I never saw the original doors, the ones that came with it were just full size polycarb bent to shape and hinged out the way, they were not actually fitted as you couldnt see through them and in fact there was only one with it, the other was missing. Looking at pics of machines on the net it seems they usually had a 30-50mm frame round the edges of the glass.
 The glass is  11.5mm thick, it is toughened and laminated glass, think 2 x 5mm toughened sheets with 1.5mm polycarb in between.

Hood

The glass is  11.5mm thick, it is toughened and laminated glass, think 2 x 5mm toughened sheets with 1.5mm polycarb in between.

Jaysus, ya gonna stick targets on those doors & do a little target practice during long runs?  That ought'a take the boredom down a notch or 2!;)

Got some handles made up and fitted today also got the seals on the doors, had hoped to get a bit more done but..... Tomorrow I hope to get the lower section of the doors done so they seal and then get the last of the wiring done. Not sure if the seals will stand up as they are just vinyl but there are contingency plans in case they dont 
I have a job in the next week or two that I could do on the Beaver NC5 but would like to do it in the Chiron if I get things done in time.
Pics below of seals and handles.
Hood

Got a floating tap holder yesterday, it is an ER25 with straight shank. The reason I needed a straight shank is that the Chiron needs special holders so my only options were to buy a proper Chiron floating holder (probably not cheap) or buy a straight shank one and fit it into an endmill holder. It is quite long and having it in the holder makes it even longer but I am in hopes that the CSMIO/IP-A will soon support rigid tapping and I can then dispense with the floating holder, if not then I think I may splash out at some point and buy the proper Chiron one.
Anyway here is a test of it drilling some holes then tapping them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mw811reb58

As you will hear in the video the bearing on the drill holder is quite noisy when unloaded, it is a new bearing that I got from Mark when I bought the Chiron but its a budget bearing and it is not very smooth at all. I will order up some new SKF bearings this week.
Hood

Very Nice Hood!   

Brett

Earlier on today I had a look at another end mill holder, a 32mm dia one, to see if I thought I could bore it out to accept the 46mm dia of the floating holders body. It could likely have been done and I was contemplating it. I then had a look at the Tapmatic one I had for the Beaver mill, it was an integrated 40 taper with the Bilz type quick release holder. I wondered if I could turn down the 40 taper to a 32 straight shank and fit in the endmill holder. Things looked good so earlier this evening I chucked it up and trued it on the manual lathe and turned it down. Got it fited into the endmill holder and I now have an extra 50mm clearance. I also turned the flange down a bit and may actually turn it down to the 32mm also and take some off the front of the end mill holder, that would give me an extra 25mm, I will see whether the extra would be needed before I decide whether to do that or not.
 Below is a pic of the two side by side showing the amount of clearance gained.
Hood

Nice work Hood!

Good work Hood that CSMIO-IP-A looks really neat! Similar to the Galil in operation but less expensive.

I've probably missed it but are you running the spindle from the C axis as a servo from pin 6, +_ 0-10V  or just from the 0-10v output on pin 7 or 8.

I can't understand why the encoder module would be needed for threading if a C axis is available or am I missing something

John

The spindle at this time is not using the Encoder module, it is just connected via an axis input. It is however just like a spindle in Mach, ie speed control only although very accurate, so yes it is using +-10v rather than just the 0-10v .
 It is thought that when rigid tapping is done it will possibly need the encoder module so that is why I bought it, if its not needed then I can either sell or use on another machine.
 Realy there should not be a need for the encoder module on the CSMIO/IP-A as it already has feedback for the encoders but I think at this time they are trying to keep the plugins for all models the same for ease of writing them.  Like a lot of things in Mach3 writing a plugin is a complex thing and from what I gather from people who have done them you have to do all sorts of tricks to achieve your goal.
 Mach4 plugin interface should not be so problematic as it has been designed from the outset rather than it being something that has been bolted onto an old programme, we will see

Hood

Have been thinking about the manifold for the air solenoids and think I have a solution, at least so far it is looking like it will work.
I plan to make a totally new manifold up but I will keep the original one in place as it holds the PCB's that connect the coils to the wiring. I will rotate the coils on the solenoids and also place the solenoids upside down (actually right way up as they are upside down now) and that way I will be able to plug the new manifold in directly to the old one to use the electrical side of things, the air will be removed to the new manifold.
 I have the 12 tool solenoids routing done in the manifold but I still have 4 valves to do for cage up/down, drawbar and air blast and then also I will have to fit the pilot operated valves which work the up/down and drawbar but I will likely add them remotely instead of on this main block.  Each of the solenoids has 5 ports so in total (not including the pilots) there are 80 ports that need routed in the manifold.
 There is no big rush to get this done at the moment as the air leak is not too bad but better to be ready just in case the worst happens
  At the moment I have rigged up an air pressure switch so that it opens and closes a solenoid to keep the pressure between 60 and 80 PSI. This saves me having to have the air constantly on from the compressor and also assures that the pressure is never allowed to drop too far. I also have another switch fitted which is set to operate at 40 PSI, this will be fed back to Mach and, if it is seen, an E-Stop will be called and I will get a message telling me the air pressure has been lost.

Anyway a few pics of what I have so far for the manifold.
Hood