First parts off the mill. Manifolds for the oiling system. I managed to clean up the couple screw ups that I made.
First parts off the mill. Manifolds for the oiling system. I managed to clean up the couple screw ups that I made.
Excellent, I wont dare show you my first though I am sure they are proudly displayed here somewhere in cyberspace. It is quite satisfying to see such uniformity (when intended) when making something. I still wish we could find a smaller solution to the oiling hoses and manifolds. Maybe like the lines from a mechanical oil pressure gauge in a car. They are smaller but would require compression fittings. Or hard lines from the manifold block (this is a personal issue, purely aesthetic).
Well, I have been a hobby machinist since about '95. I KNOW how to cover up my mistakes.
I looked around for something smaller, but settled on 1/8" push to connect fittings with 10-32 threads to the points on the machine. I'm using 1/4" PTC fittings with 1/8 NPT threads on the manifolds and oiler. We'll see how it looks when it's finished. I still haven't come up with a clean way to oil the screw yet. I'll be capping those lines off for the moment. I'm also pretty OCD about keeping wiring and hoses neat and clean, but I haven't started cleaning it all up yet. I'm just happy to have it running.
As far as the Accel rates. I think I got thrown off by using the jog controls. Apparently they don't use the same routine as a G0 move and it probably smoothes out the start and stop. I'll try writing a simple G code program to exercise the motors and pick some more suitable accel rates. I really haven't seen any suggested values for these machines. I do know that the steppers and drivers I'm using are on the upper end of the scale for this machine.
Chris
Unless you're doing a lot of true 3D work, I think you'll likely find an acceleration in the 5-10 range more desirable - it will cut down on machine "shaking" considerably, but is still high enough to about rounded corners and other artifacts. Rapids of much over 100 IPM or so should be deferred until you've got plenty of experience under your belt, and really know what you're doing. At 200+ IPM, by the time you realize things are about to go horribly wrong, it's often too late to reach for the big red button to prevent it.
Regards,
Ray L.
Maybe a felt ring with either a slow drip line or just manually feed it occasionally? Being as protected as they are, it shouldn't need a lot.
A lazy man does it twice.
Chai's ballnuts have an M6x1 threaded hole for a zerk fitting in them. I was hoping to thread a PTC connector into it, but I can't find one that size. The next option is to make an adapter to go from M6 to 10/32. I'm missing having a lathe right now. I have a couple projects where I could really use one. I might have to order a replacement after the new year. I guess for now can just use a hand oiler.
Personally, I think one of the best purchases I've ever made is the $200 I spent on a copy of CutViewer Mill, so I can simulate my G-code, and see what the part will look like, before putting any expensive tools and materials at risk. It's not without its problems and shortcomings, but, even so, it's worth every penny, just for getting confidence your code is right before running it on the machine. Most of the time, by the time I do run on the machine, the code just works.
Regards,
Ray L.
Thanks Mad Welder. It's coming along nicely. I installed the oiling system for the ways last night. It seems to have oiled the ways pretty evenly. I need to do a little clean up still. I'll post a picture when it is presentable. I also found some 6mm PTC elbows for the ball nuts on eBay yesterday. I need to take the table off and make sure I have enough clearance to use them.
I made two sets of touch plates this morning. One fixed for the ATLO and one mobile. I'll make the base for the ATLO this afternoon and then wire it all up.
My lovely wife bought me a Vista CNC iMach P1A-S pendant for Christmas.
I only got to play with it for a minute, but I know it is going to be much better than using the Xbox controller for setting up offsets, manual milling, etc.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Oh, nice, I have the same one! love it!
Ha! Fastest, I met her at an RC boat race. She knows its better to just ask me what I want than try to find that perfect gift.
I've used the pendant a few times in the last few days. At first I was a little disappointed that the MPG wasn't available during tool changes. I emailed Lee at vistaCNC and he made a change to the plugin. Since then I've been pretty pleased with it.
Over Christmas break I measured the backlash on the machine. I had .0015 on the X and .002 on the Y. The Z has .008" when I plunge down and then try to retract. I've tried loosening up the gib and tightening up the jam nuts on the screw. I think the gib needs to be cleaned up. When I take the column off to add a Y spacer I'll try lapping the column too.
I've had a couple instances where something didn't fit quite right, only to discover that I didn't add in enough clearance in the drawing or the stock was thicker than I thought (.395" plate instead of .375"). I did have one instance where a pocket didn't cut as deep as I wanted. I think that was due to the Z backlash issue.
Finally, CNCZone has been blocked at work. I get malware warnings anytime I try to load the site. I hope that gets cleared up soon.
I hope you all had a great holiday. Happy New Year!
Chris
Btw: Here are a couple pictures of my first project that isn't for the machine. This is a fixture to allow me to put a slot down the middle of 50 dowel pins at a shot. I've sold about 3500 of these pins for RC car differentials. I was making them one at a time on my manual mill. It took about 20 seconds per pin and I was bent over the mill the whole time. I kept thinking about making this jig but never got around to it.
With this jig I'll load the dowels, screw the cover down, hit cycle start and watch it go. :cheers:
I made a couple mistakes on the cover, but they don't affect the functionality so I'll leave it alone for now.
I'm working on getting another product I have back into production. The product is pretty simple, but trying to produce them in quantity takes some forethought.
First, I'm going to cut the base plates on my saw and then trim them to length on the mill. Then I'm going to make a fixture to hold 10 plates at a time for the drilling and slotting operations.
The end stops will be milled out of 3/8 plate 30 pieces at a time. I'll drill all the holes and then profile the parts .260" deep. Then I'll cut them apart into pairs, flip them over and mill the excess off the back side. I want to make a set of soft jaws to hold them while I do that operation.
I've found a couple limitations of the G0704. First off, the Z travel is too short for the spindle to reach the table without lowering the quill. I was hoping to do Hoss' belt drive mod with a solid quill but that won't work for most of the parts I need to make. So I'll have to look into making the quill version. Second, the included drill chuck won't hold anything smaller than 3mm. The holes in the base plates are tapped 5-40 so I need a .101" pilot hole. I'm going to have to get another drill chuck and adapter for smaller drills.
Finally, I wanted to spot drill all of my holes so I bought an import 120 degree 1/4" HSS spot drill from Enco. This thing is a POS. The chisel tip is about .0625" wide and the angles are all wrong for cutting metal. I tried drilling a couple test spots with it and it chattered badly. Just what you want in a spot drill right? I went to Western Tool this morning and got a couple good quality 90 .125" degree spot drills. It's pretty obvious from looking at these that the Enco spot drill is crap. I'm going to call and try to return it today.
Chris
http://www.hossmachine.info - Gosh, you've... really got some nice toys here. - Roy Batty -- http://www.g0704.com - http://www.bf20.com - http://www.g0602.com