[hayes]

Beautiful work. I've got the hair-brained idea of converting the X and Y axis of my old Novakon NM200 (previous version of the Torus Pro) to linear rails. This is just fuel for the fire.

What machine are you using to do the machining work on the little Grizzly?

All the best,
Josh

[gcofieldd]

Scott, sorry to hear about your machine, but I am excited to see this upgrade done This explains why you haven't sent me the 1100W motor plate, lol.

[oxi]

Looks really good! I still want to see it working with the spindle on though

[BTP]

Finished it all up this afternoon. It's better than it has ever been. The Z is so smooth that when I power it down the Z drifts down. I guess I need to look into a motor brake. (See video). The Z is so much more rigid now. I used to get this weird resonance/vibration around 4000-4500 RPM. After installing the new linear rails, its now non existent. As you can see from the video, I max out at 230ipm. Keep in mind, I have a very heavy 2hp 56C spindle motor up there as well as some heavy steel pulleys. Also its all running on a basic Keling 6050 drivers and 570oz motor. I think if I were to upgrade to the digital drive, I would be able to increase this significantly. With the stock dovetail ways, I could get a MAX of 70ipm without stalling the 570oz motor. All this being said I think weakest link at this point is now the 570oz. At the very most I will upgrade to the digital drive as these rapid speeds are quite fast for such a small machine.

All in all, it was 100% worth the time and money to make the upgrade, and I will be doing the other two axis as soon as time/business permits.

Some pics and videos.

Rapid Speed
https://youtu.be/R7gfkvoA-aw

Backlash=0 (Very happy about this, my other setup I had about .004")
https://youtu.be/XB9AdiDfTyU

Drifting issue
https://youtu.be/R0RVvofpp00

[BTP]

The last picture is the first op on our X2 mini-mill baseplate. Just an FYI.

[oxi]

Awesome! Specially the speed gain, considering how heavy that spindle must be. Do keep us updated. I'm specially interested in those automatic brakes you mentioned and how exactly you performed the backlash test.

[BTP]

I turned the Z back to 120ipm to match the X&Y. Once I do the rails on those axis, I will crank it up. I might upgrade to a Ethernet smooth stepper too. We'll see. If built properly these machines can be very accurate and reliable.

[CS900]

how's the alignment of the Z relative to the table now? you end up having to shim the column at all?

[BTP]

Better than it was before. I have a 12" height gage that I set on the table and I trammed the column to that. The Y was out about .002" that I needed to shim, and the X doesn't really matter because I can "manipulate" that with a mallet 😊. After I had the column trammed to the table I mounted the head and trammed the head to the table. The Y took a .004" shim between the vertical slide and the head itself. Again the X doesn't matter because I can bump it around.

[BTP]

@hayes I did all the machine work on a manual Bridgeport (knee mill)

Also if any of you guys are on instagram you can follow me @btp7

[SCzEngrgGroup]

A couple of gas springs would prevent the head drop when power is turned off, and also likely enable faster rapids.

Regards,
Ray L.

[BTP]

Ray, yeah I thought of that too. I'm just happy to finally have a solid Z axis to work with. I appreciate the idea

[phomann]

@hayes I did all the machine work on a manual Bridgeport (knee mill)

Also if any of you guys are on instagram you can follow me @btp7

I thought instagram was only for teenagers.

The speed that you did this conversion make my progress on my TM20vl mill CNC conversion embarrassing.

Cheers,

Peter

[steve123]

Great idea and execution. I'm wondering about the pre-load on the linear carriages you got. I know they come in "light", "medium" etc. I have heard that light pre-load was a bad idea for machines that cut metal, and that medium pre-load can make it harder to get everything aligned so that it doesn't bind. Can you please talk about what you got, and why, and anything you did to avoid binding? Thanks!

[Buba b]

Ive been thinking about doing this for ages but got scared by the fact that nothing is square or flat on the column casting. So i was wondering how you held the column down ? ie just clamped to the table ..... packed out to make level? . Maybe ive just been over thinking it but machining a flat surface for the rails with an uneven casting cranked down on the mill table looked more work than it was worth. Also did the casting move at all when machined.
Great Work look forward to the other axis.

[BTP]

Peter, I thought the same thing about instagram until I found the #instamachinist community. There is a wealth of information on there as well as some amazing parts made.

As for the bearing block preload, I went for the medium preload. Alignment wasn't an issue at all because I machined two parallel shoulders for the rails to butt up against. Because they were machined at the same time, the two shoulders are perfectly parallel. I had zero problems with binding. If the casting is machined properly, I don't see how it would bind.

As for the machining goes, I just clamped it to the table and ran an indicator across all surfaces, adding shims where necessary to get everything as true as possible. With the dovetails being shot it was impossible to get I perfectly indicated in, but again because everything was machined in one OP, all surfaces were true and flat. The casting didn't move at all after machining. Setup is key here, essentially if you stress the casting when clamping it down, its going to move around on you. It really wasn't too bad though.

[BTP]

Double post... oops

[BTP]

Well I have about 20hrs on the new conversion and it is awesome. There has been a big improvement on surface finish, which I'm very happy with. I absolutely have no regrets and look forward to improving the other two axis. Below are two videos of some 3D machining and then a pic of the final part.




- - - Updated - - -

https://youtu.be/zMWVNbdMgtI

[Kenny Duval]

So when should I send my column and Z-slide over?

[BTP]

Check you inbox