It's begun....

[EddyCurrent]

Looks like a substantial mount, I hope you didn't nick the slides off those drawers for the X axis

[Washout]

Lol - the mount has to be better than the plates I was using that were just butted up against the axis at 90degs.

The drawers are part of a refurb project as there were two units rusting in the workshop when I moved in. They will do as a hiding place for new CNC parts purchases ("honest darling I bought these [insert expensive kit] years ago and just hadn't fit them to the machine and they have been lying in this old drawer") that and/or a place for storing scrap aluminium (a smelter for recycling is on the cards also) ;-)

[Washout]

Oh forgot to mention - the new compressor (something I couldn't hide from the Mrs in the drawers ;-)) is bl**dy awesome compared to my previous unit and I was almost carefree when slotting out the new Axis plates, as a blast here and there with the blow gun cleared any stuck chips whilst the airbrush "mister" was a lot more efficient at cooling/chip clearing in general. I do have to get something different as a "mister", as the airbrush fogs the workshop up something chronic and wearing my spraying mask is a pain just for doing CNC work. I have seen units like the fog buster and I think I can replicate one myself if I understand the working of them correctly i.e. no atomiser head, but a drip feed into airflow as suggested a few posts back.

[Washout]

Some pics of the changes to the machine over the weekend, including the new spindle mount, the additional Z clearance and touch probe.
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Also I have the mixing block for the mister mounted to the right of the spindle and am now awaiting a 1/4" BSP tap so I can hook it up to fluid and air.
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The axis is chocked up as a safety measure as the more freely move (read better aligned) Z-Axis means there is very little resistance to prevent the axis "falling" when the machine is off, other than the stepper motor "steps" themselves.
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Hopefully I should be cutting again this week.

[Washout]

Evening all,
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A quick pic showing some more progress since my last post:
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This one shows:
a new and longer air line,
a remount of the "mixer" block so I don't lose any Y axis travel
the coolant/cutting fluid line attached and also a reservoir for the fluid on the top of the gantry at the back
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The only thing I am missing now is a 1/4" male to 1/8" male adapter for the air line (its current position is "fake" as a "dry run" and the connector there is a mock one from a PC cooling system. Hopefully the adapter arrives soon or I'll have to work out how to setup my lathe for threading (if it can cut BSP - it does metric and imperial).
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Later
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Chris

[mekanik]

Screwcutting Programs

[Washout]

Quick update (sorry no vids yet again)
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I decided to have another go at GWizard to try some feeds and speeds as there is now a new set of parameters you can plug into the tool for gantry style machines such as mine. I did that for a 6mm Carbide end mill using 2mm DoC and 40% step-over and it suggested 17304 rpm at 793mm/min, which I thought was a bit wacky. However, I have just run a circular pocket climb milling in my usual 6082 Ali which was 10mm deep and 63mm in diameter and it ran like a champ, with just blown air (see note 1. below) and the odd squirt of diluted cutting fluid.
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That was the good news but I have a couple of frustrations to sort out:
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1. My misting solution is not working, as air is being blown back up the fluid tube rather than sucking it out - might need to redo or rethink that either by making the injection port for fluid very small (its pretty small as it is) or just dripping fluid out of a separate line into the air flow.
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2. I have some chatter when cutting in the y axis (x axis passes are beautifully stable) and I have some flex when pushing sideways against the z axis (if that makes sense) i.e. looking at the machine from the end on its like the z axis is trying to roll sideways - I'll have to go over all the bolts around that area and see if anything is loose as something may have loosened or I didn't tighten properly when re-assembling the new z-axis (that chatter wasn't there before I cut the replacement).
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Oh thanks to mekanik and the tool above I cut some 1/4" BSP threads on my lathe, but even though the SC4 comes with a 127 toothed gear it still took some fiddling on a spreadsheet to work out a close match, as 19TPI doesn't use that gear and the closest I got was 19.05, which was a little tight but a but of brute force "finished" the threads up nicely ;-) Thread cutting was actually quite easy compared to what I remember from doing it at school, as the Seig has a good reverse and the half nut means I didn't have to faff about with a thread dial etc.
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I have a queue of parts to cut so will make an effort at a video later this week.
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Later
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Chris

[Washout]

Hi All,
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A couple of vids, as the machine is cutting again. They're not very long as the one was just a facing pass to get the material block to the right thickness and the second one I had to start clearing chips with the air gun (more to be safe now I have decent air).
Sharp eyed amongst you may notice I abandoned the mixing block effort from before and just ran two lines - one brass tube for air and the other PVC for cutting fluid, which just drips into the air flow.
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The second one was a 2mm DoC using F&S from GWizard, which I was quite happy with and I think I could go deeper. A good sign was scorching hot chips, which I noticed when one fell down the front of my t-shirt, but no discernible heat on the part (I wasn't going to touch the cutter, but trust in my coolant) ;-)
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I'll try and get some more video once I work out a way of mounting my phone, so I can fuss over the machine whilst recording.
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Later
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Chris
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[Washout]

Gents,
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I have a problem I could do with some guidance on:
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Yesterday I cut one half of the job in the video above and all went well.
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Then I flipped the part and as I am now using a centre hole/bore to zero the part off, I stuck my probe into the collet and jogged over to the hole to zero off of. AT this point my VFD was off, so the only thing running was the machine and my PC. As I have both a probe and touch plate wired from the probe pin I flicked the switch which isolates the touch plate and went into MACH to change the probe to "enable low", which the probe needs to operate.
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I then started the probing wizard screen in MACH 3 and MACH crashed with an error. OK I thought I've had this before, so restarted the PC loaded MACH and at which point there was a loud hum/fizz and a loud pop. Figuring something electrical had gone I turned everything off and went to diagnose and immediately found that the Optoboard V3 I recently installed looks to have a blown capacitor on it (marked C1) - at least there is a light scorch radiating out of the corner there on the PCB. I also checked all fuses etc. and my wiring on the drivers, just in case something is loose which shouldn't be. Fuses on the toroidal transformer appear to be OK also.
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Last night therefore, I chucked my old ZP5A-INT board into the control box and this morning started it up and whilst the driver LEDs are green, I have power to the stepper motors, the board doesn't appear to be active and MACH (which I reconfigured for the replacement board) is reporting an External E-stop and try as I might I can't seem to get it to cancel.
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Things I have tried are:
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Checked all e-stop/probe wiring, XLR connector (my probe and e-stop share the same 4 core CY
Removed the e-stop xlr connection and switch to take the hardware out of the equation
Tried to disable the e-stop pin in MACH3's input screen - weirdly this saves/applies but then doing a MACH reset trips the e-stop and the pin has been mysteriously re-enabled
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I'm now stuck, as I can't get MACH3 out of "external e-stop".
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Any ideas gents? (fully expecting it to be a MACH3 thing I have missed).
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Cheers
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Chris

[Washout]

Update:
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Sometimes I am a plank ;-)
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I had missed the Active Low setting for the estop - so that's one thing sorted.
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I also ran over the control box with a decent torch in case I couldn't see previously and had missed a 1Amp fuse on the PSU that had blown - I'll need to order a replacement (sod's law I have every other rating than this one).
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Of course that doesn't explain why it went pop in the first place, but I have a theory - I noticed that the stepper motors when in holding torque mode normally make a humming noise, which was altering tone when the probe circuit was completed/broken and this was after:
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a. installing the Optoboard v3 and running a 68V feed from the PSU to power it (my only other voltage feeds in the box without resorting to resistors etc. are 12V and 5V and the Optoboard runs on 15-70V)
b. installing my probe, which should not be shielded at the probe, but as I assumed that and earthed it at the star point in my case
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I am thinking that somehow either 1. via an earth loop involving the probe shielding (if it is connected to the probe body then my entire machine would also be earthed at that point as well as through the spindle to VFD earth, which is normally the only earthing point for my machine remembering that I have good conductivity from spindle to the bed as everything is metal).
or 2. the 68V feed for the Optoboard from the PSU on top of the 3x68V stepper circuit overloaded it (I'm hoping that the inputs voltage on that board wasn't 68V or I have likely had a lucky escape using the touch probe and plate on that voltage).
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Of course it could have been something failing on the PSU and that is worrying as it may go again when I replace the fuse.
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Hopefully I can get this sorted soon as the race car the parts are going into needs to be running by the end of Feb.
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Later
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Chris