[Bob La Londe]

NOT!!!


I spent all day yesterday designing and cutting an encoder cover out of aluminum for my big mill. I had already tried vacuum forming one out of Polystyrene, and that was way to brittle. Then I tried .02 PETG which was a little flimsy, and finally .060 PETG. It worked, and would have fit nicely, but it looked like crap due to poor technique on my part. I gave up and cut an aluminum cover on one of the little machines instead.

After wasting most of the day I decided I NEEDED to go fishing so I spooled up a couple spinning rods with fresh line, grabbed a small box of club-os, and headed for the canal bank. By the time I got to my first spot the sun was already touching the horizon so I knew I didn't have much time. I picked a psot that had two or three key features and started fishing. The first couple features didn't do much, but then I got on some violent strikes. I had smallies tearing the tails off baits so fast I couldn't even drop the rod to let them take it. I finally landed one little small mouth around a pound and I started to get a feel for it. I retied, put on a fresh Club-O and tossed it to a hole I could see next to some floating cover. With the line still slack I saw a huge smallmouth come up and flash me a broadside is she dove with my Club-O. I cranked down and set the hook. For just a moment I felt the rush of knowing I connected... as the knot parted.

I retied, stuck on another Club-O, and hit that spot another dozen times. I had several small tailbiters, but that big smallie never came back to play again. I did catch a couple small largemouth after just ripping and deadsticking. I had several violent strikes when waking the Club-O back to the surface too. I also had two slashes at a popper just before it started to get really dark. I might have had more, but i was getting so many strikes on the Club-O that I didn't even think about trying a popper until it was almost time to go.

When I got back from fishing I cut the top part of the cover, but I was to tired to finish it. I'll do the manual drilling and tapping sometime today. I needed a minimum of 1.5" thick, and the thickest aluminum I had was 1" so I made it in two pieces.

[Bob La Londe]

Ok, its drilled and tapped and installed now. It looks pretty good if you don't look to close... Yeah, those are chatter marks all over the profiles. Please don't pick on my. I was pushing that poor little Taig way beyond its capacity hoggin out those parts... if you can call what it can do hogging... I am so looking forward to have a machine going that's rigid enough to use its full horsepower and feed rate.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the encoder cover drilled tapped, and assembled. I may change the screws out to something prettier, but the milled is tapped to 4-.7 mm, and the top cover is 6-32 American. These were the only screws I had the right size and length. I swear if I ever win the lottery I am just going to spend a couple days buying a ton or so of screws in various sizes.

After that bite I found fishing yesterday I'm torn between going fishing this afternoon, and scabbing a monitor and keyboard back on the mill to run the X & Y axis a bit. Both are playing since I still haven't come up with my final decision on how to setup my control console. I decided I didn't like the shelf and swingarm I made for it before... Well, that and I used the swingarm on a customer job site for a video surveillance monitor. LOL.

[Bob La Londe]

Encoder removal... now that I have the X & Z encoders installed, wires routed, and connected I figured it was time to remove the old encoder from the Z axis. I figured I'ld try and get it off intact since the plastic wasn't all rotten and brittle like the encoders on the X&Y had been. Maybe its been replaced once and isn't as old.

I figured if I could save it I might be able to use it on a future 4th axis, or maybe trade it to another Hurco owner for something I need. Anyway, I determined to try.

The cover came off nice enough. The sensor assembley came off nice, but I could barely even see the set screws to take off the encoder disc. I tried a couple of my smallest hex keys, and they either wouldn't go in or they spun in the hole. Finally with a combination of 2X reading glasses and a 3X magnifying glass I got a good look at the head of the set screws. They are tiny little square drives. Since I'll probably only ever turn them once (twice if I reuse it) I decided to just make a makeshift screw driver to turn them. I ground a quick square taper on a broken pick with the bench sander and fit the needle point into the hole. It caught a little, not enough to turn. I pressed in, and turned it to make a mark. Then I sanded off the end to the mark, and tried again. It gripped snugly, and both set screws loosened right up. I slid the disc off, and put it in one of the boxes the US Digital encoder discs came in. Now I have a complete intact stock encoder off a KMB1.

Anybody want to offer something for it? If not no big deal. Like I said. I may try it for some other application.

[Bob La Londe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X3fsRNBUsc
1st Successful 3 Axis Run on Hurco Retrofit - YouTube

Nothing special. I just finally got it to run on all 3 axis this morning. I fired it up last night for the first time, and I had problems with X Y and Z. Turns out it really does matter which way you hook up a bidirectional DC motor. I swapped the leads on Y & Z and they worked.

No matter what I did I couldn't get X to work though. I tried everything I could think of. The table was near one end of travel. It was still an inch or so short of the limit sensor though. Still, it was the only thing I could think of. A little too much force from the weight of the table, dirt on the ways from sitting etc. I disconnected the motor leads, and moved the table manually. Then I hooked them back up powered up the system and it worked. A little rough servo tuning and I can get 150 IPM reliabley on all three. The position indicator light only dims slightly upon rapid reversals.

Yeah, that Z is awfully noisy when it moves. I freaked out at first thinking the noise was a bad ball screw. I got my ear up there next to the motor and listened. It sounds like the belt is making the noise. I suppose it could be the bearing in the motor. Either way its either just annoying (belt) or easy to fix (bearing). Thank goodness its not the ballscrew. That looks like a real pain to replace.

I still have a lot of work to do before I can cut anything with it though. I'll start by cleaning off the table and I'll stop using it as a storage shelf. LOL.

[FannBlade]

Glad to see it working! I'm looking at the same mill to convert.
I will be picking your brain before long......more pics!

[Bob La Londe]

I have some paperwork to do, but if I wrap up at a reasonable hour I may reward myself by going fishing again. LOL. P.S. The worm in the picture a few posts back was injected in a mold I made on one of my smaller CNC machines. So... my fishing does tie into my CNC machining. LOL.

[Bob La Londe]

Air pressure for Lube Pump... As mentioned before the lube pump on this is an 82885 by Lincoln. I got Lincoln to send me a PDF copy of the manual for it a while back. Its posted here ion the Zone too in case anybody else needs its.

ANYWAY, when I finished rerouting, figuring out, and connecting the airlines on the machine I set the secndary regulator at 60 lbs. If you recall I commented earlier in this thread that I found the original secondary regulator set down around 25 pounds. When I read the manual on the 82885 I MISTAKENLY thought the minimum pressure for it to operate was 60 PSI. Since I am getting ready to hook up the electric and the timer to the air valve I figured I better re-read the manual.

I was wrong. The air pressure required depends on the oil injectors used. SL-32 & SL-33require from 60-175 PSIG at the pump. If using Sl-42 or SL-43 injectors it only requires 38-50 PSI. This set me on the path to try and figure out what injectors are used.

I started looking in the places its easy to see oil lines, and I can't find anything that looks like an injector. Just a fitting. If that is the case I can easily see why they might have had the air down much lower. With no injector mechanism to operate then much lower hydraulic pressure would be required to get the oil to flow.

Can anybody confirm this is the case? Are my observations correct? Do the oil lines just go to fittings where oil is neeeded, and not to oil injectors of any kind?

Since this is kind of important I'm going to post it as a separate thread also.

[Bob La Londe]

I gave up on the monitor swingarm and home made keyboard tray. The monitor arm was ok, but because its designed to be adjustable for a monitor it was not rigid enough for an attached keyboard tray. I could have modified, and locked, and... you get the picture, but it was more trouble than it was worth, and I still would have had to build a box for auxilary controls. I gave up and went back to the original swing arm control... sorta.

The PC and all the major controls are in the upper cabinet. The steel makes the two cabinets a rigid single unit, and there is a steel plate inside the cabinet that bolts through to the upright steel making for a rigid mount for the arm. The cabinets are still isolation mounted from the mill, but the arm does not flex the cabinet, or shake much.

I had to cut and reweld the arm to get something that fit the new application, but I think I am going to be much happier with this. I still need to make a keyboard tray, but I am thing I can do better than the one I made before.

The little monitor in the bottom of the picture was my planned monitor for this machine, but Mach 3 really likes 1024 x 768, and the monitor only does 800 x 600. I thought it was going to be the ticket. Its only 12", and its a touch screen, but its not going to work for more than testing for right now.

I have the oiler working, and secondary regulator pressure of 25 PSI seems to be adequate. Its using oil, and its not running out on the floor anyway. LOL.

[Bob La Londe]

I forgot the picture...

[Bob La Londe]

"I have been having headaches getting decent speed and acceleration out of my KMB1 conversion. The drives would fault inconsistently and intermittently during test. I am running a Smooth Stepper into a C23 breakout board which feeds GeckoDrive G320X servo drivers. My encoders are all US Digital E6 1000 lines. (2000 PPR) I was having problems at an acceleration setting in Mach 3 of 10 and speeds as low as 100 IPM. This morning I tried something new. I switched the drivers to HEDS mode and I was able to run with no problems at all. At 200ipm and 20 acceleration I had some issues. At 200 and 10 I had no issues. Any ideas? Does this thing really need to accelerate that slowly? I know the table is heavy, but I have seen bigger mills slinging the table around so fast that you can watch it crawl across the floor until its bolted down."

Does it need to be in HEDS mode for these encoders or should I do something else like the cap and resister mod?

Should I try a higher gain setting?

[Bob La Londe]

Still not thrilled with the performance of the encoders and drivers I have moved on for now. I ordered a bigger ecternal 5V power supply, and I am going to put them and the breakout board on the new power supply. The encoder specs are marginal for the GeckDrives at 50ma supply and 55ma demand. I read nother thread where somebody switched their encoders to an external power supply and things worked better.

In the mean time I am working out things for my control console. I was thinking the original Rota switch might be good for jogging the Z axis manually. I'm going to use an arcade console joystick for X&Y. Now I have to figure out how to test it. Maybe just a 5V PS and some 5V (with resistor) LEDS. If it works I think a momentary switch to enable the rotaswitch or something like that might prevent accidents at the console from a clumsy operator.

Anybody willing to post up the connections and specifications for a PC62D-200-5. I am guessing the 200 is lines, and the 5 is volts since there was lots of other 5V stuff on this machine.

[Bob La Londe]

If it had an index pin I would use it on the spindle of the mini lathe instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhfpo53ajpw

[Bob La Londe]

Well. I did a little more cleanup of the setup today. I put in a couple barrier strips to make power connections for misc relays, and accessories easier. I also took out the 1amp 5VDC power supply I was testing with and replaced it with the 5A one I ordered for the machine a while ago. Just for the heck of it I did some testing at rapids 250IPM, and feeds (not cutting) as high as 100 IPM with acceleration set upto 15 i/s/s. No errors, no warnings, just the expected out of position flickers. I didn't do any torture testing because I am running low on way oil, but I think that the low current power supply might have been sagging. The only other thing I can think of is I tied the grounds together for the 78VDC PS and the 5VDC PS at the barrier strips. It might have killed some noise or something.

[Nickolas587]

Ok, its drilled and tapped and installed now. It looks pretty good if you don't look to close... Yeah, those are chatter marks all over the profiles. Please don't pick on my.

[Bob La Londe]

The little monitor in the bottom of the picture was my planned monitor for this machine, but Mach 3 really likes 1024 x 768, and the monitor only does 800 x 600. I thought it was going to be the ticket. Its only 12", and its a touch screen, but its not going to work for more than testing for right now.

Ok... I learned that there is a program for editing and creating Mach 3 Screen Sets called MachScreen by Klaus Dietz. I designed a set of screens with large icons based on an 800x600 screen. I still have a lot of small stuff on some screens, but the buttons I use most of the time on the main screens are now all much larger targets for my finger tips. I am going ahead with the 800x600 touchscreen monitor. In fact the last few times I have fired up the machine I haven't even plugged in a mouse or track ball. Just used the touchscreen.

The program is not perfect. It tends to get unstable after you have done a bunch of work or if you try to move a bunch of stuff all at once, but it works. I found that by saving after every change, and the just restarting it anytime it got a little flaky I was able to muddle through and design some fair screen sets. For the busy screens I'll just have to use a stylus.

If file attachments gets fixed, I'll upload some screenshots of the new small format large icon screens later.

[Bob La Londe]

Of course I'll have to redesign the whole set if I add a 4th and or 5th axis (which is part of the lang term plan).

Main Screen


Tool Path Screen


JOG (New Screen) I decided I wanted a screen I could use like a pendant. This one is more firendly than the old flyout screen. Also, I can get to it now from the touch screen instead of the old way of having to use the TAB key on the keyboard.


Diagnostics: As you can see this screen is awfully busy, but I didn't really want to leave anything out.

[Bob La Londe]

You know sometimes you just have to look at something in your real world
work envelope before the truth hits you in the noggin. Since I am getting
very close to actually using the Hurco retrofit mill I thought I ought to
pick up a fair face mill to go with it. I found a 1" Kwik 200 shell mill
holder on Fleabay and pulled the trigger. Then I started looking of a
shell/face mill to go with it. I had fantasies about flying though 6"
aluminum plate facing in a single pass. Then I started plugging numbers into
ME Consultant. They looked awesome. The mill will go that fast. I have
been testing with decent results at 250ipm (no load) and I have no fear
about being able to do some serious cutting at 100-150IPM. The speeds and
feeds with big stuff were coming out right in that range at spindle speeds
the mill will turn 2500 +/-. I was getting all excited about being able to
make chips fly.

Then I happened to notice the horsepower requirements calculated.

I decided a 3" 5 insert shell mill would do. LOL.

[FannBlade]

Then I happened to notice the horsepower requirements calculated.
I decided a 3" 5 insert shell mill would do. LOL.

Damn the HP thing!

[David589]

I have some paperwork to do, but if I wrap up at a reasonable hour I may reward myself by going fishing again. LOL. P.S. The worm in the picture a few posts back was injected in a mold I made on one of my smaller CNC machines.

[Bob La Londe]

I made a face plate for the console, and figured out what I thought was going to be a simple way to mount the 12" touch screen by lining an opening with rubber trim, and bolting aluminum bars across the back of the monitor to hold it in place. It worked, but I must have over tightened it because the bottom inch of the touch screen quit working.

I had wanted to stay with the 12" to leave more room on the console for other controls, but the more I think about it the console doesn't need more than an E-Stop button, a reset button for the servo drivers, and a couple USB ports to plug in thumb drives. With a touch screen and my custom JOG screen I don't need jog controls at all. I ordered a 15" touch screen (found it used) that looks like its more specifically designed to be used in a panel mount. That will allow me to make all my buttons bigger and leave more room for additional controls on some screens. I guess I am back to designing a new screen set again though.

The touch screen optimized JOG screen works really well. With the larger screen (and larger resolution) I am debating putting probe controls on the JOG screen or creating a separate probing screen. I was thinking with probe control and JOG controls on the same screen it would be really convenient. Jog over close fast, and then touch the axis probe button.