[TiagoSantos]

Yup, I was the one taking a lot of unnecessary middle steps in my conversion

I ended up with the DMM 400w AC servos on all 3 axis, with 3:1 ratios and couldn't be happier. It has worked flawlessly from day 1, no faults, no issues, nothing, ever! Considering how rushed some of the conversion was, I can't tell you how pleasantly surprised I am that despite not being particularly careful about anything, I haven't had a single electrical problem (well, other than the blown drives from a shorted wire, I think I detailed all of that a couple posts back). The DMM breakout board, the smoothstepper, the VFD, everything has worked incredibly well!

I ended up not taking pictures of the PDB last night as I took it all apart. I had to replace the spindle and motor pulleys (basically swap them around) to increase the max spindle speed. I also took the opportunity to swap in the new spindle, with the AC bearings. The spindle feels perfect when I move it by hand, and running at slow speeds (say 300-400rpm) it's very quiet. When I go above 500rpm, there's an audible knocking sound, but I can't figure out where that's coming from. At 1500-2000rpm the sound is fairly loud, much louder than I think it should be. Might be from the pulleys/belt, or the bearing that holds the spline drive on the top of the head.. It really doesn't feel like the spindle itself, but I guess I could have messed up a bearing during the install.

[TiagoSantos]

Here are a couple videos of the drawbar.. Pretty self explanatory, I hope!

RF45 pneumatic drawbar tool change - YouTube

RF45 lever type power drawbar - YouTube

[TiagoSantos]

So I've been using the machine on and off for the last 6 months without any major problems. Haven't actually used it as much as I wanted to, but between rebuilding the race car last year and crazy amounts of work this year, I haven't had much time for projects. And there are so many projects...!

The past few days the thought of starting to work ON the machine again (rather than making parts on it..) has been lingering on my mind, stronger and stronger. The machine works, but travel is limited and mechanically, it's just not great. The ways are terrible (very sloppy, which means running the gibs VERY tight, which means lots of "stiction"). The ballscrews, ballnut mounts and bearing mounts all need to be redone. I have new ballscrews and double ballnuts ready for the new table/saddle/base assembly, and finally seem to be getting in the mood to get those things done.

I was considering scraping the ways - found a local guy who can teach me, or help with the scraping - for a fee, of course. But in the last couple of days, the urge to convert the X and Y assembly to linear bearings is starting to get a lot stronger. I already have 2 pairs of rails and 4 pairs of bearing blocks I can use. THK SR20 rails, which would work perfectly for this. I think it would be possible to machine the pockets and some slots for the rails and bearing blocks on my current machine, but I don't quite trust my machine to give me parallel surfaces. I have to think about this a little bit, but considering the overtime I'm putting in at work, I'd actually rather pay for someone to do it right.

I'll hopefully come back and post on this thread soon with some more interesting news

[TiagoSantos]

Oh look, it's been almost exactly 2 years! Guess what I just started.. Attachment 302962

Machining super long slots with relative accuracy on a frankenstein machine like mine is a bit of a silly idea, to be honest. I won't even begin to detail how much freaking work this is to get right, compared to doing it all in one setup at a large mill. I do somewhat have access to shops with very large machines but I'm lazy, stubborn and some would say slightly masochistic. We'll see how this turns out, but however badly I mess these castings up, it's hard to imagine they'll be any more useless than they were sitting at the corner of my shop for 3 years. I expect this will take a few months, probably a year before it's all assembled into anything useful, but who knows!

[LeeWay]

I have a machine here that I would like to do this to as well. Bye Bye Dovetails.
Good luck with it.

[TiagoSantos]

Thanks Lee.. Sketching this all up in CAD and having a clear plan would help a ton. But that's not the way I work, I guess. I have a fairly clear plan in my head, but it's pretty fluid. heh...

[CL_MotoTech]

You should be working on the FB, Tiago.

- Chris Livengood

[TiagoSantos]

You should be working on the FB, Tiago.

- Chris Livengood

Haha! It was a FV Sold the race car a couple months ago, which is why I have time to think about this stuff now.. Selling the car was a bit like buying it - best and worst decision at the same time.

[CL_MotoTech]

I thought you had a Van Diemen based car at some point...

I'm not racing as much as I like either, but it sure frees up a lot of time! Race car prep may be the most time consuming thing I have ever done.