Not a pain at all, good to have questions and thoughts on subjects you are not sure of.

Hood

What he said

Due to the shipping cost id say this would not be an option, there no market for used servos etc, new will cost a fortune, ill save the C Axis for the new lathe build i think. KISS

thanks for the feed back.

No feedback on the monitor and keyboard set up.......interesting.

Anyone?

No feedback on the monitor and keyboard set up.......interesting. Anyone?

Well, I was not going to comment, but since you ask ...

Both are VERY close to where the chips fly. I have mine a little further away, and that is still too close for comfort. It gets showered at times.

You do have the advantage that yours is higher than mine - especially the monitor (the mount is cute), but i would give some thought to protecting the keyboard a bit. I did think about wrapping mine in Glad Wrap ... keep the keys clean that way too ... :-)

Where does the mouse go?

Cheers

The mouse is an integrated touch pad (into the keyboard)

The keyboard will stow away inside the machine during normal operation protected from chips, the door will also be brought down to contain the chips, keep in mind also that the keyboard sits out and behind the work chips will naturally fly out but i don't expect to have then fly back as well - time will tell.
During manual operation the machine will be controlled from the pendant, in automatic once the program has been loaded the keyboard will be stoad inside the machine, the run command will be issued from the pendant or other control panel - haven't decided which.

thanks very much for taking the time to give me some more feedback i appreciated having to come up with sound answers.

The keyboard will stow away inside the machine during normal operation

Hum, yeah, but during development work I do tend to use the keyboard a LOT. Not, mind you, that there are any bugs in my hand-written programs ...
The idea of stowing it is fine once the programs have been truly debugged.

During manual operation the machine will be controlled from the pendant,

Haven't tried a pendant (yet). I have a front panel touch pad going through a Smooth Stepper, but its responses are too slow for me. The arrow keys on the keyboard seem much faster.
Be interested n your experiences with the pendant.

Cheers

Quote from: jrslick22 on November 13, 2010, 02:21:27 AM

The keyboard will stow away inside the machine during normal operation

Hum, yeah, but during development work I do tend to use the keyboard a LOT. Not, mind you, that there are any bugs in my hand-written programs ...
The idea of stowing it is fine once the programs have been truly debugged.

Quote

During manual operation the machine will be controlled from the pendant,

Haven't tried a pendant (yet). I have a front panel touch pad going through a Smooth Stepper, but its responses are too slow for me. The arrow keys on the keyboard seem much faster.
Be interested n your experiences with the pendant.

Cheers

Yes  agree, there is no reason to keep he door open during programming.

My pendant will have 1x 10x 100x and rapids on both axis, manual control is ery important to me.

When you say pendant do you mean a hand held one? I made one up for the mill and was thinking I would then make one up for the lathe but after a few days using it on the mill I decided it didnt suit me and that the control panel pendant was much better suited. Having said that lots of people seem to like hand held ones, but I think it is more the router and plasma guys with huge table areas.

Your 1x 10x 100x etc, are you meaning via jog keys or MPG? I never use Jog Keys and always use MPG but I only ever use the MPG for positioning and never for manual machining. For quick jobs that dont require much thought or code I just MDI and that is why I am now making a screenset up with all the functions I use day to day on the one page, including the MDI line. I first did this on my Beaver Mill and it worked out great so I have adapted it to suit my lathe and its almost done, just have a bit of rearranging and tidying to do.


When I made up the control panel I had it on a telescopic arm so I could pull it out and round to where the work was but I have found I never use this and kind of wished I hadnt bothered now. Suppose though everyone is different and we all work in different ways
Another thing I prefer, even though I have a touch screens on all my machines,  is physical buttons, but again I suppose thats down to personal preference. I am at the moment making up a new button panel as I want FRO and SRO pots there, did it on the Beaver Mill and they are great.

Hood

What a terrific looking screen set hood, i love the LED's in the corners of the buttons.

i was thinking something like this as a pendant:

I also have a touch screen on my mill but almost never use it, its a shame to because its a dirty big 23", i just find my fingers are always so filthy from great coolant and swarf that i don't bother.