I've finally, after an entire year, finished my lathemaster mill conversion Yeah............ :cheers: !!!!
Unfortunately, due to my expert planning I have a very poor design on the z-axis drive. I installed a 3/4 inch ball screw and nut (warren electric) and am driving it with a electro-craft 712 motor (1600 in. oz.), 1080 encoder with a 3 to 1 reduction pully. I'm using a g320 with a 60 volt, high amperage, power supply and mach 3. I have the gecko tuned at maximum (I think) and dampened enough to prevent oscillations. However, during a cutting cycle, the gecko faults, the head drops and mach NEVER senses the chagne. In other words, the DRO's don't change to reflect the movoement of the Z axis. I have yet to cut a good part.
I was attempting to face some aluminum with a 3/8 end mill just for the heck of it using the mach 3 conversational wizard (great). During the cutting cycle, everything appeared normal but the z axis was stepping down after every pass. The gecko was not faulting but the ball screw was rotating every so slowly (like clock hands). The DRO for the z axis was not changing!!!! Is there something in mach that would cause this???
Anyway, instead of swinging a 300# head, I need a good design for a square column mill quill drive system. Does anyone have a good design that thay can share or sell me? I really thought the setup as describe above would be adequate for a z drive system. My war cry of today is HELP ME PLEASE. This thing is driving me Crazy!!!!!! (nuts) :violin: :cheers:
Have a good day
billyjack