Bridgeport Manual to CNC conversion...

[Clive S]

Got the control cabinet built today, absolute monster and a two-person lift :)

Well it will be a three person lift when you fill it

[Davek0974]

your'e not wrong there, i have all the guts temporarily mounted on a pallet top and i can just about lift it all, not quite sure how i'll lift the steel panel into the cabinet yet;)

[Davek0974]

Back to my dual-spindle attachment, yes its been done before, found two people that have done a great job and turned out some amazing stuff on them.

I was looking at a single thick clamp ,made from maybe 25-30mm alu, but this idea seems far better....



It uses a two-layer clamp, bridged in the middle firmly and then clamped on the quill plus clamped to a fixture held in a collet in the spindle. This seems like it would be very stable plus use up less of my valuable Z axis travel.

Material is probably only 15-20mm thick so i would lose no more than 20mm of travel in Z, leaving me a healthy 100mm to play with. The wide spaced clamps should also grip the high speed spindle better too.

Not sure why he has made the bottom clamp like it is at the spindle nose, I would go with a solid area and a 20mm shaft fitted for a 20mm R8 collet - the attachment would then be slid upwards into the collet and onto the quill.

[komatias]

Why not just get a quillmaster or a speeder? Somthing that is inline with the spindle in the firstplace.

[Davek0974]

Why not just get a quillmaster or a speeder? Somthing that is inline with the spindle in the firstplace.

A quill master only gives 2:1 speed up so would give me 6000rpm, no idea of what a speeder is?

My high speed spindle gets me to 24,000 rpm, still low but very usable on aluminium.

[Davek0974]

Some more progress...

Got the cabinet mounted on the side of the mill...



Also cut and welded up the pendant workstation and trial-fitted it on its suspension arm...



Not all the holes will have buttons but thought it best to cut spares and fit blanking plugs.

Slightly concerned about the strain on the 10mm stud holding the arm on the rear of the ram but it seems ok.

[komatias]

Dave,

truly inspiring!

You thinking of making a flood enclosure for the mill? It made my life so much better when I did.