Help with Power Drawbar installation

I recently received the mill and started to mount all the accesories, after the manual oiler I started to mount the power drawbar but I followed the manual exactly, also watched a few videos (NYCCNC installation video) and I didn't noticed anything different to my setup, but my power drawbar is very lose, I don;t belive the mill can start with the power drawbar so lose, I'm sure it will vibrate as hell, something must be wrong !!!!

Please check out this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dxGPWUWPZ4

Any help is appreciated !!!

PS I just received the missing TTS to R8 collet and I couldn't continue mounting the power drawbar when I first started now 2 weeks ago, now, after one hour of mounting (wires and other parts) I'm stuck again :(

The power drawbar floats on top of the spindle and is a little loose like that. Follow the directions to the letter, double check your work, and you will be good to go.

Thank you timbee, but

This looks like a little loose ? I seen movies with the powerbar in action, I can see it moves around when activated but nobody toched and moved it with the hand to see how much actual play there is, but for me it looks so weird to see that moving so much.

http://i.makeagif.com/media/2-04-2017/9rIAw3.gif

Well, I just looked at my 1100 and mine rocks ALMOST that much. Note that it only moves in that one direction, that is, perpendicular to a line along the two mount points. Finish the installation and adjustment to the best of your ability. Then test it thoroughly. If not satisfied, call Tormach with your questions.

Think of the design intent and what would happen if it were rigidly mounted. I could be it would apply a side force on the drawbar. It seems to me that it is self aligning the way it is designed. Tormach has some white papers that describe various components of their machines, thought I read something there about the power drawbar.

Maybe someone with more expertise (I'm no expert) will chime in. I can assure you mine works flawlessly as does the ATC.

Thats the way it is designed, works fine, I really didnt like it wobbling around but it doesnt affect the operation of it...... I have had mine a bit over 5 years now.

I just installed mine recently. That is normal. It will work fine.

Bill

Thank you guys, now that all you guys confirmed it's normal I'm more calm, I installed the ATC, but not yet adjust it perfectly. tomorrow I hope I'll have some time to test the power drawbar and then finish installing and aligning the ATC, I can't wait to see the mill runing , milling something, and now is a perfect time as I need to make some brass parts, it's a good time to start milling on the PCNC, also hope the CAM part will not be too hard to learn, as I will use Fusion 360, in my past years, on the other CNC machine I have, I only worked with Cambam, a software I love, and a very friendly community on their forum, something important for begginers with no experience in milling, like I was now 4 years ago.

The mounts are just to stop it from falling off but MUST allow it to VIOLENTLY move up and down when actuated. If not LOOSE it would bind on the left bolt as it moved, fail to release, engage or get stuck rubbing against the draw plate.

Finish install and make some parts. I made one for my x3 and trust me you could loosen that hole up another 0.05 and still be good. Worry not.

Wrong words courtesy of Tapatalk and Voice To Text. You bar well come.

Thanks guys, I finally mounted the Drawbar and the ATC, I did my best with the alignment of the ATC with the help of a friend, but still on one of the forks, the spindle touches the TTS when I jog Z, and I couldn't move that fork on the X axis to align it perfectly, but this happen only on one , all the other 9 forks we could align perfectly, so when tried to jog Z, when the TTS slides inside the collet there was no movement in any direction.

I marked the position that I was not happy with the alignment and moved to the next step: SET TC POS. I don't know what is wrong here, I placed a TTS holder in one of the tray positions and jog Z down until it touched the TTS holder, and pressed SET TC POS, than a window showed to let me know that the position was set to 2.451.

When I tried to automatically load a tool in the tray, first writing a tool number in the lower right corner, pressing enter and than STORE CURRENT TOOL, the Z lowered to that position and the tray moved to the load position but it did not slide inside the groove but hit the TTS, a few mm lower, I got the notification that the TRAY is not reached the LOAD position and than it retracted, nothing is bent, everything looks good , but I want to understand what's wrong.

Attachment 351442

If I compare my collet in the open position with the one I seen in this video at minute 11, there is a few mm diference, it looks like my collet is much lower than the one in the video. I measured it in the open position and it's 0.149", does this look good ?

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

Now I will try the Spring Washer preload adjustment procedure to see if everything is ok.

UPDATE.

I did tighten the long screw until the TTS didn't dropped from the collet when in OPEN position (if I touched the TTS it dropped ) than I unscrewed it just a little bit, now when I click Collet OPEN the TTS holder slides out of the collet freely.

I will try to make some picture when setting the TC POS again

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ovisopa

in my past years, on the other CNC machine I have, I only worked with Cambam, a software I love, and a very friendly community on their forum, something important for begginers with no experience in milling, like I was now 4 years ago.

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silly question, but if you like CamBam, why not continue to use it?
sure, its not as fancy as the 'real' 3D cam type programs, but it does work well with the tormach...

Here is another video I made now, when I set again the TC POS, to know exactly when the collet touched the TTS I tried to move it up and down, as you can see in the video, when the TTS didn't shake anymore I setup the TC position again, but the TTS still moves UP inside the collet when I close it, I think here might be the problem, the TTS moves up in the close postion, and now I set the TC with the collet open, which is a few mm up, but if I jog Z down I can see the fork moving down, I didn't moved it further down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5UM6Dmn4VY

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

silly question, but if you like CamBam, why not continue to use it?
sure, its not as fancy as the 'real' 3D cam type programs, but it does work well with the tormach...

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I am still using CamBam alot (I had so much work to do on the other CNC, programmed with CAMBAM, in the past weeks that I didn't had any free time to continue mounting the ATC on the Tormach, I can't belive it arrived 1 month ago and I didn't made any chips with it yet), but I hope with the new software I can do some things easier or better than CamBam, also the integrated visualization is nice, for the cambam I installed Camotics but even if I synced the tool libraryes I still don't use it too often, there ware a few times when if I used the simulation I could save a tool, or could notice a mistake avoiding to mill the part again (profiles on the outside instead of the inside because a polyline that apeared closed, it wasn't . .. just an example)

Here's a video while I was manually loading a tool in the collet, you can see the distance the TTS moves up when closing he collet, that looks like the distance that the Z axis needs to go further down so the fork will grab the TTS .. right now I'm afraid to try again :)

I'll see tomorrow evening, in the meantime maybe some of you guys come up with a few suggestions.

Thank you !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1AhGiWzxhA

We tried again to align the forks and the ATC body and this time everything seems to be perfect, I just feel it pushes a little to much down, when the spindle loads the TTS, but in the video posted by tormach I seen the same movement, when loading a tool.

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

Tomorrow we will continue to mount the other things, like the case, the monitor stand and relocate the buttons ... Cant wait to make some chips with it :)