[Mad Welder]

.....can see ur drip feed on the y.....

I missed that one thanks for the extra pair of eyes......very nice work Scott...!

[Starleper1]

I wasn't dead set on the drip feed Y screw, only because if the saddle is forward the oil will not hit the screw, instead it will pool up on the base. But after a few other designs, it seemed to be the most practical solution.

[Starleper1]

Well after disassembling the Z axis, I removed the ball nut from the screw in preparation for the .1265 balls I ordered. And after counting the balls within, I came up with 74 balls. I can't find anything on Roton's website, but Rockford Ball Screw has an average of 84 balls per nut for the same screw and they are practically identical. So hopefully larger and more balls should eliminate most of the .008 backlash I was getting. Time will tell.

[cornbinder23]

Well after disassembling the Z axis, I removed the ball nut from the screw in preparation for the .1265 balls I ordered. And after counting the balls within, I came up with 74 balls. I can't find anything on Roton's website, but Rockford Ball Screw has an average of 84 balls per nut for the same screw and they are practically identical. So hopefully larger and more balls should eliminate most of the .008 backlash I was getting. Time will tell.

Scott, I ended up putting .1269 balls in mine. They are rotons
IIRC it was around 72 balls, I tried the .1265's and was not overly pleased with the results, better but not great

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Well after disassembling the Z axis, I removed the ball nut from the screw in preparation for the .1265 balls I ordered. And after counting the balls within, I came up with 74 balls. I can't find anything on Roton's website, but Rockford Ball Screw has an average of 84 balls per nut for the same screw and they are practically identical. So hopefully larger and more balls should eliminate most of the .008 backlash I was getting. Time will tell.

Even 10 missing balls is VERY unlikely to have any effect on backlash. You could probably remove almost half of them before there would be any functional difference other than in load-carrying capacity.

Regards,
Ray L.

[Starleper1]

We will see.

[Dingenman]

[QUOTE=Starleper1;1109484]Is that not the point of a machine build?

Hi Scott,

Very impressive work! Thanks so much for sharing to us all.

I've read most of this thread but might have missed it, apologies in advance!

I saw your self-made mill with linear guides and wondered why you didn't go that route again with a larger one, but instead opted to buy the pm25 as we see you are also upgrading it heavily.
Any reason for leaving the linear guideway concept?

Asking this because have some issues with my SX3 on the dovetail ways and opt for linear guides..

Sorry for being more or less off-topic.

Ard

[Starleper1]

There is nothing wrong with linear guides, I just wanted a bigger machine and I didn't want to start from scratch again. It's A LOT of work to build from scratch. Not to mention much more expensive.

[Starleper1]

On a another note I got the .1265 balls installed in the Z axis nut. Happy to report, .0025 backlash. That's a huge improvement from .008. I ended up getting 81 balls in as well.

Pictures soon.

[wizard]

I ask because i've heard that it is common practice to alternate bearing size in ball screws. This to reduce friction and to keep the balls from rubbing on each other.

On a another note I got the .1265 balls installed in the Z axis nut. Happy to report, .0025 backlash. That's a huge improvement from .008. I ended up getting 81 balls in as well.

Pictures soon.

[Starleper1]

Yes they are all .1265. I didn't have any issue with binding and the nut feels much stiffer on the screw then before.

[Starleper1]

Update:

It feels like I've made a mountain of progress on this machine but to the viewer just passing through it doesn't really look like it.

I got all the wiring done on the actual machine except for the X axis stepper, because I ran out of cable

The oil system on the machine is completely plumbed except for the Z axis screw. The piece I need for that is going to be one of the first parts made on the mill.

Also as you can see from the pictures I started on the head sheet metal. I got the bottom half tacked together. Now I have to work on the upper half. The idea is to have the whole front panel open up on a hinge, so that I can access the head for obvious reasons.

I still have a ton of wiring to do once I get the both panels mounted.

Pictures below







All for now.

[Mad Welder]

Nice progress update, I'll be enclosing my motor too with front access.

[Starleper1]

I finished up the top half this afternoon. Not much to say about it. Now I need to finish weld everything, smooth it all out, then get the cover to the powder coater, to be matched with the rest.

[Starleper1]

I think it's time for a progress update. I've let the updates kind of get away from me. Anyways I've pretty much got the build complete. I have a few small odds and ends to finish up but the pictures speak for themselves.

Once I got all the wiring done I had issue after issue after issue. From noise issues to limit switches not working properly to spindle fluctuations and more. Seems like it wanted to put up a fight any chance it got. I've worked out about 98% of the bugs.

I don't know if anyone remembers but my original plan was to use the Sound Logic Encoder Board on my 2nd parallel port with encoders on the motors to create a fail safe if the steppers were to stall for any reason. Well I could never get the board to work properly. Mainly noise issues, but filtering the inputs seemed to have no effect. After trying and trying, I gave up and just put in another C10 from CNC4PC. I'm still using the plugin provided with the Sound Logic board to accompany the encoders on the steppers though.

Also I orignally had bought a DigiSpeed XL from Homann Designs to control my spindle. Needless to say this board had issues too. I could never get a full 10VDC from the 0-10V analog output. On top of that every time an axis would move the spindle would fluctuate tremendously. After trying and trying, I gave up on this as well and got the C41 from CNC4PC as a replacement, which works flawlessly.

The last major issue I had was the limit switches. If your really that interested in what happened here, see my thread over in the general electronics section. Found Here.

Okay now on to the good stuff.







MachStandardMill......phenomenal system, enough said.



And on the inside. Don't mind the 6ft parallel port cable, I ordered the wrong length. :tired: Also I forgot to get a shot of the main panel on the back of the machine before I pushed it back against the wall, but it looks very similar, components and wire.



Sorry for the mess, I didn't get any photos of it clean.



Cover opened up.



And finally I thought I would finish it off with a 3D part I made the other night. It's a mold core to vacuum form the upper rear tail section on a Blade SR UH-1 Heli. The part took about 3hrs total run time. The machine didn't as much as hiccup even once. About 1.5hrs was full speed on the spindle of 5500RPM.





That's all for now, the next project is to get my power draw bar finished up. Changing BT-30 tools by hand is no fun.

[Beezle]

Beautiful work.

[Starleper1]

Thank you

[rob_b]

Inspirational! If my conversion ends up 10% as nice I'll be happy.

[gd.marsh]

Super nice!

That's a great looking machine .. can I ask where the glass gasket material came from & what thickness glass/plastic you used .. I need to replace the .093 Lexan I used on my enclosure because it's cracking where I drilled holes to bolt it to the doors. I'll likely have to go with a gasket system to avoid a re-run on the cracks. Live & learn I guess ..

I'm also a big fan of MSM .. great product & the support is incredible.

Gary

[Starleper1]

Super nice!

That's a great looking machine .. can I ask where the glass gasket material came from & what thickness glass/plastic you used .. I need to replace the .093 Lexan I used on my enclosure because it's cracking where I drilled holes to bolt it to the doors. I'll likely have to go with a gasket system to avoid a re-run on the cracks. Live & learn I guess ..

I'm also a big fan of MSM .. great product & the support is incredible.

Gary

I used 3/16" thick acrylic sheet. I got it at the local hardware store. The gasket material is from McMaster-Carr but the manufacturer is Trim Lok It works very well and holds the panels firmly in place.

I need to get a probe so I can really use the features of MSM.