[SCzEngrgGroup]

Today I received two pallets of "goodies" from Novakon. The first contained a pre-production sample of the new Pulsar-style stand and chip trays for the Torus Pro. This new stand is nearly identical to the one on the Pulsar, only larger. Coolant return is via a HUGE opening directly under the machine base. Coolant an chips flow into a chip separator, where the chips are trapped, while the coolant drips through a screen and back into the large coolant reservoir (I'm guessing 10+ gallons?) in the bottom of the base. The chips are easily removed by simply sliding the chip tray out through the front door on the base, and dumping it out. Like the Pulsar, it has two coolant pumps mounted in the reservoir.

I also received the servo kit to upgrade my Torus Pro from steppers to servos. I'm debating whether to install it now, or wait a while until things are less busy.

Last, but far from least, is I received a pre-production Pulsar to use for PDB/ATC development. The Pulsar is a VERY nice looking machine. The White and Blue color scheme is very attractive, and the machine appears very nicely made, with many of the "painted" parts powder coated. The Pulsar looks quite small next to the Torus Pro, but should be a very nice size for many shops.

I rented a fork lift for the day to facilitate getting the two pallets up the looooong driveway to my shop, and to transfer the Torus Pro from its old base to its new base, and to get the Pulsar off the pallet and into its new home. Both machines are now back "on their own feet", and mostly what remains is attaching the side trays and other enclosure bits. Unfortunately, the Torus Pro trays took a beating in transit, but nothing a little hammer and dolly work, and a few quick welds won't fix. I'll be out of town the next two days, but hope to have both machines fully back together and operating by end of day Tuesday.

Here are a few pictures from today. First, the Pulsar in its (very tall) crate:

Attachment 207724

The Pulsar sitting in its new home, still on the pallet
Attachment 207726

And, finally, in its final resting place, facing the Torus Pro
Attachment 207728

Here's the new Torus Pro base, with the chip tray removed. You can see the dual coolant pumps, and the very large reservoir. The chip separator drawer is removed. I'll get some pictures of that on Tuesday.
Attachment 207730

Here's my preferred method of lifting the Torus Pro - lift the rear by the pipe through the column, resting on the forks. The front is supported by a cargo strap between the two lifting eyes. This is very secure, and makes it really easy to level the mill front-to-back by simply adjusting the cargo strap. I wouldn't do it any other way. Requires FAR less vertical clearance than lifting by chains from above.
Attachment 207732

Here I am trying to figure out how the !#$%^&* to get the machine onto the new stand.
Attachment 207734

And here it is resting on the new stand. It was actually quite a bugger getting the thing bolted down, because the holes in the base were mis-located. Most of the day was spent getting the Pro on the new stand, and very little on getting the Pulsar moved and setup. There's a reason we do pre-production builds! :-) The production version should be very nice indeed!
Attachment 207736

More on Tuesday, when I get everything back together and running!

Regards,
Ray L.

[LeeWay]

Wow! Did I ever make the right decision with the TORUS! The Pro is way too much machine for me.

I can't imagine that the Torus will be too small for anything I might need to do. I have 20" travel on my HF column geared head mill.
That should cover it.


SO.........you are dang near ready to prduce a PDB for the Pular? I assume it will also fit the Torus? For a mild discount, I'd be willing to Beta test it.

[ivans]

Any prediction on when the new stand will be included in the Pro package? I'm on the fence about which model to get, but the new stand and chip tray might be worth waiting for.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Wow! Did I ever make the right decision with the TORUS! The Pro is way too much machine for me.

I can't imagine that the Torus will be too small for anything I might need to do. I have 20" travel on my HF column geared head mill.
That should cover it.


SO.........you are dang near ready to prduce a PDB for the Pular? I assume it will also fit the Torus? For a mild discount, I'd be willing to Beta test it.

Lee,

Yes, I'll be doing a PDB for the Pulsar very soon.

Regards,
Ray L.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Any prediction on when the new stand will be included in the Pro package? I'm on the fence about which model to get, but the new stand and chip tray might be worth waiting for.

You'll have too ask Novakon about that...

Regards,
Ray L.

[Novakon]

More details.....

We would like to take this opportunity to expand the discussion on our newest accessory to the Torus PRO. As all of our followers are aware, we have been working with Santa Cruz Eng Group to develop new and improved features for our flagship mill. You have seen the PDB now in production, and very soon you will see the ATC in its development. All these accessories can be added at any time to the basic Torus PRO.

We have now released for beta testing a new stand for the Torus PRO. So far, we believe we have found the new design useful to both the novice as well as the experienced machinist. We have been listening to all of our customers' comments and have come up with this composite design. Initially it was designed for the Pulsar, and now it is carried forward for the Torus PRO. No more running out of coolant, chips clogging the hoses or nozzles, and finally a clean up spray hose to wash your chips away.

As Ray has indicated, dual heavy pumps are added to move coolant fast and hard. One pump has been dedicated for the mill and another just to spay the mess away. A large bath of coolant can flow down the sloped pan to the center column, producing a waterfall of debris into the chip collector drawer. Simply pull out the drawer and shovel the chips out to your scrap bin! Further drainage into a huge 10-gallon plus tank will keep you flowing with coolant without interruption. Let's not forget the powder coated finish and professional sheet metal processing that will make your new mill a truly completely contained work center.

The new stand production is in process and will be available very soon. It will be offered as an upgraded enhancement over the original version. We know that not everyone will need the advanced stand, so we will have the original stand as well. The new stand will be offered at an additional cost over the package mill price. We will offer our previous customers a limited time offer to purchase the new generation stand at a preferred price. This will also be true for those wanting to buy the Torus PRO now and wanting to add the new stand at a later date. A special promotional price will be offered to new customers who have already pre-purchased the Torus Pro and who wish to upgrade. So, don't worry about buying your mill ahead of time before the new toys come out. We will have more details regarding this offer very soon through our sales department.

We would like to thank everyone who has contributed the great ideas and suggestions that went into this new design. Your input was valuable and appreciated. We will continue to consider in all of our future designs, the need to make future upgrades truly "retro fit" for our loyal customers wishing to keep their mill up to date.

Thanks and regards,

Novakon Team

[kvom]

Would the new stand work with the NM200 as well?

[Novakon]

Thanks for the very good question and the answer is....absolutely!

We have already considered this "retro fit" capability and it will be compatible with the NM-200 series of mills. The design change we implemented into the production stand versus the demo beta stand will allow for these variable mounting dimensions. All of the older NM-200 mills had the stands custom drilled to their mating stand so naturally, variations from mill to mill will exist.

This also leads us to the question... will the Pulsar stand be available for the Torus and NM-145s? The design of the Pulsar stand is compatible with the foot print of the Torus and NM-145 and can, at some point be available as a "retro kit" for the older mills in this class. We are looking at this capability as well. We will need to have an indication of demand from our customers before stocking hardware.

Regards,
Novakon team

[LeeWay]

I am pretty satisfied with the stand on the Torus. That is once I modified it to have a larger front drain. I find that the whole coolant system that shipped with it does a fine job. I for one, would not be considering an upgraded stand. While it is very nice, if mine ain't broke, I ain't gonna fix it.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Today I got the Pulsar setup and running. One nice thing about the Pulsar is it is delivered setup on its stand, so once it's off the pallet, there's very little that needs to be done to get it operating - much less than any other machine I've setup. It was really a piece of cake - about 15 minutes to wire up a power cord, and about 20-30 minutes to assemble the side trays to the base. Plugged it in, powered it up, and everything works perfectly! The AC servos are incredibly quiet - almost completely silent at normal cutting speeds.

The Pulsar is, overall, a very nice machine. Great features, and the build quality seems "a notch above" most other Chinese-made machines to me. It's very nice looking, and the powder-coated finish should be very durable. The design of the base and trays is great, and the AC servos are fast and quiet. I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs, once I get a chance to do some cutting on it. I'm especially looking forward to seeing how it performs relative to the Torus Pro.

Attachment 208178

I spent the rest of the day setting up the new base for the Torus Pro. Unfortunately, it was damaged in transit, so I had to do some straightening and welding to get it back into shape. But, once that was done, it went together quite easily, even working alone. The design is much better than the old one in several important respects. In particular, there are fewer pieces, which means fewer seams, which means fewer potential leaks. More importantly, all the joints where it might leak basically form labyrinth seals, so I expect this base/tray assembly to be pretty much leak-proof. Of course, the coolant return path to the pumps is MUCH better, and nearly all opportunities for coolant to "pool" have been eliminated. With the dedicated wash-down pump and hose, clean-up should be a piece of cake. I haven't yet got the pumps wired, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it performs with coolant. I'm expecting it to be very good.

Attachment 208180 Attachment 208182 Attachment 208184 Attachment 208186 Attachment 208188

Regards,
Ray L.

[Hirudin]

I'm very interested in that new Torus Pro stand! Put me on the list for sure! How much is that going to run us?

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I've been tinkering with the Pulsar in my spare time. As this machine is pre-production, it was not fully setup by Novakon, as it would be were it being shipped to a real customer. This has afforded me the opportunity to do much of the pre-shipment "fettling" that Novakon would normally do, to really get it performing at its best. This means I've taken numerous things apart, and played around with the Mach3 configuration, and gotten very familiar with how it's all put together, and how it all works. I have to say I'm quite impressed so far. The overall quality of the machine is very good, despite not being a production unit. The fit and finish is better than any of my previous mills. I especially like the powder-coated finish, and the two-tone (white and dark blue) color scheme. It's a very attractive machine, and solidly built, with only a few pretty minor issues that I know have been sorted out in the production units.

The electronics are really nicely done, just as on the Torus Pro. Everything is very neat and tidy, and very high quality. It's really quite easy to figure out what's what in the E-box, and to understand how it's all connected together. The E-box itself is very nice - lots of room in there, and much nicer quality latches on the door than on the Torus Pro (though I believe the Pro will be switching to the same latches very soon).

Performance-wise, it's pretty impressive. Just for grins, I decided to push the performance to the limit, to see what it can really do. I bumped the Mach3 kernel frequency up to 100KHz (something few PCs can do), and it seems to run perfectly happily there. While it came configured for VERY conservative performance - 25KHz kernel, 200 IPM rapids, 15 in/sec2 acceleration - I've played around with it quite a bit now running 500 IPM rapids and 50 in/sec2 acceleration, and it's performed flawlessly! And even at those speeds, it's VERY quiet. And, BTW - the Pulsar uses the same AC servos and drivers as the Torus Pro, so you'll never, ever have to worry about whether you have enough power on the axis drives!

As I received it, the spindle had a pretty serious vibration at any speed above 2000 RPM. This turned out to something trivial - apparently the factory ran out of set screws to secure the spindle motor pulley to the motor shaft, so they used a bloody HUGE, long Allen bolt instead. I replaced that with a set-screw, and, after running it in for a while to get the toothed belt broken in, the spindle is now considerably smoother and quieter than even the one on my Torus Pro (albeit a bit slower, at 4500RPM max vs 6000RPM on the Pro). Even at the same RPMs, the Pulsar is noticeably quieter.

The "Lever Drawbar" is a really nice feature for those who can live with using TTS tooling almost exclusively. It makes toolchanges VERY quick (perhaps even quicker than the PDB!). But, if you need to swap in an R8 tool, it is kind of a hassle, as the LDB needs to be removed from the machine to access the drawbar manually.

This morning I finally had a little time to finish getting the Pulsar setup and fully ready to make parts. It's now got a full tank of coolant, and I just spent the last two hours putting a cheezy shower curtain enclosure around it (stolen from my old knee-mill, and suitably reduced in size....). Tomorrow I hope to use it to make its first real part - a switch plate for the Torus Pro. I'll have to spring for a new, smaller vise, as my 6" Glacern is WAY too big for this machine. I also hope in the next few days to do some "torture tests", to see what this machine is capable of, in terms of heavy roughing, assuming I can work out suitable work-holding.

Attachment 208854

I've finally got my shop all put back together, and got the Torus Pro fully up and running. Yesterday I re-located the oil pump from the left side of the column, to the left front side of the base (as it comes stock on the Pulsar), which is not only far more convenient, but gets out of the way of the ATC. This will be a standard feature of the production version of the "upgraded" Torus Pro base.

The new base, trays and coolant system are wonderful - a HUGE improvement. I can't wait to see the production version. The two coolant pumps are much larger and more powerful than the single pump that came with the Pro. They appear to have enough flow and pressure that I suspect I won't feel the need to put my old 1000GPH sump pump on the machine. Having the dedicated pump for the built-on washdown nozzle, is also going to be really nice, and make cleanup enormously faster and easier.

What I REALLY want to do next is build a proper "hard" enclosure for the Pro, and then for the Pulsar. I have a design rattling around in my head, that would include two large, inset sliding doors on the front, and removeable side panels, which would provide excellent containment, and really good access for cleaning and maintenance. There will be enough Plexiglas to provide very good visibilty.

Regards,
Ray L.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I'm starting to be pretty darned impressed with this machine! I just started doing the first serious cutting, and it's turning out to be a VERY capable little machine! It seems perfectly happy taking some pretty aggressive cuts. I haven't yet explored the ultimate boundaries, but it seems quite content doing full slotting with a 1/2" endmill at a DOC of 0.250", and 15 IPM! Plenty of spindle power, and more than enough rigidity to handle it, and the surface finish is very good. I know it can be pushed further. I'll have to try to figure out some workholding that will allow me to make samples of some of the more challenging PDB parts on the Pulsar, and see how the performance, and surface finish compare to the Pro. I expect it will come out smelling like a rose.

The new trays and coolant system are really a treat! It's now sooooooo easy to clean up the machine, I'll be FAR more likely to do it more often. After doing a few test cuts, it only took 2-3 minutes to hose down the entire machine, and have it looking just like it did before I started. I can't over-emphasize what a HUGE improvement this is over the typical machine where you have to push and sweep the chips to a small drain, and STILL have chips and coolant in all the corners and nooks and crannies. Here you just pick up the washdown hose, and wave it around, and the chips just find their way to that ginormous drain opening under the machine, and disappear - really sweet!

Regards,
Ray L.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Wow! This thing is REALLY nice! I just made a simple little part - a 2" x 4" x 1/8" switch plate for the Torus Pro. It came out perfect on the first try, and the machine is surprisingly quiet even when cutting. I will definitely make good use of the machine! It's a shame most of my production fixtures are too large for it. I may have to re-design a few of them, so I can get two machines running in parallel....

Regards,
Ray L.

[kvom]

Was that 1/2x.25 slot in aluminum or steel? Carbide?

I haven't cleaned my NM200 enclosure in a while, mainly because it's hard to reach everywhere. I'll definitely be interested in replacing the NM200 cabinet with a new one if it has the chip container and washdown hose. I've given up using coolant because of the mess, and now am using airblast. Coolant without the mess would be nice.

[LeeWay]

I find that a large 4" paint brush makes pilling the chips up for removal pretty easy, though obviously not as nice as a wash down.

Then a narrow dust pan (make your own if you can't find one) works well to scoop them out.
Remember spotless or chip free isn't the goal here. Simply removing the piles of chips is all that is needed. I cannot imagine machining without coolant. I'd have to retrain myself as far as programming known good tool feeds and speeds for both my machines.

My 80/20 home made mill has to move a little slower than the Torus for some steel parts due to rigidity differences, but otherwise use the same feeds and speeds for the most part. The Torus could do better, but the need isn't there and I get long life from the tools by erring on the minimal side for the Torus, which is the maximum for the 80/20. It eliminates some of the head scratching moments when figuring feeds and speeds for me.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Was that 1/2x.25 slot in aluminum or steel? Carbide?

6061 with a HSS tool. Carbide would not be of much help, as the max spindle speed is 4500 RPM.

Regards,
Ray L.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Today I almost got my new servo kit installed on the Torus Pro. It's almost all back together but I've got a few hours work to finish the electronics. I had thought the mechanical part of the conversion would be the most time-consuming, but it turned out to be quite straight-forward. Basically just un-bolt the motors and mounting plates, remove them, and replace with the new ones. An alignment "jig" is provided to get the mounting plates properly aligned to the ballscrews. The whole operation - all three axes - probably took about 90 minutes.

The electronics is taking longer, in part because of changes I'd made to my machine, like adding the KFlop, which now just barely fits in the available space where the Novakon BOB lives. Doing the conversion on an older Torus Pro, like mine, also requires cutting some holes to get the motor encoder cables into the column. This involved removing the sheet-metal side plates from the column, and cutting three 1" holes - two on the LH panel (for Y & Z encoders), and one on the RH panel (for X encoder). Having the Pulsar made this easy - I just used it, and cut the holes with a 1/4" endmill. I believe the next production run will have these holes added at the factory.

Here's what my E-box looked like around lunchtime today:

Attachment 209326

And here's what it looked like by dinner time:

Attachment 209328

Most of the AC wiring is done and checked out, the PC is up and running, as is the KFlop. The BOB seems unhappy about something - no doubt something simple that will get sorted out quickly in the AM. The servo drives are all wired up, but need to be checked out. The VFD is wired except for the AC input, which will be the next thing I check out once I get the BOB cooperating. with luck, it'll all be up and running before lunch tomorrow.

I was a little reluctant to do this right now, as the steppers have worked so flawlessly these last 10 months. I won't really gain any real performance from the servos - faster rapids are possible, but I don't intend to run them full-out (even the steppers would run 350 IPM!). But it will be nice having the near silent operation, as on the Pulsar.

The Pulsar continues to impress me. It really is a very nice machine, and is also proving very reliable. And it is sooooooo quiet!

Regards,
Ray L.

[jid2]

When you know your programs are reliable it is nice to have the rapids as fast as mechanically possible. The servos will do 500 IPM right?

[SCzEngrgGroup]

When you know your programs are reliable it is nice to have the rapids as fast as mechanically possible. The servos will do 500 IPM right?

That's only true up to a point. On a machine this size, it would be a rare program indeed where running 500 IPM rapids will return more than a VERY slight reduction in run time. On a "typical" program of mine, it would result in perhaps a minute or two per hour at best, compared to running 200 IPM. But the opportunity for disaster (crashes, broken tools, ruined work) goes up considerably at such high speed. Screaming fast rapids are really only a benefit on machines capable of much higher overall performance. On machines like these, it's mostly only for bragging rights, not actual thoughput.

Regards,
Ray L,