is my favourite machine done some ridiculous jobs on her, they have been converted before with ballscrews and servos but they are not really meant for it and the Z axis is particularly tricky to do well. Simple conversion is out as there is way too much backlash.

Something like a bench mini mill might be worth looking at.

The only spares i have are a BOB and a parallel cable ! Not really a deciding factor I think

2003

General Mach Discussion / Re: Physical buttons for plasma

« on: February 06, 2016, 01:52:04 PM »

No worries, just ordered the new screw and nut, found another supplier

2004

General Mach Discussion / Re: Physical buttons for plasma

« on: February 06, 2016, 01:23:07 PM »

Great, thats an upgrade on the cards for certain.

Thanks TP

What about the test cuts, any views?

2005

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mini-Mills - any good???

« on: February 06, 2016, 01:21:46 PM »

Hi Rob,

Looks ok, so that was just a chassis and you fit your own choice of stuff?

I might just wait and build my own or get something more manly to replace the Bridgeport possibly

Not sure yet, its just a thought.

2006

General Mach Discussion / Re: Physical buttons for plasma

« on: February 06, 2016, 01:11:40 PM »

I tried MarchantDice - they do the 10x4 screw but no nuts?
Have emailed another supplier, will find out monday hopefully.

In reality all 4 of the parts came out really well, when it screws these up it really screws them
I used to send them out for laser cutting, but once i got the plasma working well, i found i could do them myself and trouser the profit
All it takes is a couple of minutes with a small file to clean them up, practically dross free, this is the 45A nozzle at 30A, 2400mm/min but is very material specific.

As for the Z speed, it really is odd that I can not make it do it manually -MDI or jogging, only when running G28.1, hopefully double the screw pitch will halve the speed so motor will only need to do 370rpm to get the same movement, 744rpm is pushing the envelope a bit i think.

2007

General Mach Discussion / Re: Mini-Mills - any good???

« on: February 06, 2016, 12:36:24 PM »

Hmph, thats pretty much what i figured, seems they use the nasty 4 channel-on-one-board motor drives and small nema23's with trapezoidal screws.

The bit that threw me was a couple of videos on the 'tube of them milling alu and working pretty well, seems they were modded though but no comment of how or what.

£500 though, can't get 3 motors, 3 drive boards, decent motion guides, some cable chain, some sort of bed and the rest of it for any where near that sort of cash though.

The apparently ballscrew 6040 unit is about £1200 - for £3000 i could get a CNC proper workshop mill! (hardly desktop though )

2008

General Mach Discussion / Mini-Mills - any good???

« on: February 06, 2016, 12:18:05 PM »

Been looking at various threads on here regarding the abundant min-mills like the 3020, 3040 and 6040.

Was thinking of taking the plunge but are they really any good or a pile of bits for an upgrade project??

Most likely the 3040 as the 3020 is too small and the 6040 is getting a bit beyond experimental fun spendy spendy

Obviously it would be fed by Mach but there seem to be two flavours - a cream unit and a black unit model, any one better than the other, any recommended UK suppliers?

I would like to run aluminium, obviously feeds would be low but can they do it?
Also engraving and sign making etc.

Just wondering.

2009

General Mach Discussion / Re: Physical buttons for plasma

« on: February 06, 2016, 11:04:43 AM »

A little video i made this morning on 3mm Alu, at 1.10 you can hear the Z axis skip the rapid part of the G28.1 routine, it does this a lot but only when doing G28.1 I have tried using the MDI to do it and also the keyboard but so far it only ever skips on G28.1 and not every time either

I didn't realise it at the time either but from 1.10 onwards it is doing the last cut on the part and the material warps up about 15mm and the THC tracks it nicely so I think that's working OK, you can also see the motor spindle at the top and see it dip slightly on the corners, I have no idea if it only dips a little because tip-saver or anti-dive kicks in or just that its rounded the corner before it goes too far but it only drops a little.

Could really do with inset synced video of Mach screen

Too many things to watch in a short time

https://youtu.be/fgg7F8H7vno

2010

General Mach Discussion / Re: Physical buttons for plasma

« on: February 06, 2016, 09:13:37 AM »

ok, some results from the test files...

3mm HR steel, 45A, 4100mm/min, 107v

On one of the very small holes i forgot to reduce my lead-in length so scam removed it for me hence to nasty divot.

I'm still messing with actions on corners, they are a mixed bag i think, slightly better internal corners but a little wiggle when the speed drop kicks in.

Be interesting to see how they compare.