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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post
    It's mine for now but could be somebody else's when it's finished and fully Converted. I may put a Build thread up actually.
    Cool what's it worth converted?, approx will do don't mean to be rude in asking.

    Yeah a log would be nice to see, I was looking at your build log the other day actually for the belt based machine you did for the guy in Ireland I think it was New Machine Build Belt Driven extrusion framed wee beasty!! - ...

    It would be a nice thought to know you've got log(s) on here too...

    .Me
    Last edited by Lee Roberts; 07-11-2015 at 01:03 AM.
    .Me

  2. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Lee Roberts View Post
    Cool what's it worth converted?, approx will do don't mean to be rude in asking.
    No idea make me an offer. . Lol

    Quote Originally Posted by Lee Roberts View Post
    Yeah a log would be nice to see, I was looking at your build log the other day actually for the belt based machine you did for the guy in Ireland I think it was New Machine Build Belt Driven extrusion framed wee beasty!! - ...

    It would be a nice thought to know you've got log(s) on here too...
    Argh the scrap pile machine.! . . . That little bugger went like the clappers and made a nice solid little machine. Lost touch for quite a while with Ian who i made it for but recently got back intouch with me thru someone on here posting about it. It's still cutting nicely and he's made some nice stuff with it and just shows what can be done with other peoples scrap mixed in with a few nice parts.

    To be honest I often feel bad that I don't post build logs but to fair I haven't got time to record and photo all the nitty gritty stuff that matters or helps.
    Also because I mostly use CNC machines to build CNC machines most of it won't help new builders because it's a little like comparing apples to oranges. What I do they can't easily without a machine to help them and to do it manually would be completley different approach and often would be designed different to suit manual methods better.

    Mill on the other hand is more retro-fit so will be easier to show so i'll maybe do this.!

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  4. #23
    Subscribed to Mr Crispin, Lee... that loco seems pretty hardcore :D

    Weekend, themed "chicken and egg". Could of done a far better job of the Z stepper bracket, if the machine was working...



    but its done nevertheless, even if its just for now




    As mentioned previously, the spindle has two mechanical systems to control spindle speed. The "vari-drive" pulley arrangement, and also a back-gear which halves the rev output from the selected speed range from the vari-belt system. As Im unwilling to spend a fortune on the variable drive pulley I need for the motor, I intend to drive the spindle with a single ratio, then rely on the VFD and back-gear for speed change.

    In order to get adequate torque at the spindle head, I need to start off with too much power, that way if Ive reduced the revs with the vfd, there is still ample power by ratio.

    I was kindly given a main spindle motor for the machine, Its a brand new 8hp siemens 4 pole, it runs at 380v in star, so, il only achieve 4hp at 240v, If I run this at 100hz Il get approx 3000rpm at the spindle, and if I gear that 3:4 my top spindle speed will be around 4000rpm

    only problem is,said motor was dropped (hence its free) the rear casing is shattered, It is also foot mouted, I need it face mounted. Therefore, I intend to replace the broken rear face plate with the existing front plate, then re-make the front plate, building in a face-mount







    so, spent fifty notes on a nice slab of ali




    then armed with my new found qualifications after a 18months of channel updates from the likes of doubleboost and keith fenner, off I set




    what could possibly go wrong? ...

    er, the "brake" setting on the vfd could be a bit optimistic for that amount of momentum.... and you could sheer a gear in the lathe gearbox !!!

    bugger!


    stripped a cog...

    so now need to fix the lathe. god knows how..... I figure if I get really oily and look like I know what Im doing, inspiration will hit me....So have that in bits everywhere




    Busy week at work, and in wales next weekend, so sulking with beer tonight.

    anybody tooled up to make gears?
    Last edited by kingcreaky; 08-11-2015 at 11:09 PM.

  5. #24
    Following this, I was left with little choice but to bypass the feed gearbox, by hanging the motor directly off the main lathe input pulley, and put up with the lack of torque.

    This enabled me to produce a new motor front





    however, despite my best efforts, its clearly not aligned perfectly, as I can feel the stata grind when turning the shaft manually, either that or the actual shaft or casing was bent when it dropped? Disappointing but I learnt alot, managed to brake my lathe, and lightened my wallet to the tune for £65 on ali. Nevermind

    so... I bought a "new" motor (£22 off the bay, 2.2kw)



    havent yet fitted it, but it is face mounted, and has a long shaft, so I dont think it will be too difficult.


    As for the machine, with thanks for the Dean, I got the servos working.

    The servos have 10,000 steps per revoloution, as im driving the ballscrews via 2:1 ratio, and they are 5mm pitch, I make that 4000 steps per mm.

    My old faithful parrelel port, cant keep up with that kind of resolution so komatias kindly sold me a ethernet smooth stepper.

    I mounted the control box to the side of the machine, using rubber mounts, and made a bracket to mount the monitor keyboard and mouse.









    and albeit, not yet including home switches, limit switches, a spindle motor or coolant, the machine is moving



    listen how quite those servos are compared to the z stepper!
    Last edited by kingcreaky; 01-12-2015 at 10:47 PM.

  6. #25
    Sounding Good Matt but get them Limits on ASAP because if those servos throw a fit or you mistakenly type X1500 instead of X150 they won't stall like steppers and just keeping pumping in juice until something breaks or goes up in smoke.!!!

    Also just be careful for while with how fast you run and accelerate/deccelerate that big heavy table because you may need a Braking resistor if you push too hard. The drive will give an Alarm if higher than the internal Regen resistor can handle or Heat sink Temp rises due to internal Resistor getting hot.
    You can also monitor the Regenerative Load and Heat sink Temp on the drive panel to get an idea of how close to the edge your pushing. Set DN013 to monitor the Load percentage.
    Then write to some back n forth G-code moves and watch the drives when accel or Deccel to see how close to 100% you come.

    Next video better see some cutting going down. . . Lol

  7. #26
    Hi,

    I came across your posts while searching the internet for data on my own cnc mill. From the pictures on this site your mill looks identical to mine - I bought it off ebay in September 2015 from a chap in Staffordshire, he had a pair to sell. My research seems to point to it being a Topwell 4BVK from a Taiwanese company, not a Gate machine. I have a copy of the advertising brochure (attached) from Sterling Machinery who used to import and sell it as a bare machine. I have also emailed the parent company to see if they still have documents for it (still waiting...).

    I used a spindle motor from an old Bridgeport Ineract and 12Nm stepper drive combo's from Leadshine to build mine up then designed my own electronic cnc controller and wrote my own software from scratch to run it, I've turned out a number of parts for friends on it. Seems quite a sturdy machine for a small knee mill, backlash is 20/23um on xy but I hope to tighten that up, steppers are strong enough to snap 3/4" end mills without slowing, removing the Z axis gib to clean it up was a swine !

    I will post a few pictures of it soon.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails topwell-3avk-cnc-mill-frame-brochure.pdf  

  8. #27
    Hi all
    Its been a long while since I posted, Hope you are all well, not sure how many old friends still around, hope to make some new :D


    Ive still got the big "gate" mill, Love it, use it reasonably often, In order to aid its UX ive added some manual wind handles to the X&Y which help on some operations. ( I hear you snear)

    For example... I may use the handles to wind the machine to my start point, or to a center,
    or, if im just doing a quick slot.... i may just do it manually using the handles..

    For the interest of clarity, the machine runs two servos for the table

    https://www.vevor.co.uk/ac-servo-mot...p_010200832854

    same as above, just 1kw flavour.

    I run a normal stepper and stepper driver on the Quill

    The servo controllers are then wired via a ethernet smooth stepper to Mach3 in a pretty vanilla setup, Dean helped me with many years ago.


    Anyway, in order to use the handles, up until now, ive just turned the electric to the controller and therefore servo controllers off... as when the machine is on, obviously the servos hold position and im unable to wind the handles..

    Ive got two questions,

    Firstly, how would i go about adding a switch, which would disable the "hold" on the servo... (So i could wind the handle on the axis)
    (Id potentially like to flick the switch, wind the axis to say a start position, then flick the switch to give back control to the servo)
    ** this would also be useful, to be used as a lock if I was manually machining for example

    The way they are wired at the moment, I believe is called half loop, in that the encoder feeds back to the controller, but not all the way back to mach3.

    Im considering buying a DRO for the machine, again, for my semi manual operations, but I did wonder if there was any way of getting the servo encoders to feedback to mach3... or maybe even just ad seperate encoders?


    thanks in advance for any help or thoughts on this subject.

  9. #28
    Neale's Avatar
    Lives in Plymouth, United Kingdom. Last Activity: 20 Hours Ago Has been a member for 9-10 years. Has a total post count of 1,725. Received thanks 295 times, giving thanks to others 11 times.
    Bit radical, but....

    Why not get a cheap MPG? Plugs straight into PC/Mach3, gives you ability to "wind" table, and you can set up buttons to do things like start/stop spindle while you are doing "manual" machining. My own (smaller) CNC mill has pop-out handles for manual operation but as soon as you disable servos you have lost DRO function, and you need to rehome before any CNC operations. I use the MPG a lot for manual positioning, even if I enter a line of gcode to do a controlled cut in place of twiddling the MPG knob at a steady speed. MPG can move table faster than I can wind the table handwheel as well!

  10. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Neale View Post
    Bit radical, but....

    Why not get a cheap MPG? Plugs straight into PC/Mach3, gives you ability to "wind" table, and you can set up buttons to do things like start/stop spindle while you are doing "manual" machining. My own (smaller) CNC mill has pop-out handles for manual operation but as soon as you disable servos you have lost DRO function, and you need to rehome before any CNC operations. I use the MPG a lot for manual positioning, even if I enter a line of gcode to do a controlled cut in place of twiddling the MPG knob at a steady speed. MPG can move table faster than I can wind the table handwheel as well!
    Hi Neale, thanks for thre reply.
    Sorry, i didnt say, The machine has a pendant with a jog wheel,

    http://www.vistacnc.com/manual_downl..._P4-S_v4.0.pdf

    and it IS useful, I take onboard the advantages you mention. they are the reason I bought it!. I find it too clumsy, maybe im using it wrong...
    Lets say you have Carbide cutter in the collet, thats just cost you 70 notes, and your trying to manually set the home point by nudging the side of it up to a piece of steel plate, you have a rizzla in one hand your using as a feeler guage, and then trying to approach slowly enough with the pendant.. as you have no feedback in the jog wheel, lets just say ive had some accidents.
    By emplying oldshool handles, its increased the functionality of the machine, even if its just for homing

  11. #30
    Muzzer's Avatar
    Lives in Lytham St. Annes, United Kingdom. Last Activity: 12 Hours Ago Has been a member for 6-7 years. Has a total post count of 412. Received thanks 59 times, giving thanks to others 10 times.
    Jog the tool to around 8mm from the work, then slowly jog it away until the shaft of a 10mm end mill will just slide between the tool and the work. Then you know you are at the 10mm position. This avoids chipping or breaking the tools and works for both mills and lathes.

    But the correct way to look at this is that you need to buy an electronic probe, as it will transform your work accuracy. It's just the excuse you needed!

    I never use the handles on my mills or lathe now. The MPGs give much more flexibility and control. I used to have handles on the Bridgeport and Bantam conversions, thinking it would be useful for manual operation but ended up removing them, as it improves the response of the servos.

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