[UniqueMachining]

Managed to convince John at Novakon that he needed someone to test the new PULSAR. So we installed the prototype in my shop.
In return for an advanced look see, I agreed to document the shakedown cruise.


First some general impressions.

1. Lever draw bar:
In my opinion is the greatest time and agravation saver. Memories of climbing up on a milk create (no short jokes required) with my trusty ratchet and spindle wrench, contorting my fingers to prevent the tool from self destructing as it falls on the work, GONE. A one finger pull on the lever, the tool is out, insert new tool and release. Two seconds max. Consider a job requiring 5 tool changes of 30 seconds each (vs. 2 seconds), by my reckoning you save 2 minutes 20 seconds (mount & dismount of the milk crate excluded). See previously posted utube video and yes thats my arm.

2. Calibration:
You may recall from my series 1 rebuild, we had to tune the steps per inch on each axis to achieve the desired accuracy. Not so for the servo equipped Pulsar. 14" moves ( on X) are repeatable, with barely a needle flicker (<.00025). Backlash less than .001.

3. Axis Movement:
Have asked John to induce some noise on axis moves (like a a keyboard click), there just too damn quiet not to mentiion smooth.

4. Sloped coolant tray plus spray hose is amazing. All coolant is directed to the center collector where it flows through the first filter (very fine) and onto a second filter then into the coolant tank. Anytime the chips accumulate just spray them away. Particularly handy for accumulations under a vise.
Can't see any way of running short of coolant mid job. Now that the coolant is filtered there should be far less chance of plugging my reduced diameter coolant tips.

I have attached links to videos of two sample probing operations (of the many avaialble) utilizing the MSM screen set. Very comprehensive set of probing operations yet simple to implement. Also threw in a couple of shots of after probing screens and pics of the enclosure I'm building including a verticle self rising sliding door. Once completed we'll get to cutting some serious chips.

Stay tuned!

VID Probe Rectangle For CenterX,Y - YouTube
VID MSM Probe Circle Center - YouTube

[LeeWay]

Wow, that is quiet.

Looking good.

[UniqueMachining]

Pulsar Prototype Update May 15 2013

Sorry for the delayed update but as expected with a prototype a few glitches crawled out of the woodwork. Fortunately they were readily identified, fixes developed and the changes were sent to the factory for production. The modular design simplified the process.

I have attached some pics and video of our first test part. Lakesnake was kind enough to share his code for the “Nonsense Part”. This is the same part he tested his Torus Pro with and posted a video of same.

Apologize for the poor quality videos (cell phone) and the glare from the spindle light. Basically we wanted to demonstrate the smooth cutting and 2.5d capabilities.

Next test will be cutting the parts for the reduced size Mill Turn fixtures. This will consist of a four lathe tool holder and a five QC tool holder for mills, drills etc.

Looking good!

John




First Step 1/4" FEM Part-1:
Nonsense Part Step1 .250 FEM PART-1 - YouTube

First Step 1/4" FEM Part-2:
Nonsense Part Step1 .250 FEM PART-2 - YouTube

Second Step 1/4" BEM
Nonsense Part Step2 .250 BEM - YouTube

[thatotherguy]

Looks nice

Sent from my XT897 using Tapatalk 2

[rlockwood]

Needs to be cutting aluminum, atleast

[Dylwad]

Or bump the feedrates way up on the wood.

Sent from tapatalk

[UniqueMachining]

Feeds and speeds were for aluminum. Code was originally for the Torus Pro.
Wanted to ease into it. so wood seemed a safe way.
Will redo in aluminum shortly.

John

[UniqueMachining]

Novakon PULSAR Prototype Update May 18 2013

As promised, reran the nonsense part in aluminium.
Due to coolant use, you can't see much but it will give a general impression
The feeds and speeds are the same as those used on the Torus Pro.
Did not bother posting with the finish BEM pass as I had to watch some paint dry.

Finish et all was quite good. (see individual pics.)

The last picture includes an example of what not to do. My Y offset was incorrect and it ploughed through the part at .43 DOC and 15-20 IPM. Hellishly noisy but no stoppage or breakage. I'm thinking that might be a tad aggressive!

Can anyone recommend a free, basic video imaging software program for deleting sections and adding captions.

Stay tuned.

John

Nonsense Part FEM1 - YouTube
Nonsense Part FEM2 - YouTube
Nonsense Part FEM4 - YouTube

[UniqueMachining]

In my rush to post the pics and video's, forgot to point out that the table & trays are remarkably free of swarf and coolant.
The table has two exits, one at each end. The pics are after 15-20 minutes of cutting.
On my old series 1 or two, the table would be somewhat clogged with swarf.
Gone are the days of running low on coolant.
Also no more clogged loc lines, as the coolant is double filtered.
Kudos to Novakon, a much "more better" system.
One more picture of the end of the table after 15-20 minutes of cutting.

[UniqueMachining]

First Production Part

For initial testing, I decided to fabricate a scaled down version of the Mill Turn fixtures. They will be functionally equivalent to the Torus Pro versions only smaller. In this video we demo a real life situation involving slotting, drilling, mill drilling and rigid tapping. The feeds, speeds and DOC's are quite conservative for this part (partially due to no coolant). I'll gradually become more aggressive as my comfort level increases.

While I normally run full coolant, for clarity you will notice only spray lube. To save time only part of each sequence is shown. However the tool changes are shown in their entirety because they are so quick. I do appreciate the speedy tool changes. There are also 3 pics, 2 showing the part prior to machining and the last, the final product. The next part will be 4 lathe tool holders.

Stay tuned.

John


4 Lathe Tool Holder Top Plate - YouTube

[UniqueMachining]

PULSAR - Final Report

With the completion of this part (4 Lathe Tool Holders), the shakedown cruise is complete.

There were fewer glitches than I originally expected, probably due to the Pulsars lineage. The Pulsar incorporates the best of the Torus and incorporates numerous improvements.

Coolant System: A+

The sloped tray and wings quickly directs the coolant through two very fine screens and back to the tank. After a couple of partial days of cutting, I pulled out the first filter and simply dumped the chips. The second filter had so few chips, it wasn't worth touching. You may have noticed from the various videos, I run up to three coolant lines. The nozzles vary in size from #44 (.0860) to 3/32 (.0938). They have proven to be superior at chip evacuation due to the increased pressure. However on other machines they did suffer from clogging due to chips being re-circulated in the coolant. Happily, due no doubt to the very fine screening, I have not had a single clog on the Pulsar. The addition of a separate spray hose makes end of day clean up a breeze. Also great for clearing the table of those pesky chips that insist on blocking the T-slots, during long jobs.
On the subject of coolant hoses, Novakon has sourced flexible metal hoses to replace the ubiquitous plastic lock lines. They will become standard shortly.

Lever Draw Bar: A+

As previously documented, I no longer require a milk crate to stand on, for tool changes. In my humble opinion its the greatest thing since sliced bread. I was just plain tired of the two wrench, one finger tool change. Testing indicated a different combination of belleville washers which resulted in more force required to activate. No biggy, still beats the hell out of the wrench method.
It is one of those features where you shake your head and wonder why it hasn't always been this way.

Rigid Tapping: A+

As you can see on the videos its very effective. Every hole is uniform, no burrs no tight spots.
The savings in manual time not to mention accuracy is a welcome addition. Novakon has implemented their own routine for this function. The breakout board transparently switches to 4th axis mode to co-ordinated Z movement and the spindle rotation. The result is simplicity in programming and infinite flexibility. Want a 10-24 tap 1" deep, program: Z-1 A24, Z1 A-24.
Actually there are a couple of more lines of code (G91, Fxx...), simple stuff really. The servo spindle motor really does perform flawlessly and 1.5 HP has the power to chew through just about anything.

Servo Axis Motors: A+

Having 1 HP servos at your disposal leads to quiet, super accurate not to mention fast movement. No more lost steps without your knowing it. If you can force them to fault (you've probably crashed), they will stop Mach and there will be no doubt you've messed up.
The smooth movement no doubt contributes to the finish as well. All the parts were face milled prior to running. As shown in the videos and pictures, the finish is more than acceptable. For the last video the rapids were set to 150 IPM. I wouldn't hesitate to say that the smooth movement also allows faster feeds &/or DOC's For example, one of the popular feeds and speeds programs calls for 7 IPM for the 1/8" carbide FEM at 4500 RPM and .0312 DOC. In the last video we are running 20 IPM and its sounds sweet. (No 40 IPM won't cut it, don't ask why I know). Listening to the videos, all the cuts just sound unstrained. As I become braver, I will try even more aggressive cuts.

Fit and Finish: A

Everything is powder coated and has that clean crisp look. The sheet metal work appears well formed and fitted. As part of our shakdown we had occasion to remove the gibbs and check them out. They were well fabricated and obviously had been scraped. Not something I would normally expect from an offshore product.

Recommendations for Improvements:

Surprisingly I can think of only two improvements.
1. Multi coolant delivery tubes. ( In process).
2. A spindle mounted annular LED light. ( I use a Princess Auto spindle light and would not be without it.

Kudos Novakon, I predict this will be a top seller!

John

4 Lathe Tool Holders - YouTube

[AUSTINMACHINING]

Great review John,
Love the rigid tapping capability. I'm intrigued by the lathe tool holder/vertical lathe idea as I have many applications requiring tubing with o-ring grooves etc. In there a CAM resource for generating Gcode or is it all done manually ?. I know nothing about lathe tools, and very little of manual Gcode generation.

Thanks,
Matt

[UniqueMachining]

Matt

Apparently there are a limited number of lathe CAM packages but I have no experience with them. Everything I have done on the mill & lathe has been hand coded.
On the lathe I have generated some code from the wizards and modified it and included it in my programs.

I do use MSM (Mach Std Mill) from Calypso Ventures, Inc. on both the mills & lathe. MSM is an alternate screen set (supersized) for Mach3.
It goes far beyond just being a screen set and provides many additional options.

1. Mill set
2. Lathe set (Free)
3. Mill-Turn set (pro Edition)
The Mill-Turn set actually runs "lathe G-Code" natively on a mill.

The tools that are shown in this post videos, are being fabricated for Mill-Turn.
They are essentially the same tools made for the Torus Pro or Series 1,2,3, (see series 1 re-build post), just scaled down.

I do own a copy of Visual Mill but have not had the time to learn it.
Took a couple of stabs at it but like CAD (Alibre) will probably require some assistance to get going.
There is also a version for lathes "Visual Turn" with a retail price of $1250. A little steep unless your planning production.
Perhaps another user will pipe up with a less expensive lathe cam solution.

John

[AUSTINMACHINING]

Thanks. That's what I neede to know.

[kvom]

I'd suggest CamBam as an easy-to-learn, inexpensive CAM product. I've been using it on my NM200 exclusively, other than for occasional MDI drilling.

The rigid tapping code could be generated by CB by modifying the mach post-processor.

[UniqueMachining]

Kvom

Thanks for the info. Will check it out.

John

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Isn't CamBam for milling only? It's also rather limited, in that it only allows one tool per job.

If you already have VisualMill, you'd be well off to learn how to use it. For milling, SheetCAM is very easy to learn, and inexpensive. I think Dolphin is about the cheapest reasonable CAD/CAM for lathe work. You can use the free version of LazyCAM for lathe - LazyTurn (comes with Mach3), but I've always found it to be REALLY squirrelly.

Regards,
Ray L.

[LeeWay]

If I am not mistaken, Mach 3 cannot do rigid tapping correctly the normal way that would be output by a Cam software. I use Sheetcam and it produces nice rigid taping code that Mach 3 should be able to use.
The issue with mine was that the spindle started turn prior to the Z axis moving up.
That would mess up the threads.
I have a subroutine that I use on my Torus. Got that from John.
It is adjustable for different taps, depths, speeds and pitches. It works great. Syncs up the spindle and Z perfectly.
I generally tap at least a few holes, so using sheetcam to generate the initial tap positions also helps. So, I use Sheetcam and the subroutine in conjunction.

[LeeWay]

I use Dolphin turn. You can request a hobby copy of it cheaper. I think they even advertise that now.

[UniqueMachining]

Thanks for the suggestions.
I will check them out.

John