[Galane]

I'm removing all the useless manual and power feed parts from the head on my Acra mill. It's always been CNC so those parts have never been used. I recently had a look at a 1980's CNC BP and it had none of the manual parts installed, with cover plates on all the holes. Would've been better if they'd simply not machined any of those places.

That got me to wondering why some company hasn't made a much simpler J Head clone that has none of that and no provisions to have any of it? The casting would be so much simpler with only one big hole up through it for the quill and a slot in the front for attaching the quill to a ball screw. Without all those other holes, the head would have to be stiffer.

Just copy the old bosses on the front which motor and screw mounts fasten to (because how stuff mounts to the front has become pretty much a standard) then all the lumps, bumps and holes everywhere else could be smoothed away for a simpler, less costly and better looking casting. Keep the top mounting flange and bolt pattern the same so regular drive systems can mount on, same as they do on the manual head.

Cost savings would come from easier and quicker sand mold preparation, most likely using a bit less iron, and far, far less machining work than all the milling, turning, boring and threading that's required for all the holes where the manual parts go.

Even the quill would cost less to produce because cutting the rack teeth would be omitted.

If some more complexity is desired, do a design with an integral mounting for the Z axis motor and ballscrew. That would make it simpler to seal things up for keeping crud and chips out. Could sell semi-finished heads with a fitted quill, ready to accept a standard BP spindle, and the motor and screw mount parts un-machined.

Such a plain head might inspire some clever person to redesign the mechanical power down feed with a much less Rube Goldberg/Heath Robinson styled system. I look at that setup with all its little parts and four right angle changes of direction and think there has to be a simpler way.

[mactec54]

Galane

I used to do them just like you have described, here are some photos, I did other changes as well, this one in the photos has 5" off the top of the head, it has no holes plates Etc