Warco Major CNC build log

[irving2008]

Incidentally, I have a new 16mm drill chuk on there, 100% better than the Warco supplied one, got it from RDG tools for £22

Robin

Looking good Robin - I wonder how similar my Minor is? BTW, I have the same chuck, is yours on an MT3 or R8 taper?

[Robin Hewitt]

Hi Irving it's Morse :D

I got the lack of travel nearly sorted today by angle grinder. Tested it with a loose Gibb, lost about 1cm with a tight Gibb. Can only be a few thou left to remove think I'll leave that until I need it an extra cm. Pics attached.

THE BIG BACKLASH TEST (this being the whole point of the exercise)

Put a DTI on the bed and turned the handle, by hand. I could feel the stepper motor cogging and with the 2.5:1 reduction the slide should move .01mm per clunk, 0.0004".

Well it didn't move that far when I sat there rocking it back and forth one clunk, but it did move a little bit so backlash is now <10 microns, not bad for 20 micron nuts

I totally destroyed one of the stepper motors while trying to remove the old pulley. I was thinking to replace them anyway with some of these new fangled hybrids.

Robin

[Robin Hewitt]

I have just sent the picture for the Z axis screw machining to Gary and ordered a girt lump of aluminium.

The spindle doesn't like running at 5000 rpm which is top whack, 2500 rpm of the pulleys and 100Hz from the inverter, the bearings run hot. I would actually like twice that so I can run tiny ball end mills.

The plan is a false spindle set inside a 3MT soft end arbor and a lay shaft with two timing belts. That way the false spindle with it's ER11 collet can turn at 9 times the main spindle speed.
Give me something to do while I wait for the Z screw