[mduckett]

Loaded a simple arc/circle program and ran it first on some wood, then on a scrap piece of aluminum. I’ve been playing with the motors and running the program in single step mode. The first thing I notice is how loud the X,Y motors are—didn’t expect them to be so noisy when being driven in circle interpolation. Setup was a 5/16” 2FL end mill running at about 2000 RPM. I set the feed rate to 5 IPM. The program traces a 1” circle with the cutter centered on the circle, and does spiral cutting down to .0625”. I didn’t bother doing an accurate tool touch-off, just got it close but not touching, so I ended up with about .040” final depth. Since this was my first CNC cut in metal, I didn’t want to take any chances on cutting too deep or fast. Sorry no video yet, but once I get more comfortable with running the machine I’ll start making some. Right now I’m still trying to learn the g-codes and keep from crashing something. Already been saved by the limit switches at least once. I tried to measure the “pocket” diameter on the test piece for roundness and accuracy but it’s so shallow that it’s hard to get consistent readings from my calipers. Looks to be maybe .002” max out of round. No evidence of backlash at the direction change switch points. I did calibrate the X,Y ball screws prior to this run and also measured the backlash to be < .001” . However, on the Y axis there seems to be considerable variation in the screw pitch over even short spans. For example, jogging in 0.1” steps, I see as much as (+/-) .0025” of variation in the steps over a 1” travel. This is the screw that needed to be straightened, so I’m wondering if that may be the reason. All in all, I’m encouraged by the function so far, and expected that some tweaking would be needed.

Next ToDo items: Fix interference problems on the X-axis travel colliding with the side of the rear Y-axis way cover bracket. Fix the front Y limit switch/X switch cable problem. Get E-switch box mounted and flood coolant pump power wired up. Need to make the upper Z-axis way cover. Build up the enclosure so testing with serious chip throwing and flood coolant can commence.

[mduckett]

It’s been hard to make progress lately, but I’m moving ahead with finishing up the flood coolant and enclosure. Some of the enclosures posted on the forum lately are so nicely done it’s motivated me to get mine finished too. I followed Hoss’ tip and bought one of the bilge pumps for < $20 from Surplus Sales of Nebraska. The plan is to power it with 12 Volt switched and supplied by my E-Switch/control box. Ultimately this will probably be the power for a relay that will allow control from Mach3, but for now it will be manually controlled. The main storage “tank” is a Home Depot 5 gallon bucket with lid. The pump is naturally located in the bottom of the bucket, housed in a modified 4” PVC coupling. At Lowes I found a square bottom 2 gallon bucket that fit nicely into the larger bucket, and this becomes the drain trap for the return fluid. Used a 1.25” hole saw to cut drain holes in the sides bottom, and then made a trap liner with aluminum window screening. I also bought some synthetic felt material from McMaster-Carr to provide a finer screening (McMaster part *9242T13), but at this point it’s unclear whether that will be needed/used. Probably start out with it initially. The flood table is plumbed with PVC pipe, with each of the two drains made from PVC reducer fitted down into the holes in the table. The two 1.25” PVC drain lines converge into holes cut in the bucket lid, and the lid still snaps into place as designed. The output side from the pump has a nipple installed in the lid to allow disconnecting the table supply line so the bucket can be removed for service. The supply line going up to the table top uses reinforced clear dishwasher tubing, the kind with that netting embedded in it. The final vertical pass-through is ½” copper pipe connected to a nipple for the connection to the dishwasher tubing supply line. I cut a hole through the table and used a copper union so I could break the top connection for maintenance. A shut-off valve and nipples for the 5/16” tubing and LocLine complete the system. I plan to install a tee/bypass line that can be used as a sprayer for washing down the table and enclosure. Still need to install the drain screens, which will probably be rounded like a gutter trap and made from the same screening as the filter. Need to run the power wires to the E-Switch/control box and get the LocLine mounted. Bought the materials for the enclosure, mainly aluminum angle and Plexiglas, hope to get at least the sides and back parts done this week.

[mduckett]

The plan from the beginning was for the enclosure to consist of clear panels on all sides. This helps with the lighting, and of course allows monitoring of the system from all sides. Originally I thought the enclosure would be pretty much fixed in position with some sort of door arrangement at the front, and maybe some sliding cutouts in the side panels to allow for long pieces to stick out the sides. I’m probably not going to make the sliding window cutouts yet until I get more time running the machine and determine if it’s necessary. One change I’ve added is to make the side/back panels more modular so that the panels can be quickly removed in 3 separate assemblies to help with access for maintenance. The attached sketch shows the general plan for the enclosure. The back panel is the largest, and will have it’s Plexiglas bolted along the uprights and top angle pieces. The lower ends of the uprights will be keyhole slotted to engage screws in the table. The side panels will be built up from the front upright angle, a top piece, and a channel piece. This assembly will be attached to the table with keyhole slotted holes and also bolt top and bottom to the back piece upright. By removing 4 screws and loosening the keyhole screws, all three panels can be lifted off the table. The table already has the bottom angle aluminum perimeter, so these panels fit down over those pieces.
For the front access, I’m leaning toward an overlapping, multi-panel sliding arrangement similar to a 3-part shower door. Not sure if there will be one or two panels. I also want the whole arrangement to lift off for full access if needed. Still working on the design, but am going to proceed with the side and back panels.
One thing that's making me nervous is that I've been seeing some commentary on the forum that the synthetic coolants (I plan to use Kool-Mist 77 or Syn-Kool) may have a tendency to make polycarbonate (Lexan) panels brittle. I'm using acrylic (Plexiglas), so maybe it won't have the same reaction. I'd hate to lose $100 in plexiglas to the coolant, especially when the vendors do not seem to think it should be happening (I'm going on what I've read in the forum, not personal conversation with the vendors). Feedback on this subject is appreciated.

[mduckett]

Got the corner uprights cut for the enclosure, made from 1” aluminum angle, the architectural type with square corners, and 1/16” thickness. Since the plan is to be able to remove the panels, I’m using keyhole slots with screws to hold the uprights to the table. With 4 slots per upright, that’s 16 slots to cut, so I decided to use the CNC to cut the slots. Used CAD to draw the slots, then transferred geometry via DXF to CAMBAM (trial version right now, nice program). Made up a left and right g-code program, and after getting things set up, this worked very well, cut 4 on one side, then set up and finished the other sides of the angles. I could have done it faster with the drill press, but the results would not have been as nice. After finishing the keyhole slots, I set up a test cut for a 1.5” diameter, .350 deep pocket cut in some scrap aluminum to get some performance readings on backlash and accuracy. The pocket looks nice enough, but I don’t have measurement numbers on it yet—next post. The picture show a sample piece I used to test making the keyholes and here's a video link for one of the final pieces being cut (KeyholeCutting2 - YouTube). Next ToDo is cutting Plexiglas and building up the panels. Picked up the remaining hardware to get the flood coolant hooked up too.

[mduckett]

I asked my machinist friend to critique the pocket cut I made to test machine accuracy and backlash (see prev. post). Good news and bad news. Bad news is the pocket is generally over size by .005". Using this as the mean value, the X axis and Y axis measurements vary by about +.002". However, in the cross measurement (45 degrees axes) it is over about .005" in one direction, and under about -.002 in the other. Disappointing. However, upon checking the depth there is about .015" variation across the bottom, which leads to the good news--In my haste to set up the cut, I grabbed what I thought was a piece of machined aluminum flat to serve as the parallel in my vise, but it turns out that it was faced on only one side, and is the cause of the sloped bottom, and also makes this cut a no-test, because the circle was being cut on a slope and would naturally turn out oval. Ugh, stupid newbie mistakes. Another bright spot is there is no sign of backlash in the cuts, so my measurements showing backlash < .001" appear to verify. I'll re-do the pocket cut test soon and post results.

Worked on the enclosure over the weekend and got the corner posts mounted and the top framing in place. Spent most of this evening working out the doors. There will be two doors, left and right, and each will consist of 3 overlapping plexiglas panels. Two of the pieces can slide toward the sides to almost collapsing on the third, fixed panel. The panels hang from a slotted top rail that is mounted on a post so that it can swing completely inward, parallel to the sides and out of the way. This way there won't be any dripping on the floor in front of the mill, and still get good access. I don't have any clean sketches yet, but I'll post some tomorrow.

[mduckett]

Well, the plan to update “tomorrow” got a little side-tracked…But I finally did make some progress on the enclosure door designs, enough to press ahead. In addition and in parallel, I’ve been evaluating the machine while using it to make some of the parts for the enclosure. The sketches show the doors, which are inverted L-shapes consisting of 1” square aluminum tubing (1/16” wall). The top and uprights are joined using some machined inserts that serve to both draw the two pieces firmly together and also provides some pivot point features that will be pinned to the rest of the framework to make the doors hinge. Hopefully the sketches capture the idea. The bottom side of the top cross pieces are slotted progressively at 3/8”, ¼”, and 1/8” corresponding to the three panels of Plexiglas that make up the doors. The panel nearest the upright is fixed, and the others can slide/collapse nearly completely into the sides. Each panel hangs down from the slot on Delrin slides, much like some shower doors (except they use ball bearing hangers). The bottom will probably have a retainer to engage the bottom of the center panels, and one side will have an overlap panel to cover the middle gap. To open the doors, the panels will be slid as required to the sides, and the doors pivoted inward, completely parallel to the sides if desired. I made detailed models for the previously mentioned inserts for the door assemblies, and started using some new CAM software to make the tool paths. I’ll cover the making of the parts in detail in the next post. Threw in a couple pictures of the mill with most of the framework done except for the doors. My garage is so junked up right now it's embarrassing.

[mduckett]

Took a long time for me to get the tool paths ready to make the parts. They aren’t complicated, and I could have made them manually in half the time, but the learning is worth it. Not counting facing the stock to size, it took five setups to make the pivot inserts for the door uprights, and three setups for the inserts that go into the top pieces. Started by cutting some 1.125” aluminum (6061) stock into roughly 1” strips about 3” long, faced them to finish thickness, about .895” square to make a nice snug fit into the 1” square aluminum tubing (the stock was scrap which is why some pieces have holes in them already). I chose to do the vertical machining setup first, which just made successive downward square outlines around the part, leaving the upright feature as shown in the pictures. This setup got a little dicey because first of all I should have been using lead-in movements instead of plunging, and then my machine did a couple of inexplicable rapid movements. The first caused the collet to be jammed against the work and just stalled the Z movement, the second I caught with the E-Stop button before it could crash. No idea what caused it, but I really didn’t enjoy this at all. Finally got through it and found that somewhere along the way the zero point moved (due to lost steps) and 3 of the 4 parts had an offset of about .020” on the resulting “post” position. Figuring the parts were still usable, I pressed on to the second setup, which placed the parts horizontal so that a radius could be milled onto the end of the part. This worked ok for the one part that was machine correctly, but looks bad on the others as the radius is offset. I didn’t change it because fundamentally the radius needs to be centered—ugly but still functional. At this point I decided to forego the third setup that was supposed to put that nice fillet on the pivot part. Instead, I did a semi-manual milling step to get the thickness correct with no fillet. With the machining complete except for drilling the holes, I cut off ~.5” sections from the pieces to make the other inserts. I didn’t bother to face these. The original pieces were then faced to length so they could fit into the tubing coming in from the horizontal direction. To drill the holes, I used the NFS wizard in Mach3, the one that allows for a list of holes. Each part has a through hole (#G, .2060”) and a tap hole for ¼-20 (#7, .2010). I used the G83 peck drilling cycle, which made quick work. For the setup I used parallels in the vise, and since this vise is too small to use the stop that clamps to the jaw, I used a piece of scrap 1”x1” aluminum angle held vertically against the end of the jaw as a locator when putting each piece into the vise. Now, only needed to tap 8 holes. I found myself wishing for tapping capability, automatic tool changer…dream on. Anyway, the parts turned out ok, functional and certainly not pretty but won’t be seen anyway. In addition to the attached pictures, I made a couple of videos of the first two setups described, here are the links:. Machining PivotBrackets on LMS CNC Mini Mill (Part 1) - YouTube
Finally, I cut the 1” tubing for the uprights and used another NFS wizard to CNC cut a rectangle from each end using a 1/8” end mill. This worked really nice and so easy with CNC. A couple touches with a file to square the corners and the pieces fit great.
Lessons learned with Mach 3 on my laptop: A) When Artsoft says Mach 3 is a challenge on laptops, they mean it. After my incident with unexplained rapids and lost steps, I went in and made some SERIOUS chops to the Windows services and device drivers. I was still getting some long interrupts, which I finally isolated to of all things the sound card driver. Disabled that and the network card driver and voila, finally a clean 25 KHz pulse train. B) When changing the laptop to be a standard PC to get rid of power management, my machine somehow couldn’t find it’s display hardware and kept using a crappy VGA driver. Finally found in the device manager, under the standard pc device, the IRQ steering options. Turn those off and finally the video hardware is back on line. That VGA driver was really slow on painting the display. Next up, make the top pieces, and Delrin slides, cut Plexiglas panels, get it put together.

[mduckett]

Ok, I guess only one video link per post, here's the second: Machining Pivot Brackets on LMS CNC Mini-Mill (Part 2) - YouTube

I'll also add that I made a second pocket cut test and found that although this one had a better finish on the bottom, it had the following measurements.

Pocket size: 0.8" Resulting pocket: .811" x .805" measured at the top, wide measurement along Y axis. .799" x .798" measured a the bottom. No sign of backlash. Cutting parameters: 2500 RPM, .020"/pass with ramping, conventional milling, 4 IPM, 3/8" 2 FL HSS/TiN end mill.

Theories: 1) Tool deflection 2) mal-formed tool 3) tram error 4) spindle/column alignment error Others? I'll check the tram tomorrow and start working through the possibilities. I'm still suspicious of the Y-axis ball screw/bearing but that will take some time to disassemble. I'd like to get the X switch block replacement made before dis-assembling. But first, must finish the enclosure!

[mduckett]

Slow going lately on finishing the enclosure, the doors and the panel hanger slides were as usual more difficult than anticipated, but I like the finished product. Next is to finish bolting up the surround plexiglas. Should be able to get the E-switch box mounted, and with that the power connected to the coolant pump. Pictures of the completed enclosure soon. Can't wait to mill some parts without chips flying everywhere and oily swarf mess on parts.

Edit: Replaced Enco sales note.

[BAMCNC.COM]

I seen the email, but thought it was the enco outlet only?

[mduckett]

Yeah, sorry I didn't see your post, was out working on the enclosure all evening. The additional 30% was on everything as far as I could tell, both sales flyer items and regular catalog items. Probably didn't apply to machinery though. I should have put an RF-45 in the cart and checked it. -md

[mduckett]

Finished up the doors this evening, and am pretty happy overall. Made one screw up on the panels, namely the larger panel should have been on the right, smaller on the left. I did the mirror image when laying it out, and caught it after making the top rails. It’s easy to fix, just takes time to make two new top rail pieces as mirror images. It’s ok for now so I’m proceeding as-is. Finishing the doors consisted of cutting the two pieces of 1” square tubing for the top rails and milling the slots. The longer door has 3 slots sizes; 3/8”, ¼”, and 1/8”, the short door has two slots sizes ¼” and 1/8”. The larger slots are closest to the vertical side post and hold the fixed panel. The other slots are used for the sliding panels. I took some pictures of the working drawings I made for the top rails and the panel hangers, which are made from black Delrin. The slide mechanism is pretty simple for the two panel short door, just some little blocks that suspend the door and it slides past the fixed panel. The three panel door is a little more complex because the center panel needs to be pushed/pulled. The parts I designed work well, however I didn’t plan well for the assembly so it was pretty difficult to put together. The main problem is that the widest slot should be cut completely through to the end of the tube instead of stopping short like I did. I didn’t cut it through because it would compromise the strength and would require additional fasteners at the end, however the panels would be easily loaded from the wide end. Instead I had to do some contortions of removing the fixed panel, sliding one panel in without top slides and maneuvering and attaching the slides with the panels in place. I also had to drill a hole in the inner side of the tube in order to install the final slides to the outer most panels because the inners were now captive and I had to reach the screw through the side. Anyway, it works well and with the small changes would be easy to assemble. The fixed panels are attached using some clear vinyl angle that Lowes sells for protecting corners in the home, I think for wall paper. This worked out well. Got some cheap brushed stainless door handles at Lowes also. Only thing left on the doors is to add a thin overlap panel to cover the gap between the doors
For the main enclosure, the side and back Plexiglas panels were cut to size on the table saw. Then I went around and marked all the holes in the aluminum, drilled those with a piece of wood backing, then put the panels in place and carefully drilled those through the existing holes in the aluminum, again using a piece of hardwood as a backer. Used 8-32 socket cap screws to hold everything together. Probably will add a couple 45 degree braces on the top connecting the sides to the back to stiffen things up a little more. Otherwise, I’m ready to get the pump hooked up to power and test out the flood system. I bought a gallon of Syn-Kool for coolant, and have two Loc-Line nozzles on a T-fitting that will direct the stream. I also bought some stuff to add a wash down hose to the plumbing.
On the flood/enclosure ToDo list: 1) Install gap strip on doors, 2) Hook up pump power, which means mounting and connecting up the E-switch box, 3) Need to get some drain strainers bought or made, 4) Seal up everything with silicon, 5) Mount Loc-Line nozzles

[mduckett]

Wow, busy summer and time flies--can’t believe how long it’s been since the last update. Some of the things on the ToDo list have been completed so I'll post those. Haven’t done much machining yet this summer, but hope to get back to it very soon as the project backlog list is getting pretty long.
I finished off the coolant system LocLine connections and added a washdown hose like others have done for their builds. For the LocLine connections, I made a simple manifold out of a piece of rectangular aluminum. Since the LocLine kit I bought had several nozzles and a 1/8” and 1/4” pipe fittings, it made sense to install both. The simplest approach for the manifold was to bore a hole from end to end, and install a barb fitting for the inlet on one end, and one of the LocLines connectors at the other end. The second LocLine would then connect into the manifold from the bottom or side. The pictures show the installation. I’m using 5/16” clear tubing for the supply. The manifold hole was bored through on the drill press using the diameter needed for 1/4” pipe fitting threads (I used 7/16” for NPT but probably should have used 29/64” for straight NPS as it was a little tight for the barb fitting). I didn’t have a 1/4”-18 pipe tap, so a visit to Harbor Freight solved that. Tapped both ends for 1/4”-18 and that was done. The hole for the smaller 1/8” NPT LocLine connector was drilled near the inlet on the bottom using an R bit, again could have used S, but it worked out fine, the plastic fittings are more forgiving than the metal ones. To mount the manifold, a piece of 1/8” aluminum was cut to fit the top of the spindle control box with some overhang. Two screws hold it to the box. The manifold was drilled and tapped for 2 @ #4-40 screws at each end and secured to the mounting plate. I wanted to chamfer the edges of the manifold, but laziness overcame that idea so it'’s mounted as-is. To finish off the connections, I bought a couple of the LocLine valves and installed one on each of the tubes. This allows for 1) adjusting the flow as required between the tubes, and 2) when the washdown hose is used, the LocLines can be shut off to allow full pressure to the washdown hose. Also bought some more straight pieces to add some length to the front tube. BTW, I broke down and bought a pair of the LocLine pliers, a little pricey at $11.95, but it really helps to connect them together, too bad it doesn’t work to separate them too. I tested the system with plain water (not mounted, just running into the drains) and it works great, plenty of pressure. The washdown hose is the usual coiled air line hose. Got a fitting from McMaster that converts the 1/4" NPT male end on the hose to GHT (Garden Hose Thread) and attached a cheap brass spray nozzle. The washdown hose connects to the coolant supply with a ball valve. The gallon of Syn-Kool also came in, (along with some other goodies I got on a one-day 30% off sale from Enco ) so mixing that into the sump bucket is about all that’s left to do.

[mduckett]

Up to this point I've been hauling out saw horses and plywood to use as a bench to set the laptop on when using the mill— what a pain, but ok for testing, but a much better/permanent solution was needed. I’ve seen that others have used wall mounts or have desks nearby, but for my setup using a laptop on a pedestal makes sense. I sketched out some ideas and went with a pipe-based support design. It needs to pivot and be movable to allow moving around the machine. I had some scrap 1/2" plywood and 2x4, and the rest of the setup was pipe supplies from Lowes. I used standard, schedule 40 galvanized pipe and fittings to keep things a little cleaner than the cheaper black pipe. The pipe and fittings are all 3/4" sizes except for the piece used as the mount/pivot bushing, which is 1", and in theory should allow a slip fit over a 3/4" pipe. The pedestal top is 1/2" x 18" x 22" plywood with an H-shaped stiffener underneath. The legs of the H are ripped 2x4, or 1 3/4" x 1 1/2" and the cross piece is a 2x4 cut to fit. All are glued and screwed to the top using some #8x1 1/2" flat head wood screws. The pipe flange attaches to the center of the 2x4 cross piece, and the rest of the pipe is assembled as shown, with the 45 degree elbows making the parallel connections to the main support pipe. The bottom pipe slips into the 1" pipe section, which is in turn captive in a wooden bracket that attaches to the bench. The bracket is built up from scrap 3/4" plywood glued and screwed together to form an open-ended pocket to hold the 1" bushing pipe when attached to the table leg. The pedestal is installed by fitting the bottom pipe into the bushing. When fitting things together, I found that the 3/4" pipe would not slip into the 1" pipe until the threaded section was cut off; apparently the threading distorts or swells the pipe. Once cut off, it slid on easily. I had some 1/16" x 3/4" flat aluminum scrap that worked out perfectly to shim the 1" bushing into the bracket, not strictly needed but took out some wobble. The weight of the pedestal and friction keeps things pretty steady.
Note the black box with the EStop switch has also been installed to the cabinet with wood screws. I finished up the internal 12-volt wiring for the 2 switches installed so far, which are for the coolant pump and a future spindle ring light. The 12V power comes from a 2.5Amp wall wart, and the 12 Volt power wiring is just plain lamp cord with female 2-pin Dean’s power connectors installed for the supply side, male on the device side. The power and EStop wiring goes into the cabinet through a PVC bushing made from a 3/4" PVC coupler turned down slightly to fit tightly into the 1 1/2" pass-through hole. The idea is to be able to easily disconnect and remove the black box as needed for future additions/upgrades. Wiring/cabling organization inside the bench still needs some work, but the electronics case fits nicely. I know some have commented that coolant leaks are a threat to such arrangements, so some plastic sheeting might be a good idea as an insurance policy. I plan to install a fan with a small furnace type filter in a door to draw air into the space for cooling and keep the dust to a minimum in the electronics area. For the 120 VAC supplies, for now I'’ve decided to punt and just bring those lines out the top. In the future I’'ll route them through a separate conduit into the bottom but I don'’t want to do it right now. I’'ve mounted a power strip to the outside cabinet to supply the 120 VAC to the entire system, but may use a second strip from a different outlet for the spindle if motor noise is an issue.

[Fastest1]

Nice build. I notice on your doors of the enclosure. It appears you used a piece of square tubing and slotted the top for the doors to fit in. I dont see a drain on that tubing. Is there one there I am missing? I made a system for my Dyna 2400 using a fully welded pan and an 80/20 enclosure, doors and all. Still leaks, not much but enough to piss you off. I was shooting for dry during machining.

[mduckett]

Nice build. I notice on your doors of the enclosure. It appears you used a piece of square tubing and slotted the top for the doors to fit in. I dont see a drain on that tubing. Is there one there I am missing? I made a system for my Dyna 2400 using a fully welded pan and an 80/20 enclosure, doors and all. Still leaks, not much but enough to piss you off. I was shooting for dry during machining.

Thanks, a good point to consider. Sealing out water is hard, especially when it is spraying around. For my doors, there are only 2 pieces to the frames; the horizontal top and vertical side, as you say made from square tube. The slots for the plexiglas panels in the bottoms of the horizontal sections should not allow much coolant to stay trapped up there, plenty of room around the panels to allow the slide action, and the vertical sections don't have any place for coolant to enter as both ends are plugged with the pivot inserts. When I did some preliminary spraying around water in the enclosure I found some leaks in the corners but everything else seemed ok. The mill at work tends to spray out the top, which I think might also happen with this setup too, so some plastic over the top may be needed. --md

Edit: Went back and looked at post#92 and maybe see the reason for the comment? In that picture, the door panel is upside down to show the slots--if that were the bottom it would definitely need drain holes. --md

[mduckett]

Finally got all of the ToDo's completed for sealing potential and known leaks in the flood enclosure. I figured the best test was to use it while making a part, so the re-designed X-Axis switch housing was a good candidate. I had already made the tool paths for milling and drilling operations so I cut an aluminum blank from some 1/2" 6061 scrap. After making some "air cut" tests on the tool paths it was finally time to give it a try. Good news is the flood system appears to be working well, plenty of pressure even when running two jets, and the enclosure, is keeping the coolant inside . The bad news is after two attempts, I have two parts that can be used, but each has machining flaws. The first had a bad tool path and cut the bottom wall thickness too thin, and during the drilling operation on the second trial part the drill bit broke on hole #5 of 10. I had been playing with settings and must have slowed the pecking feed down too much. Oh well, so now I need to buy some more #50 drill bits. I'm using Syn-Kool for the coolant and it seems fine, but I notice that it is causing some tinting on the aluminum. I should have rinsed the parts in clean water, after machining, but it's no big deal for this part. Maybe I mixed it too concentrated--they recommend 1:10 to 1:25, and I chose closer to the 1:10 side. I can dilute it down though, as I only mixed enough for half the resevoir. Also, the problem I've noted before about the Y-Axis leaving sloped walls on one side of pocket cuts is of course still there too, guess it didn't fix itself during the down time. I will need to disassemble some of the Y-Axis to install the new X-Axis limit switch housing, so I'll get to the bottom of it then. From this latest machining it seems like the Y-Axis bearing or bearing housing is not tight and is shifting around under load by as much as .015". I posted a video showing the milling for one of the parts to show the coolant system functioning.
Here's the link:
Cutting X-Axis Limit Switch Housing with Flood Coolant - YouTube

[Fastest1]

Thought everything looked great during the process!

I too unfortunately experience those other issues quite often. Since I only do this as a hobby I am not involved in many projects. Or is it, because I am so bad at this, I am a hobbyist?

[mduckett]

Thought everything looked great during the process!

I too unfortunately experience those other issues quite often. Since I only do this as a hobby I am not involved in many projects. Or is it, because I am so bad at this, I am a hobbyist?

Yeah, the best part of these runs was using the flood system--no more sticky, oily chips and swarf on the parts.

[mduckett]

Even though the machine appears to need some tweaking, I’m going to go ahead on another project that’s been waiting—the tramming tool. Earlier in the thread several people suggested making one of these to help with tramming, and provided links for some good designs. I decided to go with Hoss’s design as it seemed a little simpler to make. I have the tool paths made up and the stock cut so I will make this run in a day or two when I get time. There will be two setups, one to drill holes, with the stock (3/4” x 2” x 7” 6061 rectangle) held in the vise. I will then mount it using the drilled holes to a vertical scrap piece held in the vise to do the outline milling and shaft pocket. The only real critical feature is the shaft pocket, and if that doesn’t turn out well with the end mill I’ll use the boring bar to clean it up. Got a little carried away with the modeling but wanted to make sure everything would fit as planned.