[engnerdan]

Wow Dan
Your machine is looking great. Is that a Novakon spindle motor you have on the machine? I am curious if the Novakon factory motor has a stub shaft sticking out from the back side that a guy could put a encoder on.
if you get a chance could you check that out.
Thank you

Ask and you shall receive.

So what I am thinking is you open up the through hole in the endcap of the motor and clean up a couple places for mounting holes. Machine a small shaft adapter that will press onto the end of the motor shaft and allow you to mount an encoder wheel to it. The encoder should be shielded from dust and dirt, so if you take the cooling fan out and mount it on the top of the fan shroud you will have plenty of room for an encoder and shield.

-Dan

[SCzEngrgGroup]

It's very easy to drill the back end of the motor shaft, and press in a small shaft to accept an encoder. I do it all the time.... The AMT 102/103 capacitive encoders are excellent, and cheap (under $30).

Regards,
Ray L.

[engnerdan]

It's very easy to drill the back end of the motor shaft, and press in a small shaft to accept an encoder. I do it all the time.... The AMT 102/103 capacitive encoders are excellent, and cheap (under $30).

Regards,
Ray L.

Wow you are fast, you snuck in with a post while I was having internet problems.

[engnerdan]

I did not get much done this last weekend, I had to head to the in-laws to do a little wedding prep for this fall. But in the last week I have managed to detail out several of the parts of the Solidworks 3D model that someone else here created. I have been correcting and finishing out all the holes and details of the parts of the head assembly so I can ensure I have my motor mount and motor pulley correctly designed.

I am really itching to get the drawbar release cylinder and related hydraulics mounted and working. I did place an order with Discount Hydraulic Hose for all the of hydraulic fittings I think I needed plus a handful of extras. Turns out there fittings are so discounted that after gathering all the parts I thought I needed I was at about $10 and they have a minimum of a $20 order. So I picked up a few extra things. I also sent off a request for a quote to B&B Manufacturing for a steel pulley blank for my motor. I have not heard back yet but I am hoping they can make me 1/2 done blank for a reasonable price. This would have the taper for a QT bushing and be cut to length and I would have to take care of creating the belt flanges and finishing the length.

Here is a screen shot of my solidworks model of the Torus Pro. When I am done I will create one that is as close to the stock configuration as possible and share it.

Attachment 239336

[Hirudin]

I just thought I'd throw this in here, in case you haven't see it yet. Sorry if you've already mentioned it...

Bob Warfield has apparently been doing a series of articles on building the ultimate benchtop CNC mill. Maybe there's some tips in there that would help you out. Here's part 7 (there are links to the other six parts on that page)...
Ultimate Benchtop CNC Mini Mill Part 7: Spindle, Drawbar, and Toolchanger - CNCCookbook CNC Blog CNCCookbook CNC Blog

... later ...
Having now skimmed the articles, I think it looks like you've already surpassed all the topics covered. Well, maybe it's still worth a read.

[engnerdan]

I just thought I'd throw this in here, in case you haven't see it yet. Sorry if you've already mentioned it...

Bob Warfield has apparently been doing a series of articles on building the ultimate benchtop CNC mill. Maybe there's some tips in there that would help you out. Here's part 7 (there are links to the other six parts on that page)...
Ultimate Benchtop CNC Mini Mill Part 7: Spindle, Drawbar, and Toolchanger - CNCCookbook CNC Blog CNCCookbook CNC Blog

... later ...
Having now skimmed the articles, I think it looks like you've already surpassed all the topics covered. Well, maybe it's still worth a read.

Thanks for the heads up, I read through or skimmed all the sections posted so far. After going through everything he has posted so far I am feeling better about my decisions with my mill, not that I was doubting anything. Everything I have done with this mill has been to make it the way I wanted my mill constructed with the hope that it will serve me well for many years and do everything I want it to do. As I have gone through all the parts of my mill I have found a couple things that I still would like to come back to in the future to make it "perfect". But for now I need to get my machine up and running and see what the performance it before I decide to sink any more money into this project.

-Dan

[engnerdan]

Now onto a quick update on my mill progress or lack there of. A little back story is needed. A few weeks back I took a new day job at a medical company, so I went from working in industrial sensors to working in medical devices. To say there is a little bit to learn would be an understatement. To compound that when I left the sensors company I left several machines unfinished, in various stages of assembly, wiring and PLC programming. While leaving the previous job I sent some unfinished work out to a machine builder I had worked for in the past. I was figuring I should have more time to work on my mill once I made the transition. Well that was until the machine builder called me up because they had way too much work in the shop and needed someone to build these machines they just got (the ones I sent). So the last couple weeks I have spent my nights building machines, none of which is my milling machine. One possible upside is that as partial payment for the machine building they are going to machine several of the parts I need for my mill. While I could make them on a manual machine and it would take me weeks to get them done and the parts will just be better made on a CNC.

Attachment 240378Attachment 240380

One of the things I have managed to get done was a lot of updating/correcting the Solidworks model of my mill with all the drilled and tapped holes and adjusting it to be as my mill was cast. This is a huge help in the design of the new motor pulley and a possible new motor mounting plate. But I do not have anything to show for that right now. This last weekend I did get a few hours in the garage which I used to get another start on the electrical. So I spun the mill around so I could get into the electrical cabinet and I decided to dig into the custom interface cables for the servo drives. These have been on the back of my mind for weeks. I have had the; multi-conductor cable, the shielded 2 conductor cable for the analog signals in and out of the drives, and the 4 conductor 2 twisted pair cable for the encoder signals out of the drives, all sitting waiting for a plan and some solder. So I came up with a plan and started soldering Sunday afternoon. The multi-conductor cable I got cost nothing so there was no being picky about how many conductors it had as long as it was enough. What I scored was some 12 conductor 22 awg 6 twisted pair high flex cable, this was way more conductors then I planned on needing but it was free.

Here is a picture of the 50 pin connector and the 12 conductor cable partially soldered in.
Attachment 240370

All three of the control cables made up and installed, encoder outputs from the drives (yellow cables) connected to the KFLOP motion controller. The electrical box is a bit of a mess at the moment. I am not ready to start cutting any of the servo cables back or and I still have all the home sensor cables and what not to run back into the cabinet. Right now I am trying to get some of the base wiring finished up so I am ready to start wiring in sensors, lights, what not. Now that I got my labeler back home I plan to knock out most of the panel to panel wiring (wiring that stays just on the panel) tonight.
Attachment 240372

A quick side track, I got my hands on a spindle tram and decided to check to see how far off I might be after all of that machining. I started off getting the head square left to right (or close to it), then I checked front to back. Much to my joy the head is tipped down in the front about 0.0008” over 3”. I was pleased with this, but then I realized that I only had one bolt in each of the linear bearing blocks, so it will most likely pull back a little bit when I have all the bolts in.

Attachment 240366Attachment 240368

An additional side note or back-track - Going back to the spindle encoder discussion. I did some looking around and found I can get an optical encoder for about $150-$175 from US Digitial built the way I want. I also contacted CUI about their differential (line driver) output model and was told "it is coming". I got on the list to get a sample. So maybe that will be a winter project. For now I have a nice tension and compression tool holder from Maritool that will have to hold me over. Then for spindle positioning I am not sure what to do, my Hitiachi VFD has a simple positioning routine but I will have to do some R+D to see how well it works and what it takes to setup. Both of these items along with the automatic tool changer will have to be put on the 6-18 month plan.

[MRM RCModels]

That's the mark of a good workmanship. NICE!

[engnerdan]

Time for another update. In the last week I have got all 3 servos powered up and moving. I managed to crash the mill into my workbench, and I have got more wiring done. I think it was last Thursday that I got the 220 volt run to all the drives and misc things that needed it.

To jump back a couple months I bought 3 TECO (Taiwan Electric Co, or TED TECO Electronic Devices) from Machmotion in MO. I got 2 750 watt motors for the X and Y axis and I got a 1000 watt motor with electro-mechanical brake for the Z axis. But for some reason I never got around to testing any of the motors and drives after they arrived. So I had been looking forward to getting them powered up and tested. My intended control configuration is to use the drives with an analog speed input and encoder feedback going to the motion controller.

Once I had the drives powered up initially and nothing went up in smoke it was time to check the configuration with the software from TECO. I was a little concerned about whether the TECO software would work or not. I was already disappointed by the software for the Hitachi VFD that I could not get to work in Windows 7. Much to my surprise the software installed and started up just fine. On the first try it connected to the drive, read the parameters and I was off changing values. I had already read the second on "speed control" and knew all the settings I wanted to change. It took all of a couple minutes and I had changed all the parameters I needed to and I had loaded the new settings into the drive. In less then 5 minutes I configured all 3 drives and was done with the software. This was simply amazing to me, being I work with industrial controls and have worked with several servo motor vendors in the past. This by far was the EASIEST software I have ever used. The process blew away Yaskawa (which would have been about $8000 per axis) and there Motionworks software. Yaskawa has just as many parameters that can be adjusted, maybe even more. They have a clean good looking GUI but they have absolutely NO information on what each parameter does or how to set it. To setup the 1 Yaskawa motor it took me 3 weeks of trial and error to get it to work.

Here is a screen shot of the TECO software.
Attachment 240804

After getting all the initial configuration set on the drives I decided to play with some of the tuning features of my KFLOP motion controller. I had already mounted all the servo motors and couplers but in prep for setting up the drives I backed the clamping screw out on the lead screw side of the couplers so the motors could freely spin. Sure enough when the drives were enabled there was a little rotation of the motors (to be expected with the way I configured them). But when I was playing with the test moves in the KFLOP software the motor speed for the X axis picked up a bit and suddenly out of the corner of my eye I see the table start moving at a slow pace (no problem I thought to myself I have time). This was followed by the whole mill moving a couple seconds later, needless to say this caught my attention. I quickly reached over and hit the power switch, but this is not instantaneous and took a couple seconds to shut down. What had happened was the table hit my workbench (which I still have not removed yet) and started pushing the whole mill (which is on caster wheels). I knew what had happened right away. The aluminum coupler is reamed or bored at the factory so it is bare aluminum, this riding on the steel ball screw with the very close fit it has transferred some aluminum to the ball screw and galled the 2 together. Being these couplers are about $100-$125 each I was not feeling to good about things. Until I went to remove the motor and coupler to see what the damage was. Right away something was puzzling, the servo and ball screw turned freely separately by hand. After removing the motor I found almost no sign of any damage. Somehow there was no major galling and no damage to the aluminum coupler or the ball screw. Now the motors are sitting on the bench until I am ready to couple them to the ball screws and make the table move.

Since that initial testing I have refined my settings for the drives, got the parasitic wander mostly dialed out. I am working on the wiring of all of digital I/O. Once that is done I will start with the tuning function of the TECO software and then move onto tuning the motion controller to the servos. The TECO servos come with some auto tuning capability and some guidance for manually tuning the servos, again way better then I have got from any other major name servo manufacturer. My intent it to get the servos dialed in fairly close on the drive side then switch to the KFLOP tuning. I am hoping if the servos are tuned well at the drive level there should be much less tweaking needed on the motion controller side.

-Dan

[engnerdan]

I am now working on buttoning up all the wiring that has to come into the electrical cabinet. Right now I have 3 flexible conduits to get into the cabinet from the table. On the right side of the table I have the power and encoder cables for the X axis motor to get into the drive. Then I have the Y axis limit switch, which for the most part is untouched, is also on the right side but is a non-moving conduit. On the left side I have the X axis limit switch and the table oil line (I moved it from the right side). Wednesday night I moved the tables to the extreme travels that the conduits that move needed to reach. After a little brainstorming I came up with an idea to use the slotted cable entry locations that are located on either side of the column/electrical box mount. Then yesterday I found some time to squeeze in making the adapters I needed. On the left side I also found a way to sneak the Y axis servo cables into the same opening. Tonight I need to make a mounting plate for the right side motor end of the liquitite conduit.

Left Side
Attachment 241064Attachment 241066

Right Side
Attachment 241068Attachment 241070

[MRM RCModels]

I know a automation direct box anywhere. Great work so far. You planning on one-off jobs or light production?

[engnerdan]

I know a automation direct box anywhere. Great work so far. You planning on one-off jobs or light production?

Yeah, I just placed another order with them this morning for a couple little things that I need.

Honestly I have no major plans one way or the other. But most likely lots of one off items. I would say this mill is mainly a tool to support my engineering/tinkering habit.

[kvom]

I know a automation direct box anywhere. Great work so far. You planning on one-off jobs or light production?

I live about 4 miles from Automation Direct; anything I need from them I drive over to pick up.

[engnerdan]

Time for a big update, after tinkering on wiring and learning the KFLOP motion controller for the last week I was able to make the mil move last night I got the servos mostly dialed in for the X and Y axes. After getting that far I decided to try some G code from the sample programs that come with the KFLOP. Here is some crummy video of the mill running on 2 axes. I need to tweak the servo settings just a little bit because there is a little oscillation at the very end of the spiral. I think that is just the Y axis because I set one of the tuning variables fairly aggressive.


700 IPM


400 IPM (ignore what I said in the video, feed override was at 2X and the program 200)
Custom Torus Pro second G code moves - YouTube

12IPM first time running a G code program on the mill
Custom Torus Pro first G code moves - YouTube

Right now this is how I have configured the TECO servos (X&Y - 750 Watt 3000 RPM rated servos, Z - 1000 Watt 2000 RPM rated)
-Max speed in the drives is set to 3995 RPM (775IPM) - Limited by the max settable speed of the Z axis
-Acceleration is set to 100 in/sec/sec
-I am using the built in auto-tuning that the TECO drives offer

Aside from the mechanical parts I am waiting on a friend for (motor plate, custom motor pulley, hydraulic cylinder mount, Z axis motor coupler) I have some wiring to finish up for things like coolant pump relays and other output functions. Then I have some C programming for the motion controller to make this thing work the way I want it too. The biggest part of that programming is the homing routine and finishing the initialization routine. I am hoping to have the wiring done by this weekend, mechanical parts by the end of next week. Programming.... who knows when it will be done. It most likely will be a never ending project.

-Dan

[engnerdan]

Well as the saying goes "Two steps forward and one step backwards". Last Monday night I ran my first G-Code program and then the next day I discovered a notchy-ness in the X axis ball screw. This is obviously very frustrating because this is a brand new mill that just moved for the first time under power the day before.

So the tear down (again) began. It was not the new ball bearing I put in the non-driven end of the ball screw, which would have been the quickest and cheapest to fix. Turns out it was the next best place, the angular contact bearings at the driven end of the ball screw. This is one part I did not take apart when I had the ball screws out to clean them. So apart it came the bearing block and all the parts went into the parts washer. What I ended was two angular contact bearings #7004 that looked new but one has a tick in it after cleaning. Additionally while I had it apart I wanted to check the cast iron block the bearings mount in and measure it so I could make an accurate solid model of it. When this block was bolted to the table it had very pronounced notches, but when it was unbolted the notches were much less pronounced. Measuring it shows a couple thou mis-alighment between the 2 bearings. Additionally when I was cleaning the parts I discovered what was supposed to be a fiber seal/wiper that is to keep crud out of the bearings. But either the groove was too deep or the packing not tall enough but it was not contacting the shaft to seal out crude.

Pictures
Bottom Side of the X axis bearing block
Top (table side) of the block
Outside bearing cover removed
Inside bearing cover removed
Attachment 242420Attachment 242422Attachment 242424Attachment 242426
Bottom Side of the X axis bearing block, top (table side) of the block,

New angular contact bearings showed up last week and I made a last minute decision to replace the ineffective packings with rubber U cup seals. Those will be here today or tomorrow. Tonight I am planning on turning the cast iron pieces that will hold the seals. While I am in there far I have also decided to clean and repack the Y axis.

For some good news this weekend I got a couple of my parts from the machine shop for my drawbar release cylinder and I got time Friday night to modify my shaft coupler for the Z axis. Saturday I assembled the release cylinder and the hydraulics and hooked up the Z axis servo to the ball screw. Turns out the 1000 watt servo motor is more than enough to handle the weight of the head without a counter balance (so far in the testing I have done).

Pictures:
Modified motor plate
Attachment 242428

Enerpac hydraulic cylinder and the mount I designed for it. The hose coming off the top of the Tee fitting I use for bleeding the air out. It is much cleaner to pull that to the side and bleed it into a pan then to let it run out all over the top of the mill. The line off the left side heads back and down to the air-hydraulic booster I have in the cabinet.
Attachment 242430Attachment 242432

[mklotz70]

I'm just getting caught up on this thread....awesome stuff by the way!!! Do you remember off hand which bearing you used on the non-drive end of the ball screw. I can't quite make the numbers out in the picture. I had mine apart and noticed it was just a cast bushing and no bearing......now that I've seen you put a bearing in, I'd like to do the same.
Thanks!
Mike

[engnerdan]

I'm just getting caught up on this thread....awesome stuff by the way!!! Do you remember off hand which bearing you used on the non-drive end of the ball screw. I can't quite make the numbers out in the picture. I had mine apart and noticed it was just a cast bushing and no bearing......now that I've seen you put a bearing in, I'd like to do the same.
Thanks!
Mike

The radial ball bearings for the end of the ball screw was a 6004 20mm X 42mm X 12mm, and I used a double sealed bearing. The angular contact bearings for the motor end of the X & Y ball screws are 7004 20mm X 42mm X 12mm. Then the rubber seals I used are a generic molded rubber cup seal (with metal shell) 28mm X 38mm X 7mm. I will show how I added those maybe tomorrow. I machined all the parts last night at work, sand blasted them at home and sprayed then with some rattle can paint.

On the back burner is redoing the Z axis motor mount and adding a support for the end of the ball screw and rubber seals over the angular contact bearings. I will post that info when I get around to it.

-Dan

These are the bearings and the seals I bought
6004
6004-2NSE Nachi Bearing 20x42x12 Sealed C3 Japan Ball Bearings: Deep Groove Ball Bearings: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

7004
7004B Bearing Angular Contact 20x42x12 Ball Bearings VXB Brand: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

Seals
Metric Oil Shaft Seal 28 x 38 x 7 28x38x7 28mm x 38mm x 7mm Single Lip | eBay

[engnerdan]

I am hoping to have time tonight to get the X and Y axes put back together and do a little testing. This last weekend when I was working on the Z axis I was having some troubles. When tired to run the mill from the CNC interface the Z servo would vibrate and make a terrible racket. But when I moved it with the tuning interface it would work fine. Additionally my Y axis which was still connected to the ballscrew at the time was "talking" to me in very high pitched chirps and crackles. While that sounds bad anybody who has tuned many servos knows that is a common thing which typically is tuning related and can be adjusted out. Yesterday while eating lunch I was looking over the first C program for my KFLOP, this is the program that initializes the axes and sets the operating parameters for the motion controller to know how to command the servos. It did not take me long to find what most likely was causing the problems with the Y and Z axes. Turns out I forgot to change a couple values when I was coping and pasting to create the configuration. I had the motion controller looking at the Y axis encoder and sending the desired commands to the Y axis analog out channel, this is normal like it should be. Then I had the Z axis looking at the Y axis encoder and outputting the desired commands to the Y axis analog channel. So that explains the Y axis talking to me, it was getting 2 different directions at the same time. It also explains why the Z axis would just wig out and not move. It was not being commanded to do anything so the motion controller could not filter out the resonance and get it to hold position like it was when I was on the tuning screen.

So if I can pull off getting the whole works put back together tonight I will recheck the tuning on all 3 axes and then attempt some true 3 axis movements via G code.

Yesterday I ordered what may or may not be the last order of parts to get this thing running. I ordered a couple push button switches from AutomationDirect.com a solenoid valve for the tool release booster. Then I ordered a quick exhaust valve for the tool release booster, to speed up the gripping of the tool. Plus I ordered some terminal block jumpers/bridges to simplify the wiring of the opto isolated inputs and outputs on the Dynomotion KANALOG card. I am now getting excited because I am so close to having the mill operational. Another weekend of fabrication and wiring and I will only be waiting on parts from the machine shop.

[lixingwen1987]

I AM GLAD TO TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO INTRODUCE OURSELVES AS ONE OF THE LEADING SUPPLIERS OF Precision Bearings use for CNC and Machine tool ,AND Radial-Axial bearings WHICH ARE MAKE OF Wafangdian Tianjiu Bearings Technology Co.,Ltd.

WE ARE IN THIS BUSINESS SINCE LAST FIFTEEN YEARS; IN THIS SPAN OF TIME WE HAVE SUPPLIED PRECISION IN ALMOST ALL THE CONTINENTS OF THE WORLD.

BESIDES, WE DEVELOP HIGH-PRECISION YRT ROTATED BEARINGS, MACHINE TOOL MAINSHAFT BEARINGS AND MOTOR PRECISION BEARINGS. THE PRECISIONS OF OUR BEARINGS HAVE REACHED LEVELS OF P5, SP, P4 AND UP.

FEATURED BY HIGH PRECISION, LOW NOISE, HIGH ROTARY SPEED, HIGH QUALITY AND LONG SERVICE LIFE, OUR PRODUCTS SAVE USERS’ COST AND SHORTEN PURCHASE TERM. WIDELY APPLIED TO COMMON MACHINE TOOLS, CNC MACHINE TOOLS, LARGE / MIDDLE MOTORS, PRECISION ROLLING MILLS, ETC., OUR PRODUCTS FILLED THE DOMESTIC BLANKS AND CAN SUBSTITUTE IMPORTED PRODUCTS.

THIS IS TO INFORM YOU THAT WE HAVE PRECISION BEARINGS AND OTHER GOOD QUALITY BEARINGS AVAILABLE, CAN SUPPLY FOR YOU WITH BEST QUALITY.

WE HOPE CAN CORPORATION WITH YOUR COMPANY.

WE CAN SUPPLY OUR BEST PRODUCTS FOR YOU.

THANK YOU !

REGARDS！

--------------------------
Lixingwen（栗星文）
Wafangdian Tianjiu Bearings Technology Co.,Ltd.
(Wafangdian Heavy Bearings Researching & Manufacturing Co.,Ltd.)
Brand：WZFB
Web: 瓦房店天久轴承科技有限公司（原 瓦房店重型轴承研究制造有限公司）
Tel: 0411-85366785
Fax: 0411-85366785
Mobile:+86-15942617721
E-mail:[email protected]
Q Q : 178702120
Skype: lixingwen1987

Do our best to give customer best service.

[mklotz70]

Thanks Dan!!! I really appreciate the time you took to post the parts with links! Awesome!! I'm looking forward to seeing how you did the seals.
Mike