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YouTube - cutting footpegs with EMC2
got some new video of it in action.

Its working pretty well now ;)

getting it all tweaked in a bit better
http://www.vapourforge.com/cnczone/hm45/PB_Head/end_result/thumbs/spiral_facing_with_ballmill.jpg

The finish on those last ones looks ok in person with that diamond pattern but for some reason it came out rather poor in the photos.
So I had a go with a new aluminium specific ball mill cutter and...

Jason3
looked at it closer and you were right, I must have been looking at the wrong column

YouTube - 3600mm/minute 9600RPM 4 flute 6mm cutter
...

The cutters we are using are designed for steel, as near as I can tell from the specs 400mm/minute is on the limit for them.

the mari tool 6mm uncoated carbide
6mm metric 3 Flute Carbide End Mill...

I spose if its just the drawbar its not so bad, I was thinking of a full spindle.

@samco possibly, but if you look at the photos of the mold before its filled, there is rather allot of stuff in it. Might be able to put something in between the pipes that hold it to the Z axis i...

can you see much of an issue with balancing the spindle bits your making?
We were looking at making a spindle but the grinding and balancing to finish the parts seemed to put it in the too hard...

this is the one you have been waiting for :-D
http://www.vapourforge.com/cnczone/hm45/PB_Head/end_result/thumbs/perspective.jpg
(keep in mind you can click the pictures for a high res version)
...

Turns out you cant edit posts after a while :-<
oh well

First Russell dired out the stones, this was done by spreading them out on some black plastic....

ok so starting from the beginning this is what russell (rusel) did

before pulling the old head apart we made the holder (called a cradle) for the spindle out of some beefy flat bar.
Roughing
...

Got a whole bunch of updates in the pipe line, I'm going to make a few posts then fill them in over the next few days.

After suffering from the inadequates in our supplied HM45 mill head for too long we have had enough.
No more 70C gearboxes, enough of so much backlash in the gear chain that you get chatter in the...

The file looks like a visual basic style program that looks like its sposed to auto set zero on Z.

given its VB I'll presume its for mach.

I hear that lol, he is a uni student and has solidworks and solid cam through his uni, we have access to mastercam, the hard part now is learning to use it lol. Meantime positioning would be enough...

we replaced the z axis screw with a ballscrew, we also replaced the mounting for the nut as the whole thing is held on with one floppy bolt.

the linear encoders we use are .001mm resolution...

We converted ours,
we used ballscrews from ebay.

http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?JakeAndRussells
400W direct drive motors, we used linear scales, but normal rotary scales are...

My father and I are getting fed up with our current cheap Chinese mill and a friend of ours is wanting one that will fit into his postage stamp of a workshop.

after seeing this...

Got some updates
changed the look of it somewhat
http://www.vapourforge.com/mill/probe/mk1/thumbs/IMAG0369.jpg

and Russell has made up the LED ring boards and contacts
this is them getting...

I've been hanging out for this release :)
SMP enabled by default, means we should get much better performance out of the box on modern dual core machines, and no need to compile stuff. Rather fast...

We are using linear scales on our mill
http://wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/emcinfo.pl?JakeAndRussells
and soon to have a detailed write up at http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=109407
...

you mean a post processor for rhinocam?

Just spoke to Russell (rusel) and he mentioned this thread to me, he's my father and we are both trying to get this conversion "just so" :).
I looked at the datasheets for the switches you guys...

Fine then i will :)

Theres a fair bit of electronics in there already to try and minimise the switch contact arcing and the like, so its not a big deal to add the lights.

I can see it now
"pimp my mill"
we take this 1945 bridgeport and add blue underbody lights, chrome plate the head and supercharge the coolant pump.:rainfro:

I was mainly thinking it would be useful during instillation and testing, and it lets you use it without attaching it to the PC.

Having cool glowing stuff on the mill doesn't hurt either ;->

umm a brown one? lol
I'll get russell to give some specifics

I looked at optical but they are actually rather poor in terms of accuracy unless you do something like a laser interferomiter. I thaught about it, theoretically you can get really stupidly high...

how did you handle the backlash in the quill?
we wound up motorising the whole z axis.