[CL_MotoTech]

When I wrote this I wrongly said the cross slide was damaged but PM actually said it's the compound slide. As mentioned before, the compound slide was loose and that's about it. Either way, after further inspection I don't see any damage to either. The cross slide runs the entire length of the ways extremely smoothly. The tail stock seems to get caught up occasionally. When it slides it zips along, but it doesn't seem to want to release after clamping. I am going to have to look into it, hopefully it's just a matter of getting the thing cleaned and lubed up I'll note, this is the first lathe I have owned (though I have plenty of time using one) so many of these adjustments are totally new to me. It's also not exactly super clean having sat in an open crate in the warehouse for however long. Otherwise I just need to look through the boxes and start assembling bits. I have the bench about 60% built, it's not particularly amazing, but the plan is to get the thing running to so I can use it in the near future. Then once I get through the CNC conversion I'll build a steel enclosure and add coolant like I did for my G0704.

The G0704 continues to run. Another knockoff proximity sensor died today, this time on the Z axis while about 2/3's of the way through a 6 hour program. I just overrode it and hit start. The program completed beautifully. UCCNC is incredible in scenarios like this, with Mach3 the part would likely be scrap. The part appears to be about .00025" on the large side. I can deal with that. Now that i have a lathe (or soon will) I am going to do version two of the PDB, specifically the drawbar itself and the top side bearing/mount. Hopefully I get concentricity really dialed in this time. The last two I did on my buddies clapped out Cincinnati (more than enough lathe for most projects), but with the bellevilles and 6k RPM it's really never been good enough, IMO. I even bought my buddy a new live center thinking that would help, and it did, but the results just aren't great.

[CL_MotoTech]

I have some weird issue going on with proximity sensors. I will replace the Z axis sensor, but for some reason my X axis sensor is acting up too. I ran the machine for some 6 hours yesterday and now both sensors are basically stuck on. The LED turns off when in proximity, but in UCCNC the switches are indicated active. I have these wired independently, not in series. I have plenty of space on my BOBs to do so. Anyways, I am going to have to investigate. I am also going to pull the chip tray and coolant tank and reroute wires while I am in there. I suppose this could be an EMF thing, but with 26V running to my sensor they should be fine... I have them shielded too, but perhaps my now 6 year old leads are in need of replacing, I used very cheap wire to set this all up. I love how these issues pop up right when I have 20 hours of machining to do. Sometimes I question my dedication to being a DIY builder of machine tools. If I had more space it would likely make way more sense to buy something not designed by somebody that has no clue what they are doing.

[ChrisAttebery]

I think we've all learned a lot along the way. I tried to go the cheap route on a bunch of things and wished I hadn't later on. My latest upgrades have made the machine a lot nicer to use than what I had in the past, but I keep thinking that this is probably the last time I'm going to upgrade this machine. There's only so much you can do with a 400lb machine. I just saw a Tormach on CL for $4500. If I had seen that a couple months ago I probably would have jumped on it. A local used machine dealer has a line on a few small VMCs that would fit into my garage too.

[CL_MotoTech]

The "this is the last upgrade" lie is one of my favorites to tell myself. Luckily I have a lathe project now and will get to enjoy selling myself down the river on that one too.

I've seen a number of affordable Tormachs and Novakons lately. My guess is that people are looking to cash in on dormant machines during these tough times. My space is really limited being a two car garage (which I own so moving isn't really a thing for me right now). I could fit a 45 size machine with full enclosure, but it would be tight. I also don't know that those machines would be much less of a project, but being larger machines I'd probably be asking a lot less of them doing the same work I already do. Really, if I could get this limit switch scenario smoothed out, get the drawbar nice and straight, then all I'd really need to do is iron out some small issues with my way covers, and I'd be happy (yeah right). I have run 10 hour runs easily with this machine, and I regularly let the machine run lights out, but I still remain a bit saddled with dumb issues like this recent one. Next up is to finish off the new chip tray and in the mean time I will troubleshoot the proximity sensors. I'm going to build out all new leads with new sensors, at a minimum this eliminates them from the equation. Unfortunately (kind of), i've gotten more than $1k of orders just this month already and I need the little bastard to run. So in the short term I'll continue to half arse it and hopefully do good work too.

[ChrisAttebery]

Maybe I should have qualified my statement. I really can’t see dumping another big chunk of cash on this machine again. I spent around $2k this time around.

There’s always going to be things that can be improved but honestly I don’t think there’s much I could do to really make it more productive. At the end of the day it’s a ~350lb mill. It was never meant to be an industrial workhorse.

[CL_MotoTech]

I don't disagree with you. We and likely many others extract quite a lot from these little machines despite that they never were particularly good in the first place. My goal isn't to run production out of my home shop, the machine is simply too slow, and my space too limited. I however would like the machine to run reliably when I turn it on. I'm close, but not exactly there. I go through boom and bust cycles where the machine runs awesome for months then all of a sudden I get a run of little issues. I'd like those little issues to go away to some degree.

I don't know exactly what I have in my machine, but if I wanted to take a guess I would say it has to be around $5k. Of course that includes several different spindle motor arrangements and the ATC. Kind of a silly number considering I bought the mill used for $1300 and that included tooling, a rotary table, and a bunch of other stuff. It is what it is though, and the machine not only has paid for itself, but I use it for fun personal projects all of the time.

[ChrisAttebery]

Yep, mine has paid for itself many times over too. Honestly a used VMC in my price range may or may not be better in the long run. I have one car of a three car garage for the machines. I could make something bigger fit but it would be tight.

The Achilles Heel on my machine have been the spindle bearings. I'm going to follow your lead and go to oil lubrication with a seal.

I've seriously looked at a BT30 cartridge spindle, but that would be another $1200 - $1500 by the time you replace all of my toolholders.

[CL_MotoTech]

I think the R8 spindle could be reground for BT30, which would be sweet. That said, TTS isn't that bad, and it's pretty cheap to get into even with a PDB. I'd guess I have maybe $600 in it even with buying TTS toolholders.

[ChrisAttebery]

My goal isn’t to move to BT30 tool holders. I’d like a spindle that’s built for CNC with multiple bearings on each end and that’s rated for 6-10k RPM.

[CL_MotoTech]

Yeah, that makes sense. I ran mine 8k for a year or two. That was with grease and it was touch and go. With decent seals and a good oiling setup I think you stand to gain a lot. The loads just aren't that high. I ran my spindle at 6k for 5 hours the other day, spindle temp didn't get over 85F in my 65F shop. The coolant ring is pretty good at cooling the lower bearing bearing, so that helps, especially since the coolant is extra cool this time of the year in Pittsburgh.

[CL_MotoTech]

I got the lathe up on the stand today. I'm not super pleased with my "stand" but it will work for now. I picked through all of my shop wood and leftovers from old projects to make the stand and really I should have gone and bought some new materials. That said, I really just need to be able to use the lathe for a few months, then once I do the CNC conversion I'll build a nice steel stand that allows me level the thing appropriately. The lathe was about as much as my engine hoist wanted to hold, especially because I had the boom out at max length, but it worked out, and I was able to do it all by myself.

I got the lathe plugged in and did a quick once over on all the mechanics. It appears to be in good shape. I fired it up, it turns, the RPM screen shows. Everything works. The E-Stop is loose in the housing, making it hard to work, but I'll figure that out in time.

I'm pumped. This going to allow me to do so many little projects that have always been a pain because I had to drive 45 minutes to use a lathe.

[ChrisAttebery]

That's great. Start making some chips.

I sold my last lathe because I needed cash to convert the G0704 to CNC and I didn't think I'd need it anymore. That was a huge mistake. I couldn't imagine having a mill without a lathe or vise versa. It'd be like not having one of your hands.

[CL_MotoTech]

I ran the lathe for a good hour or so last night, just breaking it in. It really was quite dirty, but I have it nicely cleaned up now. I am going to grease the gears up a bit and then put the cover back on. Then it's time to use it! I am not super happy with the feel of the gearboxes, at some point I might take the cover off and see if there's anything I can adjust in there. It might just need to be run for a while.

[ChrisAttebery]

I ran the lathe for a good hour or so last night, just breaking it in. It really was quite dirty, but I have it nicely cleaned up now. I am going to grease the gears up a bit and then put the cover back on. Then it's time to use it! I am not super happy with the feel of the gearboxes, at some point I might take the cover off and see if there's anything I can adjust in there. It might just need to be run for a while.

That looks good. Buy a can of "Open Gear Lube" and hit the gears at the end of the machine. It will quiet them down quite a bit.

[CL_MotoTech]

I’ll check that out, thanks!

[CL_MotoTech]

On the 0704 I rebuilt the inadequate Z to table Y-axis way cover that I have used for at least a year. The issues are that 1) it tends to collect chips, 2) those chips tend to block the Y axis travel causing lost steps, and 3) when chips do trickle off they like to land on the Y-axis target that is used for homing and limits. I have a lot of work to do in this area.

For now, I have decided to leave it. I just don't have a better solution. It's very low profile which gives me the most Y-axis travel I can get without a column spacer. When it isn't falling apart, it does a somewhat okay at keeping chips off the ways.

Beyond this, I loosened the gibs 1 turn on X and Y. I also slowed my accelerations some. The mill was jittery at times, and I'd rather it run a little slower than potentially have lost steps.

To rewind a bit, the other night I was milling one of these GT750 gears that I have made several of. In process, the mill lost steps spectacularly at some point and it broke the end mill off at two points. I've never seen that before, but it was a pretty impressive crash. Not only did it ruin the best 3/8" end mill I have, but it left me with other end mills that I can't seem to make run without sever chatter. I'll revisit that later.

On to tonight. I know the Z/Y-axis (rear) cover isn't great. So I made a make shift guard that mounts to my vise via magnets. I also cleaned the table and mounted two vises. If we are going to break stuff, let's do it twice.





Rocking and rolling. That's about 40 minutes of run time total.

I am now through the long part of the run, some 3 hours of chipping away at the teeth of the gears with a 5/64 end mill at 6k. All is well. These machines are so fickle...

[Titaniumboy]

Wow, that is an impressive amount of chips. Looks like your temporary chip guard is doing a good job of keeping chips of of the Y axis way cover.

I bet you generate 20 times the chips in this 40 minutes than the later 3 hours of teeth cleaning.

I’m a little surprised your coolant deluge system didn’t wash more of the chips off of the vises and table.

I did buy some long-reach 1/16” Kyocera endmills from drillman1 on eBay like you suggested last year. I’m hoping to use them for the first time later this week.

[CL_MotoTech]

I was surprised the guard worked so well, it really made my poor way cover situation go away. I'm not happy with it long term, but it's letting me get work done and I like that. The chips coming off that 6/54 end mill are like dust. I'm still on the first one of them that I bought, I can get a pretty nice finish with it too. Very good quality these little Kyocera cutters. I'm not loving the 3/8" kyocera 2 flute carbide that I did the big cutting with. For whatever reason it likes to chatter in hard cuts, I think I need more DOC and less stepover. My OnlineCarbide 3 flutes should arrive today, and I will go back to those immediately. Not only can I run faster, but they are whisper quite, never a shred of chatter. They are brittle as all get out, and are very unforgiving as a result, but boy do the ever cut. The Online Carbide 3 flutes are also 37 degree where as the Kyocera 2 flutes are 45. Interestingly, I have a number of Shars 3 flutes that are 45 degree and they chatter too. I have been using FSWizard Pro for F&S. It tells me to run the 45 marginally faster, I have tried that but it doesn't make a difference.

Since my system is high volume and low pressure the chips wash away really well as long as they can flow with the coolant. So basically anywhere that is downhill. Since the guard is there preventing flow, my system can't really move them. At the end mill chip removal is no issue. I've considered adding some more nozzles that would be used to spray off the way covers, but it seems like a band aid fix. The machine is just so small that I have to use every fraction I can. Basically, I should have bought a bigger machine.

I also ordered in another 5 gallons of coolant. I finished off the rest of my EZ cool bucket. To my dismay, they have since gone out of business. So I ordered Benchmark 1125 from Amazon, it was the best deal I could find. Hopefully it works well.

[CL_MotoTech]

Well, I think I smoked my first set of spindle bearings in over a year. I left the machine run and when I went to check on it the belt was burnt up and the spindle wasn't turning. I tried to turn the spindle by hand and it won't budge going clockwise, though it will turn counter clockwise. I am guessing the cage has failed on one of the bearings.

I have another belt as well as spare SKF bearings, so tomorrow I will rebuild it, and try again. The head wasn't hot and the spindle was maybe slightly warm, perfectly ordinary. It couldn't have stopped very long before I caught it. I had a timer running, and it was almost done with the long run, it had about 10 minutes of cutting to go before finishing and the cut on the part reflects that. This was about 5 hours or so of straight run time when I checked in and found it. I had 11 plus hours on the machine in the last 24 hours. At last check the spindle was quiet and cool, no issue at all, even hogging at 4.5 cu/in per min, all seemed well. I did notice a bit more RPM drop on hard cuts than is usual, so perhaps the bearing failure was imminent and I just didn't recognize the signs. I am curious to get the spindle apart and see what is in there.

I need to get the spindle encoder hooked up and figure out how to set alarms in UCCNC so if the spindle gets out of range it throws an E-Stop. My encoder is on the spindle itself, separate from the spindle motor. I just never spent the time to fully understand how to get it working as far as my BOB and ports and pins are concerned. The hard part is likely already done as the encoder is in place, even the wiring is run, but I never made that last step. Since I like to leave the machine run unattended this seems like a very logical step. The bonus is that I will get to rigid tap.

I will note, the work up until the failure is very good. Maybe not the best I have ever done, but very close. The new Online Carbide 3 Flute end mill dang near brought a tear to my eye. I can't get over how fast they can cut with so little drama. The chips are huge, but there's little noise. It's incredible.

[CL_MotoTech]

As suspected, the cage failed. The picture isn't great, but if you look closely you can see some damage.



I got the new bearings in last night, they are broken in, readjusted, and the spindle is back together. The support bearing for the PDB was a little rough so I ordered a pair of those ($8 each). I'll finish reassembly of the PDB Tuesday and then resume machining.

While at it I worked over my oil distribution manifold. The adjustment screws always have wept oil and it got frustrating in that the oil lines would develop air bubbles as a result. For now, I've used a semi setting sealant on the screws and o-rings. Hopefully that improves things, while I was at it I tuned the manifold to best distribute oil to all the ways and the spindle. It's a subjective sort of process, but I think I have it working pretty well. I was definitely over oiling X before, while the others starved a bit, Z especially. That has been solved for now. My auto oiler generally has also just been run off a wall outlet, instead I am going to wire it to run when the coolant runs. I rarely run without coolant, so I think this makes sense. I just have to figure out the amount of oil I need to pump to keep things working right. I always try to run the oiler for like 20 seconds before I start machining, so I guess I will have to turn on the coolant to do so going forward, not the prettiest of solutions but it's worth a try. I suppose I could create a button in UCCNC and add a relay for oil, but I'd probably forget to turn the oil on.