Altered my safety and control wiring a little.

Fitted a safety relay - Telemecanique XPS-AS24v, this might look a little more complex but its not really. The benefit is that it has two separate output channels with contacts that are forcibly opened as well as constantly monitored internally, I have one output telling the CSMIO/Mach3 whether or not its in reset and the other channel supplying power via a contactor to my servo drives - also one N/C pair on this contactor is monitored by the unit in case it does not close or jams etc.

These relays seem much cheaper than the PILZ units shown in the CS-Labs book but have pretty similar functions.

I think that's about as safe as I can get it - if a drive runs amok, it hit a limit and kill power, same with Mach/CSMIO, the e-stop/limit chain is monitored for shorts etc, the only scenario where it gets shirty would be a runaway drive with the control contactor fused in the shut position but at this low power level thats pretty rare i think.

Of course, thinking of safety as we all do all of the time I have just created an autonomous machine (runs from code) with open moving parts (cutters etc) that has absolutely no guarding or barriers anywhere Only mentioning this as it made me laugh when i thought of how many of the rules I have to obey all day in the print factory where i work have been broken, smashed, severely infringed or otherwise ignored

Did you find the issue with the probing on tool change? Just wondering if it has something to do with the screenset or possibly it could be something in your M6end.m1s?

Hood

Its the screens i think, Gerry says i need to either edit the macros or replace them with the bog-standard ones and try it.

The Z-axis is doing my head in

My idea of welding it together is doomed to failure I think - the original bridgeport quill stop is porous and soaked in oil, any attempt to weld it simply creates a pool of oil and crap welds. I managed to tack it up but that only got me to my next headache....

Alignment is being a bitch - I cant seem to find a position where all the parts just play nicely, there is fair amount of stress and strain between the screw and the quill, it can be moved up and down but I'm not happy with it from an engineering point of view.

Not sure how to sort this at the moment, a right PITA.

Strange about the alignment, the back plate cut out  should align with the milled out section on the head which should be perfectly aligned with the quill so should be fine.

Hood

Yeah i think that part is ok, it could well be the weld pulling that is causing trouble, I am going to split the parts, clean up, and try one bolt through the middle - there is a large surface area so it should be sturdy enough, that will let me work it up and down with a dial indicator on it to see whats not true.

Its not far off, i'm just not happy yet

The connector I made just had a long bolt through it to the quill, think I actually made a brass bush that fitted the quill recess and machined a recess in the connector for the other end of the bush.
Hood

Found a pic of the connector, sadly it is not the best for detail but it should give an idea of what I did. You can see the head of the bolt below the ball nut and the brass bush at the quill side.
Hood

Nice, thanks again,

My idea is similar - the part that connects to the nut goes through the upright like yours, then i was hoping to simply join it to the original quill-stop block.

I think i may just have made things too tight - there is no slack where it connects to the nut, a smooth sliding fit, so any misalignment at all will cause binding and that's where i'm at.

I will open the nut hole out a little, get a dial indicator on it and see where its out.

Ok, sorted it i think

Couldn't rest without a fix so a couple of hours fiddling and a few thin shims later we have smooth motion from top to bottom, its pretty easy to reverse-drive it by moving the quill lever

The bracket that holds the nut was slightly twisted and the nut hole was too tight, fixing both of those cured the problem.

Now i need to fix up some limit switches and get the motor hooked up.

Good to hear
Hood