RF-45 CNC Advice needed

i'm thinking about some deeper modification on Y axis. See pictures. What ya think? Y axis ball screw is to be lowered, say 20mm. It will give me opportunity to go out with ball screw at the back side of the mill base without unnecessary colisions. Stell plate will serve as support for bearing block and servo. Additional advantage of this solution would be good access to work table as powerful servos are pretty big and it is unconfortable when it sticks out of mill toward you:) My servo is 350mm long including encoder! Add another, say 100mm for bearing block and gearing and you are half meter from table;) Another thing is that i can mount oryginal knob on ball screw for easy hand operation when not using cnc.

Flenser--> how did you blackened nut block? just painted? what material you use for block? aluminium?

eartaker
Your flood manifold should be well out of the way mounting it as you intend to. A couple extra screws to remove when changing the oil is no big deal .. You may already know this, but you should change the oil before ever using the mill due to lack of careful cleaning at the factory & a tendency for there to be sand left in the nooks & crannies inside .. flushing it out real well would be good preventive maintenance at this stage.

bogus105
I've thought about rear mounting the Y motor too .. just didn't think of using the steel plate to mount everything to .. I like the idea .. do you have a thread of your own .. I'd like to follow it if you do.

gd.marsh,

Mine came with no oil at all but I will change it again after I am done with the conversion. I got it mounted tonight and here are a few pics of what it looks like. You are right, it is well out of the way and I think it is going to work out well. I have some brackets to hold the hose in place so it doesn't kink up but I have it placed on there for now just to give an idea of what it will be like.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00829-2151.jpg
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00829-2150.jpg
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00829-2152.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bogus105

Flenser--> how did you blackened nut block? just painted? what material you use for block? aluminium?

---

Just Grizzly Green Rustoleum on 1018 steel. I don't think AL would be strong enough considering the small mounting surface.

here is an oil malifold for one axis. 6mm OD / 4mm ID PE tubes for oil distribution. I plan to drive it with oil under pressure of 4bar. On top there are 3 regulation valves. Do ya think this pressure is enough?

I could be wrong, but 4 Bar seems like a lot of pressure just to move a little oil. My plastic check valves pop off at less than 2% of that. I would think you could just double the cracking pressure of the check valves to make sure they all open at the same time.

i used flow control valves which consist of one-way valve and throttle valve in parallel connected. maxium pressure is 10bar. Althrough these are pneumatic valves i think they will work with oil as well. PE hoses can withstand up to 18bar. I even thought 4bar is too small as i saw some 'one shot oiler' with, as it was stated, '60bar output'...

now i don't know what to think about it:)

Flenser, where did you get your 1 shot oil pump?

EDIT:

Nevermind I found one on Ebay new for $53

i don't have one:) i have 3 solenoid valves, one for every axis and i plan to use reduced compressed air to push oil out of container. So it will be easy to set oil pressure with standard air reductor. Now if i want to put some oil on, say, x axis ways i'm just pushing 'x' push button -> solenoid opens valve and pressurized oil goes into x axis oil manifold.

Nice bogus105. Take some pics of it I would like to see that.

Got the Lathe today and trying to figure out where I'm going to put it. I am running out of bench space. Looks I'm going to loose the area where I plan and assemble things. Ill move the X2 and mini lathe back there and the new lathe will take the spot of the X2 and 7X10 lathe.

wow, X2, RF45, mini lathe, bigger lathe... nice equipment:) what ya think about those little chinese lathes?

Do ya guys know some good source of timing pulleys for reasonable prices? here in Poland timing pulleys are horribly expensive (i got an offer for HTD 5M 60T pulley for $75!). I just can't efford it right now as i have ordered ball screws from linermotionbearings. Run out of money so maybe there is some good, cheap chinese supplier? maybe in the USA? or UK? heh?
Eventually i'll try to machine one myself but without cnc it will be close to impossible:D
peace

I have had no real issues with the Chinese lathes. The HF 7x10 was a great starter lathe and I beat the crap out of it. Ran the tool post into the chuck many times and it kept on going. I'm 24 but grew up around machining and metal working. These are not as accurate as some US made machines but they are good for the money. The Lathemaster 9X30 came almost ready to go. I just got done cleaning all of the protective grease off and I'm about to bolt it down to my bench.

Anyone have any issues with there RF-45's leaking oil??? seems like after it sits for 2 days it will have some oil building up.

Any ideas?

This shows about 5-8 days of buildup.
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00906-1444.jpg

I don't have a problem because of the belt drive conversion .. nothing inside the head to oil .. but I've seen other threads that complain of the same thing so I don't think it's unique to your machine. Can you trace where it's leaking from?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by eartaker

Anyone have any issues with there RF-45's leaking oil??? seems like after it sits for 2 days it will have some oil building up.

---

LOL, Jermie, may as well ask if anyone with an RF-45 DOESN'T have a spindle oil leak. Seems a very common problem. Mine surely do leak (both IH mills).

The good news is it never seems to leak much more than the same amount for some reason, no matter how long they're left to sit. Keep an eye on the site glass, but mine seems to go a long long time before it shows even a hint of needing a top off with more oil.

They can be taken apart and fooled with. Seems like Cruiser or someone replaced the seal with a better one at the bottom.

By far the best fix I have seen is to convert to the belt drive and just remove the gears in the gearbox altogether. Presto--no more oil in the spindle and no more leak!

Cheers,

BW

My Lathemaster used to do that all the time and it drove me nuts.... Everytime I went out into the shop there was a small puddle of oil on top of my vise. In fact that was the major impetus for me to build my belt drive system. I just got tired of refilling and worrying about it so I made it obsolete!! Seriously tho, if you are really bothered by it you can take the spindle out and check and replace the seals inside the head as it is not that difficult really but unless it really bothers you I lived with it for a very long time and just kept checking the sight window before I turned the machine on. That is one of the few real gripes I have with these machines, other than that and the typical chinese quality control issues they are a GREAT little mill. In fact I just finished the plexiglass part of the enclosure on my cnc this long weekend. Now I can let the chips and coolant really fly and not worry about it.... Good luck and peace

Pete

Nice glad to see it isn't uncommon. It doesn't bother me and it hasn't even moved on the sight gauge.

On another note the Lathemaster 9X30 is making quick work of these ball screws with some thanks to Bob helping me work out my chuck runout problems. I'm using 3/8 carbide indexable turning tools at 210 RPM and it if going great. Might bump it up to 420RPM. I know on Hoss' sight there is a video saying the 3/8 tools will not work and that you need the 1/2 shank tools but it is working fine for me.

Looks like a shifting shaft seal. The way the gear case is made oil cant really leak down the spindle too much because it is raised above the oil level. If the spindle seal is bad it will leak when it is running or just after you turn it off. The left shifting shaft can leak but I didn't look at what kind of seal was on mine as my IH mill has never leaked at all. I just changed the oil once.

You can pull the faceplate off easy by driving out the two spring pins on the shifters and un bolting the depth gauge. A good time to look for a crack....

I also see no reason to have the gear case near as full as the level indicator that they have. I have mine at the low side of full.

Ok finally got myself working on the mill some more and got the X and Y ball but mounts made. I have machined the Y axis ball screw and killed 3 TCMT inserts in the process.

Here you can see the difference in the hardness of the ballscrews at the end after machining.
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00920-1752.jpg

I have decided to use the original mounting system like Flenser did but instead of boring a recess into the mount for nuts I will use the original thrust bearings. its hard to explain how I will hold it in place without outer threads but I will post more pics once I have the pulleys and it is all done.
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00920-1752.jpghttp://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00920-1752.jpg

This shows the saddle mounted on the X2.... the X2 looks like a toy compaired to the ZX45.
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00920-1458.jpg

Y-axis ball nut mount. When I machined the circle at the top the mill didn't take off enought so you see marks in the top where I just filed it down so it would fit into the recess on the saddle.http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00920-1734.jpg

Y-axis nut mounted on the saddle
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00920-1736.jpg

X-axis ballnut mount on the saddle. I used the original mounting holes except I drilled out the threads and taped the holes on my ballnut mount.
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00920-1735.jpg

Not much space from the X-axis mount and the milling bed.
http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...00920-1722.jpg

Looks good. You might want to check your y-axis travel, though. Unless I'm looking at it wrong, the ballnut mount is going to hit the base when you move the table away from the column.