[BobWarfield]

That's a pretty good deal on that Teco. I need a new VFD myself--my bandsaw ate the Hitachi I was planning to use on the mill (didn't hurt it, but it is now installed to drive the bandsaw). The other VFD I think about is a Delta, just because they make cheap drives with provision for spindle position sensing. That's helpful if you ever want to do a tool changer for a taper that has "ears". There is a note about it on my belt drive page:

CNC Cookbook: Mill Belt Drive, Pt 1

This Teco is sure a lot cheaper though, and you'd never need to index the spindle for an R8.

Where are you buying your Marathon motors? I would like to put a 3HP onto my mill when I do the belt drive just because it's a little extra margin if I am outside the power band. The mill doesn't need a full 3HP when you're in the sweet spot--not sure it's a good idea to try to use all of 3HP on one of these, LOL. OTOH, a big face mill sure soaks up some HP.

Best,

BW

[Papa Foxtrot]

What about the TECO EV Series Microdrives? Not trying to threadjack, but I'm looking for a VFD for my lathe and the 1HP version at Wolf is $140. Seems like a good deal for sensorless vector.

[eartaker]

Pete,
Awesome looks like what I have drawn up... kinda. I like the watertight idea.

Bob,
I got it from eBay. A guy had 2 of the Y551 Black Max listed for $430 but accepted an offer of $275. It is 2HP though. I was going for a 3HP drive for if I ever want to upgrade.

I'm going to go with the TECO drive I listed and see how it goes. I also like how I can program it with the PC, and will integrate that into my mill PC. I would like to remove the LCD and place it on my control panel but no real need to if I have full control with Mach3, and really don't feel like paying $30 for a cable.

[eartaker]

Now that the VFD question has been solved, I'm about o place an order with CNC4pc but not sure on what electronics I need for my control panel. I look at bobs site about different methods and thought about using the pokeys55 USB expansion to wire up all the switches and buttons or is there is a better solution?

[BobWarfield]

Now that the VFD question has been solved, I'm about o place an order with CNC4pc but not sure on what electronics I need for my control panel. I look at bobs site about different methods and thought about using the pokeys55 USB expansion to wire up all the switches and buttons or is there is a better solution?

3 or 4 choices available:

- A keyboard mapper is great and pretty trouble free. But, it presumes the keyboard does what you need and with enough performance. Won't work for an MPG, for example. It also goes one way, so you can't light up any indicators with it.

- You can go a second parallel and breakout board.

- You can run a modbus device like Homann sells.

- You can run a Smoothstepper which has 2 full parallel ports worth of IO.

FWIW, I like the idea of a pendant with MPG and just using a touchscreen with Mach3 and the right screen set these days. The panels are nice, but you can get a really cool and very usable setup with that combo. Homann's pendant kit is pretty nice.

Cheers,

BW

PS Probably mispelling "Homann", sorry Peter!

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Peter's ModIO works great for a pendant. I've been running my VistaCNC iMach Pro pendant through a ModIO using a macropump driver I wrote, and it works perfectly.

Regards,
Ray L.

[eartaker]

Bob,
Thanks for the info, I was trying to stay away from the keyboard mapper. I looked at homanndesigns.com and the modbus pendent is nice but way to expensive for me lol

I do want a pendent and I will be using a Elo 15" touchscreen but just want a few buttons for spindle override, coolant, start, stop, feed hold and maybe a few other and some space to addon.

[eartaker]

Got the motor yesterday and cant wait to get this thing wired up. Placed the order for the TECO 3HP 7300CV VFD and PC interface card, replacement spindle bearings from VXB, and a 5 gram tube of Kluber for $22.

I wasn't happy with my y-axis motor mount so I tor it apart and decided to rebuild it. Should have it done today and be able to order my belts.

[eartaker]

Got the Yaxis mounted up but still need to make 12 spacers to hold the cover plate like the X-axis.

[eartaker]

MOTOR MOUNTS ARE DONE.....

Finally got the motors mounted to the machine and now I can calculate belt lengths. I had the Z and Y mounts done I had thought but then after I designed the X I liked it better than the other 2 so I threw out the Z and Y mounts I had made and started over. I'm happy I did and will be easy to cover the belts this way.

Z


X


Y


After I get the belts ordered I'm going to take it all apart, clean everything, run the oil lines and put it all back together. Right after that I'm going to pull the spindle out and change out the bearings.

Anyone have any advice on how to apply the Kluber to the bearings and how much?

[gd.marsh]

Progress is good!

As for the Kluber grease .. I went to the pharmacy at a Walgreens & asked to purchase 1 syringe .. they gave it to me. You don't need a needle, the little plastic snout on the syringe will do. Squeeze some grease out of the tube into the syringe and use that to measure & disperse in small amounts around the bearing. When done, I just pushed what was left in the syringe back into the tube.

It's a surprisingly small amount of grease you need to put in those bearings. It's been too long ago for me & can't remember exactly where I found it, but I believe if you search around on the Kluber web site you'll come up with the calculation based on bearing size. I do remember it's a simple multiplier though. Someone else might know how to figure the amount or can point you directly where to find the information ..

[eartaker]

Well I found a post on practicalmachinist saying this

There's a formula to get the cc's of lube, it is the last to digits of the bearing number x 5 x .06. This will give you the amount of cc's per bearing.

ex for bearing 7008:

08 x 5 x .06 = 2.4 cc's of lube.

This would be 2.1cc for the 7207 and 1.8cc for the 7206..... not sure if that is right

[miniz98]

Hey im happy to see you building up your own shop. I remember when i was your age starting out my business and now it has grown drastically. Good luck with your venture.





Online CNC Machine Shop | Anco Precision Inc. | Instant Quotes

[gd.marsh]

That sounds about right to me ..

As I mentioned, it's very little grease compared to what we might be prone to packing in there ..

Hoss might be able to verify that formula for you ..

[eartaker]

Thanks miniz98,

I grew up working on race cars and in a metal fab shop so I couldn't go without some metal working.

I looked at your site. Looks like you have some money tied up into your production and producing some nice products.

[eartaker]

Well I cant seem to figure out how to get the outer races of the tapered bearings out of the quill. My dad who has worked on race cars all of his life said to just heat up the housing and keep the race cool and it should pop out. This may be how it is done on an axial but I don't feel comfortable doing that because I have never tried it and don't want to hurt the quill. I bought a 20 ton press today abut cant get to the back end of the race to just press it out.... any ideas?

BTW if you are going to buy a press from harbor freight you might as well go with the 20 ton. After looking at the 12 ton the arbor was bent and the top support is bolted on. the 20 ton is better constructed. I got it for $180 with a %20 coupon from home machinist magazine.

[pete from TN]

Definitely do not heat up the spindle body, no telling what internal stresses you would release. Instead, remove the spindle shaft and bearings, clean it up inside and find yourself a brass rod or an aluminum rod and stick it down inside the spindle body at an angle and it should hit the lip of the bearing race on the other side of the body from the side you inserted it into. There should be enough lip to get the rod on the top of the race and carefully tap the rod with a hammer working your way around the edge of the bearing tapping it until it pops out the bottom. Of course make sure the unit is tilted enough or on top of something that will allow the race to drop out the bottom. Does that make any sense.

As far as the press I have the 20 ton here and even it is a POS really. I have totally reinforced it and welded steel to it so now it can actually do some work. I should have bought their monster press when I had the chance... I also would not use the press to insert the new bearings. Just put the new bearings in the same way you got the old ones out. Gently tapping around the perimeter until it fully seats. That way you do not have any chance of cracking or worse jamming the bearing into the bore. especially with that press it is a noodle and I found it would rack back and forth a lot which might make the thing pop out on ya.... good luck man and peace

Pete

[jalessi]

Jermie,

Weld a bead completely around the inside of the bearing race, when cool it will contract and loose in the housing.

See attached image,

Jeff...

[eartaker]

Thanks guys had to do a little of both to get it out. I taped out the small one with no problem but the larger one didn't want to move, I welded a bead on it then it was easy to tap out.

[gd.marsh]

That is brilliant!
I've never heard of that trick before, but I'm certainly going to remember it!

Glad you got it handled Jermie .. carry on!