[LUCKY13]

That spindle is simply kickin. You said you ran it up to 8000rpm (well 7000 smoothly), does that MicroMax go that high in RPM?


It looks liike you have the pulleys helping alot but I didnt see anywhere back in your post that gave the ratio's. Is it a 1 to 2 - 2 to 1 setup? If so then the little motor is reaching around 4000rpm.


Either way those are very nice motors. I never really felt like the import motors we get with these machines are anywhere close to there ratings. That MicroMax really surprized me with its torque on those cuts earlier, and if the spindle is being pushed with a 2 to 1 ratio then its even more impresive.


The bearing thing, if they dont feel like silk then there is a problem. I seen back in the post where you stated the feel you had in the top bearing (when you first put them in). There is no hope anytime you run into that again. If its rough you fix it right then, or later. Now a tight drag is one thing ( heavy preload felling) but it still must feel smooth, kinda like its in heavy oil but still silky feeling. Sounds like you got it the second time around though, like you said, live and learn.

That machine is cutting very nice, and the spindle sounds like it is doing well.


Jess

[jid2]

^^^^ Well cutting that aggressive with real toolpaths didn't work. I ran into the endmill pulling out of the ER20 collet, and then the TTS holder out of the spindle! I have it on video, and you can watch it pull out.

I had to back down the axial engagement to .050" and the feed down to 50 IPM.

I'll load some video later.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

^^^^ Well cutting that aggressive with real toolpaths didn't work. I ran into the endmill pulling out of the ER20 collet, and then the TTS holder out of the spindle! I have it on video, and you can watch it pull out.

I had to back down the axial engagement to .050" and the feed down to 50 IPM.

I'll load some video later.

Something is VERY wrong there. You should NEVER get pull out in a properly-tightened ER20 collet - crank down on the nut more.

If you're getting TTS pull-out, then you need a LOT more drawbar tension. It takes upwards of 2500# tension - the equivalent of about 20-25 ft-lbs torque on the drawbar, for maximum retention of a TTS tool. It is also important to have a VERY light coat of anti-seize on the taper in the spindle, and collet chuck, and for the tool shank and collet bore to be absolutely clean and DRY.

I've never once had pullout on my 3HP knee mill, using TTS with cuts WAY more aggressive that what you're talking about. I've run over 75 IPM with carbide 3-flutes at 1/4" DOC, 1/2" WOC in TTS holders with no problems.

Pull-out simply will not happen on these machines if things are setup properly.

Regards,
Ray L.

[jid2]

After digging into some things I found my ER20 collet was still retaining some oil from shipping, and my drawbar was not fully tensioned. Likely the causes of the pullout.

Here's some video of cutting this large v block softjaw. Video kinda sucks, my Contour HD doesn't deal well with things this close to the lense - the focal plane is further out.

I had some faults when the machine got to the 100 IPM roughing sections driven off small linear moves from the Solidcam iMachining toolpaths. I had to drop the feed down to get it to go without faulting.

After the roughing pass day I did some spindle grabbing and noticed a small bit of movement. The bearings had loosened a touch with break-in. So I pulled the spindle and gave the pre-load nut about a 1/4 turn and snugged things back up. Bearings still felt silky smooth. I also made a modification to my steel pull nut for the drawbar. I added a reduced diameter tapered step to the base of it. This slides into the chamfered hole in the top of the spindle and centers the thing on the spindle. This solved my issue of having it misalign and create large vibrations at high RPM.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKwQMigszm0]Milling Soft Jaw V Block - YouTube[/ame]

[Mad Welder]

It makes the frustration and pit-falls pale into distant memories when you see your build producing what you want.....very nice, well done!

Regardless of your own critisims..good videos, thanks again for sharing!

[vertcnc]

Been out of the scene for awhile but need to get my spindle converted to belt drive. Anyone selling the pulleys? Not sure I am talented enough,

[TiagoSantos]

Arizonavideo was selling some kits. I initially thought it was expensive, but have since realized it was pretty fair considering the amount of work involved I'd check with him, he might still have some kits..

[arizonavideo]

Thanks for the bump Tiago:

I do have them and they look like this.

arizonavideo's Library | Photobucket

Thanks
Dave

[vertcnc]

Dave,
Setup looks very nice. PM sent

[jid2]

6600 rpm and 90IPM is killer in 6061.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDWfH4rCXhc"]Machining Passive Acoustic Dock - YouTube[/ame]

[SCzEngrgGroup]

6600 rpm and 90IPM is killer in 6061.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDWfH4rCXhc

Fun to watch, but it doesn't get the job done very fast. That would be running about 2.7 cu. in/min. MRR, *if* it was cutting all the time. But, it's actually cutting only about 1/2 the time, and the rest of the time it's cutting air. So, the actual MRR is under 1.5 cu. in./min. The same material could be removed almost 3X faster by doing a deep, wide cut at a slower feedrate. You could do the same cut with a 0.250" DOC, 0.5" WOC, at 35 IPM with a cheap HSS 2-flute endmill, and you'd be removing up to 4 cu. in./min, saving both time, and money.

Regards,
Ray L.

[jid2]

Yeah those feeds are what I normally do on depths of 1.0" or so. I didn't have time to verify more radial engagement to up the MRR. Ive had it running at 4.0 when things are dialed in. This video was running 120 IPM on non egagement moves and I can run that up to 200.

These toolpaths would be triple killer on a super minimill.

[rlockwood]

Yeah those feeds are what I normally do on depths of 1.0" or so. I didn't have time to verify more radial engagement to up the MRR. Ive had it running at 4.0 when things are dialed in. This video was running 120 IPM on non egagement moves and I can run that up to 200.

These toolpaths would be triple killer on a super minimill.

Might I also suggest using a pocketing toolpath, rather than a facing toolpath, for cutting scenarios like the end of the video. HSMWorks facing isnt quite smart enough to climb cut and alternate sides of the part, so you're stuck either doing a rapid retract/return, or alternating between climb/conventional (what you were doing)

On the other hand, both the 2D pocket and 2D adaptive support fully open pockets, so you can simply select your stock boundary & "Bottom", and it will stay in a climb cut through the whole operation, working in an "outside -> in" type of spiral. Its much more effecient & nicer on your tooling.

[jid2]

^^^ been meaning to try adaptive for facing.

Must stop...

Spent the week looking at sets of double vises, bigger compressors, phase perfect, and Cat 40 tooling.

[TiagoSantos]

Phase Perfect? Not happy with the VFD?

As for the rest.. Quit it. Go make some parts. Have you run into anything you couldn't do without the extra crap?

[jid2]

Phase Perfect? Not happy with the VFD?

As for the rest.. Quit it. Go make some parts. Have you run into anything you couldn't do without the extra crap?

More like move out wifes car, move out lots of money, move in the real deal. Still in concept phase and planning.

[TiagoSantos]

Haha.. I see. I'm sure you'll figure out what's best for you, but don't forget to consider stuff like the more expensive maintenance, harder to find parts, etc.

I am still curious though if you're really hitting any funcional limits with your conversion or if it's just the usual "scope creep" that a lot of us suffer from!

I got into racing by driving a volvo 240 at a LeMons race in 2009. It was supposed to be a one time thing, but then I figured I could team up with a buddy and buy a car for a couple grand. Then I realized I could buy a formula vee for a few grand more and have the car to myself. Then I found out I could "just" spend a couple more grand to have a competitive motor. A few years later, I can hardly remember what the original idea was.

I've had lots of fun with the race car, but maybe I would have had just as much fun with a cheap track day toy, and much less headaches for sure!

[jid2]

I think the way I look at what I wanted for my personal interests and the small business I run (in my spare time) has evolved over the past two years during the conversion of the mill.

This started with the seed that had been planted when I was like 14 years old and realized what a mill, lathe and welder could create. Since then there has been a desire to have a garage that could create things, as simple as that. My day job and hobbies also kept pulling me toward building my own things instead of just buying what's on the market. And thus I bought the mill, and then conversion electronics without really making a plan. I knew people were doing conversions and that a certain groups of components seemed to work and the machine evolved as you see in this thread. The idea was to have something that could build me parts.

My business now operates with me designing, building and testing prototypes and having a manufacturing partner build production parts for me. To date most of the parts have not been machining heavy. But I have a fair amount of ideas in the can that will be dealing with higher levels of machining. A few years ago I would have just sent out for quotes. Now I have the skill set to do the work. So the question is, should I. In another few years all the kids will be in school and my wife will have some free-time during the day and is willing to help, aka run parts. But our time is limited and it would need to be used efficiently. Which leads to tool changers, faster cycle time, and not Mach 3.

So I'm trying to budget things out and investigate what things would need to happen to make things look good. Besides the overall moneys reviews, first step is getting things up and running on the cM5k and see if anyone cares. Gonna start by buying 3 of the same 4" CNC vise from Shars to place on the table get things rolling. And a pair of the new Orange vises would be sick on a bigger machine.

[rlockwood]

I think the way I look at what I wanted for my personal interests and the small business I run (in my spare time) has evolved over the past two years during the conversion of the mill.

This started with the seed that had been planted when I was like 14 years old and realized what a mill, lathe and welder could create. Since then there has been a desire to have a garage that could create things, as simple as that. My day job and hobbies also kept pulling me toward building my own things instead of just buying what's on the market. And thus I bought the mill, and then conversion electronics without really making a plan. I knew people were doing conversions and that a certain groups of components seemed to work and the machine evolved as you see in this thread. The idea was to have something that could build me parts.

My business now operates with me designing, building and testing prototypes and having a manufacturing partner build production parts for me. To date most of the parts have not been machining heavy. But I have a fair amount of ideas in the can that will be dealing with higher levels of machining. A few years ago I would have just sent out for quotes. Now I have the skill set to do the work. So the question is, should I. In another few years all the kids will be in school and my wife will have some free-time during the day and is willing to help, aka run parts. But our time is limited and it would need to be used efficiently. Which leads to tool changers, faster cycle time, and not Mach 3.

So I'm trying to budget things out and investigate what things would need to happen to make things look good. Besides the overall moneys reviews, first step is getting things up and running on the cM5k and see if anyone cares. Gonna start by buying 3 of the same 4" CNC vise from Shars to place on the table get things rolling. And a pair of the new Orange vises would be sick on a bigger machine.

An individual person will have a hard time designing, programming, and fixturing parts while keeping machine utilization high enough to truly justify a full blown production machining center. Give your machine a shot for awhile, move to fixturing that allows longer cycle times and minimizes the need for a tool changer. It will all be a useful learning experience if you do end up needing a machining center, and I bet you'd be surprised by just how much your machine can accomplish given enough table utilization. Its important to remember that cycle times mean virtually NOTHING if the machine sits for two days when current task is complete.

I also feel the need to give the obligatory warning when initiating inexperienced laborers (especially those who care for your children.) Remember that there is a very real and inherent danger involved when spinning cutting tools at 8,000RPM, and that someone who is less interested in mechanics will likely not initially realize or respect that danger, which makes it much more dangerous.

[jid2]

^^^ Good points, still just thinking through things. Planning on using my machine to validate that stuff I build has a place in the world. I don't want to deal with shop space somewhere, so a Mini Mill would be easy, and a Hurco VM10i is as big as I would go. I plan on buying some tooling and having my buddy with the VM10 run some stuff for me and see how that goes. That way I can test the waters with just a small investment in some tooling. But a new VM10 is big money, a used single phase Mini Mill would work for my current stuff and cost less than half of a VM10.

Anyway, back to cM5k talk.

I designed an extended shift knob a few years ago. At first I thought I would do them for lots of cars. So I left the mounting hole as a small pilot. I then decided I only wanted to deal with EVO's and finished a bunch of them on my friends manual lathe. I ran out of those and decided I would do the finishing on the mill now.

First time using the floating tap. I could use to make the accel and decel shorter to stop the coasting. Right now Accel and Decel are at .7 sec.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbnNvYYzGSs