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Yeah, I never got excited about TTS, thinking Cat R8 a better choice. Especially if one added drive dogs to the spindle, that was part of my plan. What I ended up not liking about Cat R8 was the...

Not sure I'm the Bob you're speaking to, but I do have an update on the Cat R8 tool holders. I never did like them that much better than R8 and I eventually gave up on them after making a bunch of...

That was a starting point for mine as well and so far includes the pieces you mention. I was going for spindle alignment thinking it didn't need locking, but that was not a given, just a thought and...

Well that's very simple and sounds effective. I've been exploring the use of cordless drill motors and gear reduction units for doing the same with my threaded draw bar. My stuff seems to start...

Yeah, the retooling has taken a large bite out of my tool budget. But I had to tool up to turn the new housing too. I think that dude is 11" long or so, and I didn't have a boring bar or even...

I went that route last year too. I gave up on R8 tooling, never had TTS stuff. But I took it a step farther, I made a new spindle housing and went with matched angular contact bearings in the...

Oh, I have the pulleys made already. Actually, they've been done for a couple of years. They are 10 groove micro belt pulleys. One is mounted to a splined hub that will drive the splined spindle...

Any more, I tend to error on the side of conservatism on feed and chip load. Broke too many cutters I guess. Don't think I ever had that heavy of chip load before though on a 1/2" end mill in...

After lots of thought and feet dragging, I've pretty much convinced myself to go the two speed belt route. I've tried to make the case that I could have both belts in place all the time with one or...

Thanks Runner,

I've been running it even without the new chip enclosure being completed and having a few cables clamped up out of the way. Things were piling up on me. Right now I don't have the...

Wow, I'm slow. But i now have a BT30 spindle in the mill running with 2 AC bearings at the bottom and one deep groove ball at the top. I made the new housing from cast iron. It was in my lathe...

Suat,

That's looking real good from the seat I'm in. What's left to do?

Keep up the good work,
Bob

That keyway cutting is how I did an internally splined hub for my mill. I thought it would take days, but I had it all finished in just over an hour. It was a 6 spline hub with 6mm wide splines. ...

There's a lot of chips in there that need to be cut out. The good thing is the cast iron chips are real small.

Mine is still on my lathe as I experienced a problem with the long stick out of...

I guess I'm lucky in the fact I got a friend who's lathe is bigger than mine, and he's a retired machinist. Got any friends with a bigger lathe? It'll be tied up for awhile. And boy, like you, I'd...

I had that thought with my lathe, but mine was in the Z direction. But I managed to get the outside turned for finish grinding and just lack one half of the inside of being done. But there was no...

It means more time and more chips, but I'd try to find a piece big enough in diameter to include the flange. I'd avoid welding if I could.

Bob

Thanks for that info, I didn't see how it would fit on your lathe, from the pictures I've seen of it anyhow.

Bob

I turned the outside of mine between centers, whittling the 4 1/4" cast iron piece down to 3" in the main barrel area. It just then did fit my steady rest. I drilled the centers on my drill press...

Azalea,

I'm working on my spindle housing now and chose gray cast iron. Part of the why was cost and machinability, plus it's the same material my mill head is made of, so growth due to heat...

Yeah, but that 1/2hp motor is going to be seriously gear reduced. At least my drill press is and my 1/2hp hand drill is as well. The drill press needs it just to get to that rpm, but it helps a lot...

Hi Dan,

The Cubloc modbus card I'm using doesn't have persistent signals. Not that things couldn't have been worked around, I just decided if that's how it'll work, then ok.

I think Mach gets...

One thing I might add is I did consider an Arduino for this and they have some with as many in and outs as the Cubase 64M. But then that got into programming the Arduino. Decided that much...

Hi Dan,

I bought the Cubase 64M, the cabling pack and the CB290. Think I may have bought a serial cable from them too for programming the chip. Then the keypad later and an interface board. ...

Hi Dan,

That's an ambitious project. Took that very thing on myself. My console is over half done and has been functioning for about a year or more. And I absolutely love it. I hated all the...

What about threading the upper o.d. of the lower labyrinth seal and the lower end of the spindle housing, then just screw them together? That's how I got mine designed now. I'm using cast iron for...

Currently doing some upgrades to my IH mill, moving to a ethernet Smooth Stepper and a break out board with more inputs. I’ve already built a fairly nice console using modbus and hard switches and I...

Nope, not bad at all. Thanks for sharing, glad to see the plan work out. How much travel do you have before the end pushes on the pull stud?

Bob

I think you're right about those little tabs, keeping the pedals spaced around and not being able to shift. Some of the mills these are used on run pretty darn fast. One thing I've read is the...

Azalin,

I was beginning to think you just stayed up night and day.

Bob