Wow. That is indeed a clean shop. Mine looks like the city trash dump. I don't see how you get around without the proper obstacles to trip over.

Sam,

You just haven't seen the other half of the shop. I took that picture so I can shame myself into trying to keep it that clean. I've been trying to clean and organize since before Christmas. Half the shop looks pretty good. The other half......not so good. 

Barry,

thanks. It just depends on how high you set the bar. I used to work for Lockheed building rocket engine test stands. The guys who did the wiring there would have laughed me out of the building . Those guys set the bar REALLY high. I still don't know how they could keep such a big bundle of wires neat. I didn't use any panduit on this machine. I didn't really have the best setup since the cabinet was sort of thrown together twice out of leftover parts I had setting around. I had to just try my best to keep the AC on one side of the cabinet and keep the control and signal lines separated. Anyway, it works.

Is anybody else freezing their A$$ off? I'm burning wood like a locomotive climbing over the Sierra Nevada Mountains with Casey Jones on Crack at the helm. It is unseasonably, and unreasonably cold here.

Monty

Yup, 14 deg. F here tonight I think.

Brett

Temp shows 18 here in TN, as of now (11:00 PM).  I wish those canucks would keep their cold fronts from crossing the border. Anything below 55 and I'm ready to get the hot cocoa out. I absolutely hate the cold.

This is the inside of the cabinet. I have to admit that I did not go overboard with neatness on this wiring job. I had a severe case of git er done syndrome.

Monty

You have to see mine Monty... yours will seem then like there ain't no wiring at all

Daniel

I have yet to make a single chip in anger with the lathe. First the video card went south. Got that fixed. Then I discovered that the turret wasn't square to the headstock. Then I found out the turret was moving around about 4 thou. I have mostly resolved the turret problem.

Found out that a USB hub causes problems with things. Mostly the shuttle Pro pendant. I had had the same kind of problem on my Mill and just live with it. I had thought it was due to the Grex. When I moved the Shuttle pro plug from the back of the computer to the HUB mounted in the control panel, I started getting the same kind of latency problems.

I also fought with the video camera drivers. Got the official ones from Arnie and it works much better. There is a problem however when the video window is open. It interferes with the tool change macro. It's really strange. When the home command is given one of the axis will fault out about half way home. It sounds like the motors are skipping steps. At first I though the added weight of tooling on the turret was causing the problem. After a lot of testing I discovered that it was actually the video window causing the problem. The Gecko drives actually fault out when this happens. Really strange. The work around is to just close the video window before giving any tool change commands.

Monty

I finally got to make some chips today.

Here is a video of the first cut:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYYkp1wkSBY

Attached is a picture of the finished cut. My finish pass was too big. Should have been 5 thou not 10, but not too bad for a first try.

now to make some real parts!

Monty

Nice test cut.  Can't wait to see more parts being cut.  Great looking Lathe.

JH

I knew you would get it dirty eventually.    Looks good Monty.

Brett

Thanks Brett, JH,

Spent the day working on the flood coolant system. It's sort of a temporary thing, but it will get me started. Had to track down all the leaks and made a big mess all over the floor. The bottom of the chip tray was not sealed because the original sump was a huge thing that fit under the whole lathe. Unfortunately it was missing when I bought the machine. So I spent the day caulking up the leaks with this stuff called tripolymer sealant. Works great but stinks to high heaven and drove me out of the shop. Too cold to keep the windows open and now I've got to wait for it to dry 

I had hoped to cut some "real" parts today, but Oh-well.

JH- I checked out your web site. Nice looking shop and cool bikes. Looking at the stuff a lot of you guys are doing keeps me very humble.

Monty