[mcphill]

Love seeing this progress - keep up the posts!

[MichaelGolden]

Little update. Been very busy with other things. Moving soon and will need to setup shop again.

Decided to make a new dovetail cover because of the extended base. The old one didnt stretch far enough. Also, its stainless steel and looks pretty.

Made from 20 gauge stainless. Lots of little 3mm and 2mm nuts and bolts. And some curled brass strips to keep it from sagging. Spreads nice and evenly. I would like to add some kind of felt tape to the inside edge to keep the dust out.

[pippin88]

Nice work!

[MichaelGolden]

Still a lot of little things to do. Such as place a plastic spacer under the harmonic drive housing. Place a set screw in the shaft and make custom motor mounts for harmonic drive and rotary table. I just started putting together the other side of the rotary table support. Once its all together I can fit an enclosure for it.

The 6 holes in the bearing race were pretty interesting to drill... I quickly found out regular old drill bits were not going to cut it. Made of some super hardened steel alloy. Was basically like trying to drill it with a banana.

If anyone needs to know for future reference.. Turns out you can drill super hard alloys with concrete drill bits. They have a carbide tip so I spun the 1/8" drill bit at 2000 rpm and fed it extremely slow while blowing compressed air into the hole.. I was going for 0.300" deep. But if you dont allow it to cool. It welds itself into the hole.. Fun stuff!

I could have done without the drilled holes. One could have shaped the back of the faceplate on the lathe to fit it against the bearing race. But I'm glad I went through with it. To finish it off I shaped some brass screws into threaded pins and cut them off. (I'll clean it up a bit later) And I sealed the holes and around the bearing race to the faceplate with some 2 part epoxy (jb weld). So far everything is very concentric and I'm leaving myself room for adjustments.

[MichaelGolden]

Another quick picture update.

Cut the top of the rotary table down and bolted it to the plate. Got the A axis mostly finished and running. Started work on the other side.

[MichaelGolden]

Cleaned up the face plate. And added a little "Made in Canada" bonus feature.

Here's a view of how its held together. The shaft basically pulls the tapered bearing race against the housing with aid of a 3/8" bolt, not shown here. I'll be adding some more bolts directly through the faceplate into the rotary table assembly and putting it all together soon.

[neilw20]

That is one way to hide the surface scratches!!

[MichaelGolden]

Yeah ahah is it that bad? First time machining steel. First time engraving. But thanks... lol

[Alax7]

Great project! I had not come across another member who documented using two bases for more y travel besides hoss, its great to see more coming alive. I want to do same but I had already built my flood enclosure by the time I saw this mod. Great progress, keep us posted!

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk

[MichaelGolden]

Thanks for the interest! Its sometimes difficult to keep motivated and without loosing steam. With a project of this length and uncertainty you always question weather or not you're just wasting your time. But then I say to myself I could be doing this or watching tv! Also, its fun.

There are small things once in a while that raise concern. But nothing so far that we are incapable of overcoming.

Here's an update of a quick part assembly. Everything is just loosely sitting on top of a 6"x1/4" steel plate ready to be shimmed, welded and bolted together. I think its funny the size of it compared to the mini-lathe.

A little bit of progress everyday after work until its done..

[Zenji]

I love those accordian slideway covers, could you give a printscreen of the 2d cad for that cover please?

[Tkamsker]

Hi,
cool proceed with the good work
i am about to do same thing (but only with servos )
Question to the last picture why is the counter bearing housing so big ? it looks giant on that picture ?
i understand that on left side there is stepper and harmonic drive for the trunnion on the bottom of trunnion is kind of 4th axis but then there is an giant housing ?
What is that for ?
thx
thomas

[MichaelGolden]

You could use these as a reference but it was sort of drawn to scale as one piece on the machine. Then I drew individual pieces to be laser cut.

Find your overall length and smallest collapsed size. Then your arms should have enough room to fold. My covers are 3" long and grow from side to side.. I subtracted the width of the lever arms from the overall length.. Plot it out.

I bent them by hand. Would be better to use a proper sheet metal bender but I dont have one..

Dont use the two location holes for mounting to the table on cover 5. They ended up in the wrong place after I bent them inward. Doh!

20 gauge stainless steel or thicker for the covers. I didnt leave room for the 3mm bolt. So I counter sunk machine screws into the sheet.

You will need nylon spacers, lock nuts, and washers.
4x Lever
6x Lever2 also from 20 guage stainless

A nice improvement would be to add brass strips to push against the bottom of the cover in front. I was planning to do this as well as add a felt lining.

I'll edit this post later and give an accurate part list.

[MichaelGolden]

It looks giant on the mini mill aha.

Actually you could do without it. Instead enclose the bearings and let the stepper motor/servo swing around it. But when I drew it I thought it would be nice to not have to worry about it while its cutting. Its a nice visual reference so nothing hits into anything else.

Got it welded and drilled some mounting holes so its pretty much one piece now. Now we can see all the little problem areas. Still much to do.. A quick and easy way to avoid modifying a whole lot would be to have the rotary table face the machine while cutting. But one things for sure is I'll probably want longer bits.

[COMachineist]

Hi
Nice job. Now you can git rid of that little hobby mill and put this on a Tormach 1100 and really get some machining done. That is a nice trunnion fixture.
Happy Machining.
CH

[MichaelGolden]

Ahh I wish I could afford one. Would definitely be nice to have.

[Zenji]

Nice, thank you for sharing the dxf file.
Got my heart set on making covers like that, like a 'real' industrial cnc.

[MichaelGolden]

It was pretty finicky. I folded them all against the first piece one at a time. If I do it again I'd have the pieces cut extra wide and fold the edges underneath. You could then cut it down to a 1/16" - 1/8" lip, with a zip disc afterward.

[slowlearner]

I discovered your thread yesterday and want to thank you for sharing it. What are you using to control 5 axis'?

[MichaelGolden]

Ah I haven't decided on that yet. We'll cross that bridge when we get there. :cheers: