[Titaniumboy]

Three Tormach Collet chucks should arrive from Little Machine Shop by Thursday.

I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that the Tormach ER20 Collet chucks arrived a day early from Little Machine Shop. Those guys are really great and I really should use them more often.

The bad news is that the Tormach collet chucks are different from the Novakon collet chucks that I have. The Tormach holders have a much shallower undercut than does the Novakon holder, as shown in the second picture.

Attachment 448884. Attachment 448886



This means that the R8 holder that I had to grind down in order for the Novakon holders to seat against the spindle face will absolutely not work for the newly arrived Tormach holders. There is a good .050” that has to come off of the R8 holder, maybe even up to .090” or .100”.

It just [censored] never ends...

[MichaelHenry]

I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that the Tormach ER20 Collet chucks arrived a day early from Little Machine Shop. Those guys are really great and I really should use them more often.

The bad news is that the Tormach collet chucks are different from the Novakon collet chucks that I have. The Tormach holders have a much shallower undercut than does the Novakon holder, as shown in the second picture.

Attachment 448884. Attachment 448886



This means that the R8 holder that I had to grind down in order for the Novakon holders to seat against the spindle face will absolutely not work for the newly arrived Tormach holders. There is a good .050” that has to come off of the R8 holder, maybe even up to .090” or .100”.

It just [censored] never ends...

Can you just order a master R-8 collet from Tormach? Or maybe face the collet you have now with a facing bit in a vise...

[Titaniumboy]

Can you just order a master R-8 collet from Tormach?

The Tormach TTS Adapter Collet is $40. Kind of spendy for a 3/4” R8 collet. I had ground down the Novakon adapter collet last October, so I figured that I could grind it down some more.

Using a genuine Tormach TTS holder, I measured the gap between the Novakon collet and the spindle nose at about 0.071”. I will probably take off 0.090” or 0.100” to be sure.

I checked this collet in my G0704 mill and also in a Bridgeport mill. The gap in both mills was less than on the Novakon mill, but still present. Apparently the spindle nose on my Novakon mill is a tad shorter than on other mills, and so the R8 collet sticks out a bit further. Again that is with using a Tormach TTS holder.

Or maybe face the collet you have now with a facing bit in a vise..

That sounds like a great idea, but aren’t R8 collets hardened? I would love to be able to machine the collet face in my lathe.

[CL_MotoTech]

I faced my Novakon collet in the spindle, tool held in the vise. I used a decent carbide insert lathe tool. It came out great.

[upnorth]

The Tormach TTS Adapter Collet is $40. Kind of spendy for a 3/4” R8 collet. I had ground down the Novakon adapter collet last October, so I figured that I could grind it down some more.

Using a genuine Tormach TTS holder, I measured the gap between the Novakon collet and the spindle nose at about 0.071”. I will probably take off 0.090” or 0.100” to be sure.

I checked this collet in my G0704 mill and also in a Bridgeport mill. The gap in both mills was less than on the Novakon mill, but still present. Apparently the spindle nose on my Novakon mill is a tad shorter than on other mills, and so the R8 collet sticks out a bit further. Again that is with using a Tormach TTS holder.




That sounds like a great idea, but aren’t R8 collets hardened? I would love to be able to machine the collet face in my lathe.

From the Tormach TTS manual:

If you find these geometry issues on a machine that has an R8 spindle taper, the best solution is to use
the Tormach TTS-R8 collet. This is a special variation of a precision R8 collet with the end of the collet
ground flat and the overall length slightly less than the standard length. The TTS-R8 collet is included
with each TTS kit, or it can be purchased separately.
If your machine exhibits the geometry problems mentioned above and does not use R8, or if you wish
to use your existing R8 collet, the solution is to modify the collet. Using a disk sander or bench grinder,
a hardened collet can easily be shortened about 1/8”. Be sure to avoid overheating the collet by grinding
lightly. Pause the grinding process occasionally and dunk the collet it in water to keep the temperature
low. Grinding open the internal diameter is more time consuming, but not really more difficult. A small
die grinder (Dremel tool or similar) with a long shank grinding wheel can be used, but be careful not to
grind the precision section of the collet that will grasp the shank of the TTS holder.

I was lucky with my collet I guess. I even bought a spare that is just a regular R8 and it works fine.

Here is a link to the manual. Its worth downloading lots of information in there.

https://littlemachineshop.com/images...ing_System.pdf

[Titaniumboy]

All of that said, it looks like you are getting great results. That wrench looks awesome! So keep on doing what you are doing!

Thanks! That means a lot coming from someone who has done as much machining as you have. I am constantly amazed by what you achieve on your G0704.

From the Tormach TTS manual: [snip] Here is a link to the manual. Its worth downloading lots of information in there.

By coincidence, I had downloaded that TTS manual the night before you posted this. But somehow I had skipped over the part where they discussed grinding the collet.

I faced my Novakon collet in the spindle, tool held in the vise. I used a decent carbide insert lathe tool. It came out great.

I don't have any decent carbide insert lathe tools as all that I have are cheapos from Banggood. But what the heck, let's give it a go. I centered up the lathe tool as best I could with a wiggler.

Then I ran the calculations for RPM and feed. The results were surprising, at least to me. Using a Surface Speed of 100 and a diameter of 1.25" yielded an RPM of 320. This RPM and a 0.001" chipload per tooth per revolution gave a feed of 0.32" per minute. Wow, much slower than I would have guessed.


Attachment 449376


Here is the first pass. Looking halfway decent so far.

Attachment 449378


I took 0.015" on each pass. This was the last pass. These passes in the mill left some really nasty burrs, especially on the interior diameter. The collet now has the correct stickout so that the new Tormach TTS tool holders will work.

Attachment 449380



And here is the finished Novakon collet. I ended up doing the chamfers in my G0602 lathe. My Banggood insert lathe tools didn't have very much clearance for the ID chamfer, so in desperation I tried chamfering with my HSS lathe tool. To my surprise the HSS cut the Novakon collet like butter. Very hard butter.

Attachment 449382



I decided to take one of my no-name 3/4" collets and make a TTS collet adapter for my G0704 mill. This did not go nearly as well as the Novakon collet.

Attachment 449384



Evidently the no-name collet was harder than the Novakon collet. I ended up destroying two carbide inserts getting it to this point. And I still have some small ID burrs. Whereas I was able to cut chamfers on the Novakon collet with HSS, this no-name collet chewed up my HSS tools for lunch.

Attachment 449386



Next step is to setup the TTS holders with some tools, measure them on the surface plate, and enter the tool offsets into UCCNC. And then I have to measure my coolant pump flow rate for CL_MotoTech.

[Steve303]

Nice job mill turning. I picked up a few ER32 TTS Tool Holders, collets and a few lathe tools to try mill turning.

[CL_MotoTech]

Thanks! That means a lot coming from someone who has done as much machining as you have. I am constantly amazed by what you achieve on your G0704.

By coincidence, I had downloaded that TTS manual the night before you posted this. But somehow I had skipped over the part where they discussed grinding the collet.

I don't have any decent carbide insert lathe tools as all that I have are cheapos from Banggood. But what the heck, let's give it a go. I centered up the lathe tool as best I could with a wiggler.

Then I ran the calculations for RPM and feed. The results were surprising, at least to me. Using a Surface Speed of 100 and a diameter of 1.25" yielded an RPM of 320. This RPM and a 0.001" chipload per tooth per revolution gave a feed of 0.32" per minute. Wow, much slower than I would have guessed.





Here is the first pass. Looking halfway decent so far.




I took 0.015" on each pass. This was the last pass. These passes in the mill left some really nasty burrs, especially on the interior diameter. The collet now has the correct stickout so that the new Tormach TTS tool holders will work.




And here is the finished Novakon collet. I ended up doing the chamfers in my G0602 lathe. My Banggood insert lathe tools didn't have very much clearance for the ID chamfer, so in desperation I tried chamfering with my HSS lathe tool. To my surprise the HSS cut the Novakon collet like butter. Very hard butter.




I decided to take one of my no-name 3/4" collets and make a TTS collet adapter for my G0704 mill. This did not go nearly as well as the Novakon collet.




Evidently the no-name collet was harder than the Novakon collet. I ended up destroying two carbide inserts getting it to this point. And I still have some small ID burrs. Whereas I was able to cut chamfers on the Novakon collet with HSS, this no-name collet chewed up my HSS tools for lunch.





Next step is to setup the TTS holders with some tools, measure them on the surface plate, and enter the tool offsets into UCCNC. And then I have to measure my coolant pump flow rate for CL_MotoTech.

These projects are hard. Keep up the great work! Thanks for the compliments, I'm an amateur at best, I'm just too dumb to quit.

I know nothing of lathe feeds and speeds, all of my lathe experience is from manual use. I've never used a CNC lathe (though I am close to starting a build on one). When I did the mill turn work, I did it with the pendant, sort of manual mode. I found using step settings on the pendant to work rather well, but I was emulating manual operation. Mostly visual I guess, because feel doesn't apply. I bought a set of Accusize insert lathe tools on Amazon. Not great tools really, but better than what I grind... Something like $80 does the trick. I've since given them to my buddy who actually owns a lathe. He raves about them. We might have low expectations, I genuinely don't know.

The Novakon R8 collet is soft-ish. I've damaged it on tool change crashes. I don't want to talk about that, but the collet is still in my spindle and working pretty great. I have contemplated cutting down my 3/4" Grizzly collet, as well as ordering a Tormach one. Who knows?

You are getting really close! Keep pushing! Also, update UCCNC. It's worth it. The layout is just better, IMO.

[Titaniumboy]

Nice job mill turning. I picked up a few ER32 TTS Tool Holders, collets and a few lathe tools to try mill turning.

I'll be interested to see what you end up with. Didn't you construct a Hydraulic Booster at one point for your mill power drawbar?

I was using the cnc mill in a very non-cnc way to mill these collet adapters. I used a wiggler to get the spindle centered over the end of the lathe tool, then moved the spindle a little to the right and then set X and Y to zero. I lowered the Z so that the lathe tool was just a whisker from touching the collet and set Z to zero. I then in MDI entered S320 and F0.3. Also entered G91 in MDI so that I was in Incremental mode. Turned the spindle to run CCW, and entered X-.35 in MDI. Then entered X.35 in MDI to put the lathe tool back in the original position.

Each 0.35" move in X takes about a minute, so a minute to run the cutter into the spindle and another minute to run the cutter out of the spindle. Lower the Z by 0.015", lather, rinse, repeat.

Kind of nerve wracking to have the lathe tool and vise to close to the mill spindle. I was also lucky to have not accidentally gone back into G90 Absolute mode at some point. I don't even want to think what an X-.35 MDI command would have done in absolute mode.

[Titaniumboy]

These projects are hard. Keep up the great work! Thanks for the compliments, I'm an amateur at best, I'm just too dumb to quit

I'm not very good at this stuff, but I make up for it by being really slow. :drowning:

By the way, how did you make my pictures so large? I always have to click on the pictures to make them large.

The Novakon R8 collet is soft-ish. I've damaged it on tool change crashes. I don't want to talk about that, but the collet is still in my spindle and working pretty great. I have contemplated cutting down my 3/4" Grizzly collet, as well as ordering a Tormach one. Who knows?

So how did a guy with a G0704 end up with a Novakon R8 collet? Was it less expensive than the genuine Tormach R8 collet? Bummer that Novakon has gone dark on us.

I discovered that my Novakon R8 collet has a much shorter inside grip length than my no-name R8 collets. The Novakon collet only has 0.7" of inside grip length as compared to 1.2" of grip length on the generic R8 collet. Granted that my Novakon collet used to be about 0.2" longer at one point than it is now. It would be interesting to see how much grip length are on the genuine Tormach TTS collets.

Also, update UCCNC. It's worth it. The layout is just better, IMO.

This is the next planned upgrade after I get the tools measured and input into the Tools Offset screen. Remember the part where I'm really slow?

I know nothing of lathe feeds and speeds, all of my lathe experience is from manual use. I've never used a CNC lathe (though I am close to starting a build on one). When I did the mill turn work, I did it with the pendant, sort of manual mode. I found using step settings on the pendant to work rather well, but I was emulating manual operation. Mostly visual I guess, because feel doesn't apply. I bought a set of Accusize insert lathe tools on Amazon. Not great tools really, but better than what I grind... Something like $80 does the trick. I've since given them to my buddy who actually owns a lathe. He raves about them. We might have low expectations, I genuinely don't know.

CNC lathes seem to be a different beast than CNC mills, or at least that is what I learned at the community college where I took a bunch of CNC courses. For example, lathe tools don't just use the normal T01; rather you will see stuff like T0101 and T1020. And then there are U and W moves. Yikes.

On my little collet project I tried to use the formulas I learned for mills and translate them to the lathe.

For example, I usually first figure out RPM by using RPM = (4 * CS) / Diameter. So for my collet I guessed at a Cutting Speed of 100 and used the largest diameter of the collet at 1.25", which gave me a 320 RPM.

Then I normally roll my RPM figure into the feed equation of F = (chipload per tooth per rev) * (# of teeth) * RPM. I guessed a chipload of 0.001" per tooth per rev, and my lathe tool only has one "tooth", so the equation gave me 0.32 in per min.

[Titaniumboy]

Where did everybody go? It has only been 2-1/2 years since this thread was last updated.:wake By the way, I am NOT impressed by the new management wanting so much personal data.

The task today was to drain the old coolant from the coolant tank. Surprisingly, the coolant did not have any more unpleasant odors than normal after sitting completely abandoned for 30 months.

Is it OK to just put in new coolant, or should I fill up the coolant tank with fresh water and flush the system first?

[metalmayhem]

If the coolant wasn't a green monster after 30 months then you should be good to just fill er up . I'm guessing you had semi or full synthetic ?

[Titaniumboy]

The coolant I'm currently using is Blasocut BC 20 SW. I'm not sure if it is semi or full synthetic. It has been hard finding information on this coolant which is made by Blaser Swisslube. My notes say that the concentration can range from 5-15% maximum, with general machining in the 5-8% range.

Edit: I just found this technical data from Blaser.

http://metalworkingfluid.com/mwf/Bla...cal%20Data.pdf


Attachment 489260

Attachment 489262

[Titaniumboy]

I mixed up a new batch of Blasocut coolant tonight. I ended up going with 32 fl oz of coolant added to 4.25 gallons of tap water. If I did my math correctly, that is 32 fl oz of coolant into a total volume of 576 fl oz (544 fl oz of water plus 32 fl oz of coolant) for a 5.6% coolant strength.

The factory paint on the coolant pump was in pretty bad shape after sitting in coolant for the last 30 months. I could scrape paint away with a fingernail. I'll leave it alone for now, but it gets added to the maintenance list.

It was pretty gratifying to see the old girl come back to life after being neglected and sitting for so long. The computer booted up, UCCNC launched, and the coolant pump works. I was able to home the axis and jog around with the pendant. Even better, the one-shot lube didn't leak and I found new oil on the ways.

I have the mill kind of in a corner right now and the poor access to the Main and Drive Switches (located on the left side of the electrical cabinet) and the Computer Start button (on the right side of the electrical cabinet) is getting old fast. Has anyone relocated any of these switches or button for easier operation?

[Titaniumboy]

My mill currently has a 15 Amp 240 Volt 3-wire plug attached to a 14 AWG 3-wire cord. The mill (essentially an NM-145 with Pulsar electronics) only has 240 Volt loads inside the control cabinet. I want to eliminate the need for a separate 120 volt extension cord for the monitor.

My first thought was to change the 3-wire plug and cord to 4-wire but keep the 14 gage size. This would allow me to continue feeding all of the existing 240 Volts loads while being able to add a 120 Volt receptacle (or two) for the monitor. Then I found out that 4-wire 15 Amp plugs, while listed in NEMA Plug Codes, do not really exist commercially. Even McMaster-Carr doesn't carry any 4-wire 15 Amp plugs.






Jumping up to the next wire size of 12 Gage takes me to the NEMA 14-20 plug configuration and those are available all day long at reasonable prices. I even have some 12 Gage 4-wire cord sitting around.

The downside is that I'm going to have to add a 15 Amp breaker inside the electrical cabinet to protect the existing mill wiring, plus add a new 2-pole 20 Amp breaker in my main house panel. Not to mention that the 12 Gage 4-wire cord that I have is just really massive at 0.664" diameter as compared to the existing 14 Gage 3-wire cord at .375" diameter.

Am I missing a better or easier way to provide power to the monitor?

[Titaniumboy]

This stupid thread was started so long ago that the original link disappeared, but here is the inspiration for the thread title.

[RaderSidetrack]

The downside is that I'm going to have to add a 15 Amp breaker inside the electrical cabinet to protect the existing mill wiring, plus add a new 2-pole 20 Amp breaker in my main house panel. Not to mention that the 12 Gage 4-wire cord that I have is just really massive at 0.664" diameter as compared to the existing 14 Gage 3-wire cord at .375" diameter.

Am I missing a better or easier way to provide power to the monitor?

Frankly, I would just leave the existing dual cord arrangement the same, but combine the two physical cords into one (more or less) by using cable ties or cord wrap etc to keep them together.

But if you insist on only one cord, and you have spare watts/amps capacity in the existing cord & breaker setup, I don't see why you couldn't use a transformer to drop the incoming 240v to 120v for the monitor.

I'm not promoting this particular product, just linking it to illustrate the concept:
https://www.amazon.com/LVYUAN-Voltag...s%2C146&sr=8-4

[Titaniumboy]

Frankly, I would just leave the existing dual cord arrangement the same, but combine the two physical cords into one (more or less) by using cable ties or cord wrap etc to keep them together.

Yes, that would be the smart way to go. Two issues are that my 240 Volt receptacle is not really next to my 120 Volt receptacle, and also that it would be nice for the mill to be "self-contained" and able to run with just one cable being plugged in.

Your second idea of using a step-down transformer made a lot of sense and I went down the rabbit hole and ended up at Clough42's Youtube channel where he also needed 120 Volts at a Bridgeport mill that only had a 240 Volt feed. His solution was to use a 250VA control transformer





You do the calculations and a 250VA transformer only provides about 2.1 Amps, so not exactly a ton of current. In the process of checking the nameplate rating of my monitor I discovered something that changes everything - my monitor has an input voltage range of 100-240 Volts.

I also have a heavy-duty touch monitor that came out of an ATM that I plan on using someday. This touch monitor has a 12 Volt DC input from a typical AC/DC adapter, and the adapter also has an input voltage range of 100-240 Volts.

All I have to do is cut off the 120 Volt plug off of the cable and then route the cable into the electrical cabinet and tie into the 240 Volt terminal block. My kind of modification - cheap and easy.

Thanks for the help!

[burbingus]

Not sure this is up to code, but it seems that you could take one leg off the 240V if you have a neutral and ground available there and run your 120V out of the cabinet. I'm assing you've got 2 phase 240 at the moment.

[Titaniumboy]

Taking 120 Volt off of one leg of the 240 Volt is completely acceptable to the National Electrical Code. In fact virtually every home in the US does this.

The problem, as you noted, is that I didn’t have access to a neutral in the mill electrical cabinet. Novakon only used a 3-wire cord for the power cable - two hots and a ground. I would have needed to change out the 3-wire cable to a 4-wire cable. In addition, I would have had to increase the wire size from 14 gage to 12 gage because of technical issues.

I’m happy to report that my monitor happily accepted 240 Volts last night and did not blow up. I “temporarily” tied in the monitor power cord to a source of 240 Volt in the cabinet.

I have some parts on order that will let me finish this modification in the proper way so that I can then share some pictures. I did swap out the standard 6 ft monitor power cable for a 10 ft cable as the original cable was just a tad short.