Hello everyone,
I have a TC1g and looking for some feedback on a few questions I have.
First off, I'm looking for feedback from those of you that have taken the plunge and upgraded their BMDC board to the BMDC4.
EMI says this card will greatly improve how smooth the machine operates when running a program with many small moves, such as 3D work. I have yet to run any 3D programs on my machine since installing it about 8 months ago, but I have been running a fairly large amount of programs that use constant engagement strategies. The Advanced Adaptive Rough in BobCAD V28 gets used a lot.
I was surpised how well it actually works, not having a machine before this TorqCut that could handle this sort of code.
The problem is, even with careful optimization of the code it still can easily generate a program size of 100K or more and the motion could stand to be smoother. Sometimes it can be jerky and sometime will get a banging sounds as it changes direction. Looking for feedback from anyone on here that has the BMDC4, if it works as advertised.
Also, my machine has a gearbox that is noisy and needs to be swapped out. I have a spare that I got from a fellow member (Thanks Forhire!) late this past winter, but have been so busy I have not had time to do the swap.
I'm wondering though, considering the types of toolpaths I'm using above, if it might be worth my while to look into removing the gearbox altogether. The gearbox does increase torq by quite a bit according to the maintenance manual, but in my opinion the machine is light enough duty that any heavy roughing should be done on another machine.
Surface finish is a consideration. Currently anything over 4500 rpm will cause a "scallop" like finish. This shows up really bad on aluminum. The gearbox does seem to have a fair amount of backlash when rotating the spindle back and forth by hand (been this way since I got it) and the rattle can be quite loud when on accel/decell. I'm wondering if this backlash could be part of the poor surface finish.
Hoping someone who has a torqcut without the gearbox can chime in with some feedback and also someone who has one with a gearbox can give feedback on the type of finish they get.
Thanks,
Nate