Very nice restoration and explanation. Please explain application of Boesheild and Caswell product. What brand of coatings are you using? thanks
jackson
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Very nice restoration and explanation. Please explain application of Boesheild and Caswell product. What brand of coatings are you using? thanks
jackson
I wish you hadn't said that. You are far too close to me (I'm in SF) and a free base lathe to CNC is awfully tempting.Quote:
Originally Posted by N4NV
As far as painting and cleaning, I'm right there with you, doing the same thing on my mill.... What a HUGE pain.
Chris.
C&H Surplus in LA has a huge selection of motors. Also, you could check Triangle Machinery off of Oakland St. in San Jose.Quote:
Originally Posted by N4NV
Chris.
Larken Viper drives are another option. Never used them, but they seem to be getting more popular.Quote:
Originally Posted by N4NV
http://www.larkencnc.com/motion/motion.htm
Chris.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jholland1
Boeshield9 is a anti corrosion spray that looks like thick WD-40. It was developed by Boeing. I coat anything that is metal and not painted with it. Caswell makes plating products:
http://www.caswellplating.com/
Their black oxide treatment coats bare steel with a black oxide. It is an anti rust treatment and it looks good. A lot of steel products are black oxide treated.
For the paint I am using Rustoleum enamel. I used it on one of my mills and it is holding up well.
Vince
I go by there all the time. They are only 7 minutes from my house or work. That is where I bought my big mill and my 5 big servo motors for my bridgeport retrofit project.Quote:
Originally Posted by ckm
Vince
Good stuff!Quote:
Originally Posted by N4NV
I use Break-Free, which is similar in purpose to your Boeshield. Anything new arrives in the shop I clean the cosmolene of with a little kerosene and then apply some Break-Free. I live right in Santa Cruz by the ocean and don't see any rust on my tools.
RE the oxide kit, Caswell makes great stuff. If you want something a little smaller and more convenient try the bluing creams available from Brownell's. I've tried Dicropan T-4 and Oxpho Blue. Both work well--you just apply the cream to the part, wait a short time for it to take effect, and then wash it off. The Dicropan created a blacker more even finish, but it was also kind of dull. Oxpho Blue had more blue and seemed to be a deeper finish, but it was not quite as even. It probably requires nicer part prep to get there.
There are many other interesting industrial coatings and finishes that I'm fascinated by. I've corresponded with Davo727 on these boards to learn about a few of them. He is an aircraft mechanic and uses some of them in his work. He particularly recommends a baked on Teflon finish for sliding parts including machine ways. Seems to make a real difference. There is also a spray on molybdenum lube. He's less enamored of that unless your application lets you reapply it fairly frequently.
Finishes like this can help protect parts as well as making for a more interesting and professional looking part.
Cheers,
BW
Ah, I saw that mill, actually. I wound up buy an old Dyna of the local Craigslist.... Triangle is a good place, bought some really cheap ballscrews there, but don't tell anyone... :)Quote:
Originally Posted by N4NV
Chris.
I mounted the cover for the oil lines and power cables on the side of the cross slide. I also installed my adapter that will allow me to connect the caterpillar track. I am just about finished painting the cooland pump, though I think I will paint the base black. In the original installation the base was unpainted steel. In the first picture you can also see the blue nylon tubing I am going to use. It matches the paint on the lathe almost perfectly.
I wired up the DC power supply, just in time too. I received my gecko drives today and the cubloc board Thursday. Now I will have to quit putting off the motor encoders and get them mounted.
I got an air motor! One of readers of this build traded me my spare cross slide for his air motor. I installed it and it works, though I am missing a fitting that comes out of the valve that feed the motor. Worse case I will silver solder on a fitting.
There is still so much to do, it seems like I am falling behind. I started taking apart the HNC spindle to see if there is a way to lubricate the bearings. I did not get very far. I have to figure a way to pull the pulley. I have to get up early Saturday (like 3:00 am). I am going to shut off all the power to the Mountain View City Hall to do some maintenance work, so hopefully I can get to bed early tonight.
Vince
I got the power back on at city hall by 5:00am and was back at the shop working on the lathe by 5:30am. I stripped out all the old electronics except for the solid state relays. My Cubloc board will do most of what the old electronics were doing. I worked on everything in the pictures, plus cleaned some fitting for the oil and air lines. When I looked at my watch is was already 9:30, I had been at it for 4 hours. It sure does not look like 4 hours work.
The motors and encoders are at home, as is the caterpillar track, so I headed home to work on those a little.
Vince
My wife had to work today so I took a quick nap and worked on a couple more projects. One was installing the encoder on the Z axis motor. These are US Digital encoders, one of only a few that will work with the Gecko drive. The Gecko only has 50mA available to power the encoder. Most encoders draw more than that. There are other ways of powering the encoder, but it is simpler to just use an encoder that draws less than 50mA.
After installing a 1/4" shaft in the end of the motor (in the hole I had drilled previously), I used the US Digital alignment tool to get the base centered over the shaft. USD sells the install kit for about $10, but it has been so long since I bought it, I can't be certain. I used an epoxy adhesive to hold the base in place. Then I placed the cardboard spacer to hold the encoder wheel at the proper height, installed the sensor and cap and it's done.
I still have to make a connector for it. They are about $5 each. The connector is made so a special tool crimps all the wires in place at one time. I don't have the tool so I have to solder each wire individually. I am going to use cat 5e cable for the encoder. When doing this you have to make sure that the A and B channels are on separate pairs or they will cross talk.
Vince
One more quick picture. The encoder cover has the pin out marked.
Vince
How do you begin to evaluate the condition of all the random ballscrews strewn on the dusty shelves?!? :confused: When I've been there they've been "proud" enough of their wares it makes eBay look like a reasonable place to buy stuff... I wouldn't mind buying ballscrews there if I had some way of knowing what I was getting...Quote:
Originally Posted by ckm
Randy
I try to find ones that are 'complete', with the nut still on there. It's usually pretty easy to see if there is wear and humans have a resolution of around 0.001", so you can usually tell if there is play.Quote:
Originally Posted by zephyr9900
I think I paid around $40 for a 20" x 1/2" 5tpi THX ballscrew. You can bargain with Mohamed and it helps to look poor. I noticed that when I drove my Jag down there the prices were 20-40% higher, so now I take the Focus...
I also bought a complete X-Y setup that was cast iron, with roughly 35x25 travel, THX linear rails and ballscrews, with servos and limit/home switches for $500.
HTH,
Chris.
At Triangle, it is really hit and miss. You have to know what you are willing to pay for something before you ask him the price. If he is higher than your price, counter with your price. The other day I wanted a 5 hp motor. It was beat up and missing the cover on the junction box. I had checked and a new 5 hp inverter rated was less than $300. He wanted $125 for his motor, which I thought was worth about $50. I did not get the motor.
He had a big CNC knee mill there. The original price was $7,500. Every few months I would ask him the price and it would be a little lower. After a year it was down to $3,500. I offered him $1,000 for it and much to my shock he took it, but I had to get it out of there that day. I had no place to put it and no way to move it. After two hours I had it all figured out and on a truck. After a lot of cleaning and only one bearing replacement, the mill has less than .0006 backlash on any axis and can now rapid at 450 ipm.
I had one other good deal there. He had 5 servo motors (without encoders). The bearings in most of them were shot. I took down the data plate information, went home and looked it up on the internet. I found the motors were 60V, 1200 rpm, perfect for one of my projects. He wanted $100 per motor and I ended up getting them for $50 per motor. I replace all the bearings, brushes, added encoders and turned the armatures. I later found they sold new for $2,000 each.
On the whole, I decline his price and don't buy something most of the time. But deals can be had.
Vince
I think the key with Triangle is finding stuff where the value is only known through research or that has been there a long time (like the CNC mill). There are several sets of new in-box THX linear rails that are not with there rest of the stuff, I'll bet you could get those for cheap.
Fundamentally, all that Triangle cares about is moving parts. If if something isn't moving, it's taking up space of stuff that could move faster... Inventory turnover is the key to the business and you need to know how to take advantage of that.
Chris.
I finished the engine monitor installation in my brother's plane today so I had a little time to work on the X axis encoder. I visited a friend and showed him my resolver/tachometer mount. Together we worked out a method to mount the encoder. I removed the resolver/encoder. I also removed the rod coupling on the end of the shaft. The treads were 10/32. My friend had a 10/32 screw with a 1/4" shoulder. This worked perfect. I screwed the shoulder screw into the rod coupling and turned off the head of the screw. Then I flipped it around in the lathe and turned the hex of the rod coupling to 1/4" round. I screwed this assembly back onto the shaft of the resolver housing. I then cut a piece of round Delrin to cover the holes in the housing and provide a level base for the encoder. I glued this in place and mounted my encoder on the 1/4" shaft that I just finished.
I have read that a couple people have done this without problems. There is a possibility that if there is any play in the system the motor will oscillate. If this is the case I will have to go back to my plan of mounting the encoder on the timing pulley end of the x axis motor.
Vince
Vince and Chris, thank you for the Triangle advice. For me it is a 2+ hour drive each way so it has been pretty disappointing when I've gone there and they didn't have anything like I was looking for. I need a couple of fine-pitch (2 to 4mm) ballscrews for my own Feeler (Hardinge FSM-59 clone) conversion...
Randy
I finally got the caterpillar track finished. I probably spent 10 hours on that alone. The first two times I tried to glue the steel band to the track it did not hold. Each time I had to spend more than an hour cleaning it all off. I finally tried 3M VHB tape. I have not had much success with VHB tape in the past, but since I spent $45 dollars on a 1/4" wide roll I figured it was worth a shot. The tape is double sided. After applying the tape I put it in the oven at 100 degrees for an hour. 3M says it takes 72 hours to cure. The tape has some flexibility so I thought it would work in this situation. Only time will tell.
Another thing I worked on today was a cap for the end of my motor to cover the encoder I added. A plumbing fitting came to mind, specifically a PVC cap for a 3" pipe. Due to the round top of the cap, I could not chuck it onto my lathe. I cut a piece of 3 1/2" PVC pipe, wrapped the cap in with tape until it was a tight fit in the bigger PVC, then chucked the assembly onto my lathe.
I turned the inside diameter until it was a snug fit on the end of the motor. I will drill a hole for the wire and put in a rubber grommet. If I place the cap so the hole is facing down, it should stay relatively clean.
The last picture shows how excited my dog is about all this amazing work.
Vince
Vince,
I brought some castings home from our last Hardinge acquisition. Temporary insanity I guess.
If any of the enclosed look familiar, I’D be happy to send them to you!
In the future, I’ll also keep a lookout for air motors before we send all the stripped parts to the Salvage Yard.
Enclosed is the Spindle Bearing Inst'l tool that makes the job possible!!
Regards…….W. Smith