[zafarsalam]

Khalid,
It was really exciting to see this project live at your place. It's a nice spindle head you have put together. I am specially interested in it's performance and also the z-axis with linear slides, ball screw, servo motor and all. Let's hope you get enough extra time to finish it up.

Zafar

[Khalid]

Here is the short video of the assembled column.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nevfUvtlu34"]YouTube - Radial Drill Conversion.flv[/nomedia]

[zafarsalam]

Very impressive! The spindle motor looks small for a spindle this size. What is it's power rating?

[Khalid]

Hi Zafar,
Thanks for the feedback on youtube and here...
1- Last day i was taking with my fellow for replacing the gears with tooth belt and pulleys... Unfortunately, we didn't found the belt in our locality..I think you will help me in this... I will require a tooth belt from you, We can machine the pulleys here. Can you send me the belt?.. i will give you the size of both gears so that you can judge the belt dimension.

2- I think the spindle Motor is 3 phase 2.5KW.. We will see if it can work with the setup, the VFD and a single-belt reduction will be used... We intend to machine small parts on this machine and later will see how can we improve the whole setup... The limit and home switches are still not installed yet...

This is the machine for which i require from you the control panel and control box and help.

[zafarsalam]

Khalid,

Try Precision Mechanical Components Timing Belts Pulleys Spur Gears Couplings Bearings Sprockets Retaining Rings Brakes Helical Gears Clutches Universal Joints for calculation of belt size based on your center distance and motor power rating. Pass on the required size to me and I'll get the belt for you.

Zafar

[Khalid]

Hi,
I will soon give you the details of the required Belt. thanks for the link.

[Khalid]

Here is the 90% completed machine

[Khalid]

duplicate post

[zafarsalam]

Looking very impressive. You'll need to cover the y-axis slide to shield it from metal chips. A flexible sheet cover would be ok. That will also cover the y-axis motor from coolant splashes. Hope to see it in action when I visit you two weeks from now. What tool holder are you going to use for it. If you need one then I can get it for you from here.

Zafar

[Khalid]

Looking very impressive. You'll need to cover the y-axis slide to shield it from metal chips. A flexible sheet cover would be ok. That will also cover the y-axis motor from coolant splashes. Hope to see it in action when I visit you two weeks from now. What tool holder are you going to use for it. If you need one then I can get it for you from here.

Zafar

Dear Zafar, (I am eagerly waiting for you to get the Servo experience)
We have yet to install protection covers on motors and slides. The spindle is hardened MK5 taper and all of the tools including the Boring head of our Universal Boring Machine can fit into it.

I am really interested in Tapping/Threading Cycles on this machine. I hope with the VFD it shall be possible.
Regards

[zafarsalam]

For tapping you'll need a tapping head like this one. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou9o-aUqAUI]Tapmatic tapping head - YouTube[/ame]. External threads and large diameter internal threads can be done with helical milling with a single point boring type tool.

[Khalid]

Yes i know about such tapping head tools but i was rather interested in helical tool-paths with single point tools. VisualMill can do threading using helical toolpaths. i am also interested in Rigid Tapping, but it needs very precise control of Spindle motor.

[zafarsalam]

Ok. Get a single point tool ready. We'll do a helical toolpath thread as test job on your machine. I do my g-code programming on Mastercam. Thread milling is very easy with it.

Zafar

[Khalid]

Okay.. I got three proximity switches today?..I think you will use Soft Limits as Limit Switches and these three shall be used as homing switches?.. These have small length of wires , will you connect additional wires?
Can you post the pictures of Control Panel and electronics Box?

[zafarsalam]

We can either use the three switches as both home and limit switches or use them as home and employ soft limits. You can terminate the cables of these switches in a small box on the machine body. These switches will be used in parallel and send a single signal to Mach3. So a single cable from the terminal box to the main panel would be sufficient. We are going to use the index pulse from motor encoders for homing which will give us very accurate position and repeatability.

The panel box is at the powder coating shop. We'll get it back in 3 days.

Zafar

[samco]

with linuxcnc - you can do rigid tapping. (you do not need precise control of the spindle) You need a spindle encoder with index (a,b and z channels).

linuxcnc 'gears' the axis with the spindle.

This was all done with just the printer port.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C740zS9R9kk&feature=plcp&context=C3bf13adU DOEgsToPDskJ1C-st1DVqOjzou8-cClGS]Rigid Tapping M3X 5 750rpm - YouTube[/ame]

sam

Yes i know about such tapping head tools but i was rather interested in helical tool-paths with single point tools. VisualMill can do threading using helical toolpaths. i am also interested in Rigid Tapping, but it needs very precise control of Spindle motor.

[Zygoat]

how exactly was this accomplished? where can i find more info?

[samco]

what kind of info are you looking for? In the simplest form - you need 3 inputs open to read the encoder. within emc you virtually hook up a few pins that connects the encoder to the guts of emc. If you are using the printer port for reading the encoder - you are limited by how fast the computer can count. Say you have a 100 line encoder on the spinde (400 quadrature) on decent computer hardware you should be able to count into the 20-40khz range. so - you should be able to count up to the 3000 - 6000rpm. As long as the axis can keep up with the spindle reversal - you are golden.

There is a lot of cheap interface hardware out there for emc that will move the encoder counting and pwm outside of the computer which doesn't tax the computer.

sam

how exactly was this accomplished? where can i find more info?

[Zygoat]

There is a lot of cheap interface hardware out there for emc that will move the encoder counting and pwm outside of the computer which doesn't tax the computer.

sam

do you have any links to such hardware?

thanks for your help.

[samco]

LinuxCNC Documentation Wiki: LinuxCNC Supported Hardware

mesa and pico are probably the most popular. I am using mesa hardware and love it. Have a look at the 5i25 - it his mesa's latest pci card that has a bunch of options.

sam