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I did install Estlcam last night to play with a little bit, and it actually looks like it'll be more than adequate for my current intended purposes. I really won't need much more than "basic" right now while I get the machine set up and learn its quirks and all that. In a true "screw you" from the universe, everything extra I ordered to go with the machine is slated for delivery today. 65mm mount, Makita router, dust shoe, bit set, materials, etc. The machine itself? Monday! 
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Mar 29, 2024 11:49
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Finally got a round tuit and made some progress on the MR-1! First stop was replacing the very dim boob light with some properly bright fixtures:  The Bean Machine™️ now has the Y rails on. We were going to put the X gantry on, but I definitely got a Friday kit. The holes weren’t tapped all the way through so we couldn’t mount the linear rails.    I’ve got another ticket in with support. I haven’t heard of other folks having this bad luck with the kit, so we’ll see what’s up. If the answer is “tap it yourself” I’ll see if they’ll send me another vise if I do it myself.
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Apr 15, 2024 03:52
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A Fadal 4020 will fit in an 83.0” garage opening… …but will not fit in an 82.5” garage opening. I cut out the garage trim, but it fits! 
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Apr 21, 2024 03:18
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Super jealous of the FADAL.
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Apr 21, 2024 12:09
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Some Pinko Commie posted:Super jealous of the FADAL. Ty. It was a long move for the mill and surface grinder. Started at 8a, finished at 10:30pm. Lots of moving on skates on a floor with 20 years of oil and chips. It needs a fair amount of work to get up and running again, but I’ll post pics and story if thread wants em.
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Apr 21, 2024 17:59
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Definitely want that!
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Apr 21, 2024 18:09
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Day 1: A Little Cleaning I have never been as exhausted as I was the day of that move. I don't know how riggers do that every day. I figured to start out I'd do a little cleaning as I hate the smell of old coolant (also old coolant nearly killed me, a story for later). The machine came with the chip pan drained but coated in 2" of chip muck, which instantly stunk up my garage, so cleaning that out was the first order of business. After some shoveling and a little washing, it still looked nasty and beaded water nbut hopefully it wouldnt stink up my garage.  It seemed all was well until I stood it up and saw this pinky sized hole in the chip pan.  Turns out the 2" of chip much was the only thing keeping coolant in the pan. A symptom of this hole we noticed when moving this machine, as the machine was glued tot he floor with old coolant. We figure this was due to spills and condensation over the past 20 years, I'm guessing its mostly due to this hole. Oh well, I'm probably not going to run a coolant tank anyway, just use a misting or MQL setup so I'll patch this up in a few days. I closed out day 1 by reinstalling the spindle fan and unpacking the various rigging equipment from my car.  Day 2: It Lives! I figured I'd see how far I can get today, so I reattached some wiring and the wire guide that was disconnected for the move, inspected the cabinets, and checked various oil levels. All of the oil levels are 0. Great. When checking the air oiler, I apparently managed to cut the O-Ring, so that now leaks significantly and the little pancake compressor I'm using just to get it running is not happy about this. Still, bigger fish to fry...  I wired it up...  ...and flipped on the American Rotary AD20 3 phase converter for the first time. I was pleasantly surprised that it was rather quiet. https://i.imgur.com/knDRqTq.mp4 I flipped the power and noticed no magic blue smoke! A good sign! I walked around front and saw The pendant wasn't on at all. I checked the cabinets and they were interlocked or had power, so it seemed like thing should be fine. Walking back to the screen I saw the "Video On/Off" switch and flipped it. Voila! It lives!!!! I recorded a little video of its very first jog. https://i.imgur.com/jdkA7hn.mp4 And thats where I am as of noon today. (Clarkson voice) Tomorrow: CFP reads a manual. A machine forgets where it is. And I shop on Amazon for an air compressor.
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Apr 22, 2024 18:38
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Day 3: The machine arrived giving a corrupted memory error. The machine hadnt been used in a while and the lithium CMOS battery on the mobo probably drained or died during that time. Not sure if itll stay a problem or if its fine as long as I turn the machine on every other day. Fortunately, some of the parameters were written down on the inside of one of the cabinets. Unfortunately I had to zero everything out including all offsets in order to get the machine to do more than the jog you saw before. So I went about resetting the memory and reentered all the machine parameters and the backlash comp values that were written down. I turned the machine off, waited a few minutes, then turned it on again and it booted with no errors so hopefully its all right. I had to make educated guesses for some of the params, but hopefully they'll work for now.  Following that I wanted to try to turn the spindle on. I went into MDI and successfully got it to turn with S100 M03. The spindle sounds like poo poo. It sounds like its sweeping chips around, it could be real bad bearings and gunked with old coolant but I am thinking I need to take the sheet metal off and just try some cleaning, see if it something simple/silly. Based on listening to it before I bought it and the wear pattern on the tooling I got with it, it probably has a bell mouthed spindle with bearings that arent long for this world. A problem for future me. I also noted the spindle fan didnt turn on. Fortunately it was just a quick swap of a burnt out fuse. I had one in the right amperage and nearly the right length thanks to my large assortment of ebay'd electronics assortments.  A sweet thing about the machine is it comes with a USB loader, which I tested, and it seems to be working even after the memory wipe. Havent loaded a program yet, but at least its talking. Upcoming today/tomo: Learn the basic operator stuff, how to load tools in the spindle and tool change. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Apr 23, 2024 |
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Apr 23, 2024 19:00
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CarForumPoster posted:(Clarkson voice) Tomorrow: CFP reads a manual. A machine forgets where it is. And I shop on Amazon for an air compressor. https://www.californiaairtools.com/contractor-grade-ultra-quiet-series-of-air-compressors/2-0-hp-air-compressors/cat-20020/ Ran 2 MQL sprayers without complaint, quiet enough to have in a regular garage and still be able to have a conversation in it.
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Apr 23, 2024 19:02
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Methylethylaldehyde posted:https://www.californiaairtools.com/contractor-grade-ultra-quiet-series-of-air-compressors/2-0-hp-air-compressors/cat-20020/ Ty for this, I'm prob gonna buy it. My friend has the 1HP 8gal and loves it. I'd like yalls thoughts as I will prob also use an MQL sprayer, plus I use a cutoff wheel or HVLP sprayer a few times per year. The 20 gal is $606 delivered while the same motored 10 gal is only $462. I have a dead craftsman 20gal I can plumb in next to the machine, plus can put my 6 gal pancake on the same line. Any reason to get the 20 gal over the 10 in that case? Plan is to run shop air lines in the garage, so I'd probably put the compressor in a carpeted box in the corner and have the extra 20 gal tank near the machine with extra fittings for flow rate purposes. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Apr 23, 2024 |
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Apr 23, 2024 19:14
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CarForumPoster posted:Ty for this, I'm prob gonna buy it. My friend has the 1HP 8gal and loves it. A lot longer time between cycles if you have an air leak (I did). If you have a second tank to plumb inline with it, there is no reason to get the 20 gal unit. You might also look into getting/fabricating a dryer out of an oil intercooler and a box fan, CNC machines tend to want dry air for whatever you're using it for, and it cuts down how often you have to drain the tank by a huge margin.
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Apr 23, 2024 19:23
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Methylethylaldehyde posted:A lot longer time between cycles if you have an air leak (I did). If you have a second tank to plumb inline with it, there is no reason to get the 20 gal unit. Thanks! Just bought the 10gal 2hp one for $399 from Amazon. Youre saying cool the air down at the outlet between the compressor and the tank by some means so it condenses before reaching an air/water separator that is installed ahead of the tank? It is hilariously humid here, a compressor running all day will easily get wet and rusty soon enough so I'm def interested in some sort of DIY aftercooler. EDIT: I occasionally get offered a mini fridge, I bet a bucket filled with water the size of the fridge and some coiled copper tubing would drop the air temps enough to be sub ambient, at least for a little while. If I ran it through an air/water sep into a desiccant filter after that I bet it'd be dry enough for an HVLP sprayer and not constantly saturate the desiccant. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Apr 23, 2024 |
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Apr 23, 2024 20:23
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CarForumPoster posted:Thanks! Just bought the 10gal 2hp one for $399 from Amazon. Yeah, what I ended up doing was pulling the air line between the compressor outlet and the tank, running it through the intercooler and then a moisture trap, then into the tank. Worked like a dream. You'd be shocked how much stale-rear end smelling water it'll collect in an hour of running. There's a huge number of youtubes on this exact thing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfnNBgrfS0M does a pretty good job of setting it up and explaining things. Unlike this dude, the CA Air Tools doesn't have a fan, so I had to rig up one using a https://www.amazon.com/AC-Infinity-Cooling-Ventilation-Projects/dp/B00I06S792, and wiring the compressor and fan to a switched outlet. Your HVLP sprayer will thank you for this too, especially if you spring for the desiccant in-a-tube dryer so you can spray the good oil based paints without getting water mixed in. Edit for the edit: I'd plumb the entire system as [Compressor] -> [Intercooler dryer] -> [10 Gal Tank] -> [2nd Moisture Filter] -> [Big Tank] -> [Tools go here]. If you're going to be doing HVLP spraying, setting up a $20 auto store desiccant dryer between the Big tank and the sprayer would work fine. The air is already pretty dry and at room temp by then, so what little bit is left can be handily taken up by the color changing gel. The refrigerated dryers are neato, but the issue with the big bucket of water method is it'll start off real strong, and start to take a poo poo as soon as the water warms up. If you're gonna homebrew something temporary with a coil of copper refrigeration line, my vote would be dry ice and a big bucket of isopropyl alcohol. My big Ingersol rotary compressor has a reefer dryer built in, and it's the loudest part of the entire unit, but I also needed air that dry as hell, the machine I was hooking it to wanted Class 2 air, which has a minimum dew point of -20C and like no oil or particulate contaminants. Methylethylaldehyde fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Apr 23, 2024 |
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Apr 23, 2024 20:40
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Methylethylaldehyde posted:There's a huge number of youtubes on this exact thing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfnNBgrfS0M does a pretty good job of setting it up and explaining things. Yea that sounds like a decent plan. FYI to anyone who makes a similar setup to that video, mating copper (brass) and aluminum tubing in the presence of water and vibration is basically a get galvanic corrosion checklist.
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Apr 23, 2024 20:51
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Btw I also bought this surface grinder for $500 which needs some TLC and maybe one day I’ll try to convert it into a CNC grinder. All tools should be CNC’d. Here it is after some vacuuming:
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Apr 23, 2024 23:21
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CarForumPoster posted:Btw I also bought this surface grinder for $500 which needs some TLC and maybe one day I’ll try to convert it into a CNC grinder. All tools should be CNC’d. Here it is after some vacuuming: If you CNC the grinder, you're gonna probably want to set up spindle load monitoring, nothing is quite as awesome to see as a grinder that stalled out and has been feeding the disc into the work as hard as it can for some unknown period of time. I'd look at making a much more robust grinder filth containment system, otherwise you're gonna end up with a streak going up the wall that reeks of rusty steel and rotten coolant. Also look into Blaser coolants. I use Synergy 735 in my mill and lathe, and it's basically the single least offensive coolant I've ever dealt with. It's mostly clear, it never gets the chip pan funk to it, my skin doesn't hate me every time I touch it, and it works really well on basically every material. I know the grinding fluids are similarly great, and grinding isn't something you can get away with an MQL system on.
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Apr 24, 2024 00:22
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Methylethylaldehyde posted:If you CNC the grinder, you're gonna probably want to set up spindle load monitoring, nothing is quite as awesome to see as a grinder that stalled out and has been feeding the disc into the work as hard as it can for some unknown period of time. Noted and ty. TBH the grinder will prob sit for a year. I kinda hate manual surface grinding. Dude was offering it up for $500 with a box of wheels, a mag chuck and a spinny fixture thing. The riggers tacked it on for free. Figured why not. Looks like theyre pretty regularly selling for $1000 on ebay so if I never use it, I can ditch it easy enough.
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Apr 24, 2024 00:39
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Methylethylaldehyde posted:Edit for the edit: I'm glad were chatting about this as this seems like a better idea than I first thought. Respectfully, I think you're backwards on this. Assuming the compressor is only running 1-2 minutes at a time every 30 minutes or so, a 5 gallon bucket in a fridge would stay sufficiently cool for 8 hours such that the dew point of the exit air would be reached. Water would provide better cooling than IPA or an air:air heat exchanger. Straight water in a fridge is it isn't necessarily temporary. You can put a lid on the bucket, run lines through the side, thats basically how the spindle cooler on this machine works but with oil. Add a little antifreeze for its anticorrosive properties and this system could work. Details: Specific heat is the energy needed to change the temperature of something, water is ~4.2 kJ/(kg*K), alcohol is ~2.5, air is ~1. So I get a 4.2:1 ratio of temp drop for air to water by weight but only 2.5:1 for IPA. My 5 gallon bucket of water is ~40 lbs while 12 gallons of dry air @ 120psi is only ~1 lb. Conductivity is alcohol 0.2 w/mK and 0.6 for water, so water takes more energy to heat up and conducts it away faster. I'd expect is this compressor will move <2.5lb/min of air while on (i.e. it cant fill itself twice at 90+ psi in <1 minute). Lets say the system is already full in the morning, I'd expect it to only be on for ~1 minute at a time. I'd expect a temp drop of >100°F in a system like this with several coils, it should be much better than an air:air cooler unless that cooler has a very high CFM fan in a cool shop. I think this is valid reasoning/napkin math... The 40 lbs of water (5 gallons) only needs to cool ~4 lbs of air for each on cycle but since the energy ratio is 4:1, imagine pouring 1 lb of water at 150°F into a 40 lb of water bucket at 50°F. How much does the water temp change? 4°F if my math is correct [m1(T1-Tfinal)=M2(Tfinal-T2)]. So if my temp drop is 100°F I prob get 15-20 cycles before the water is at 120°F if its chilled to 50°F overnight each night. If my compressor turns on every 30 minutes, that's a full day of work before the water even gets warm, ignoring that its in a fridge cooling during the day. According to an online calc, at 90psig, 200°F and 30%RH the dew point is 147°F, so this system should still condense the water assuming 120°F water can drop the air below 147°F. Edit: I suppose the turning on every 30 min is a big if, idk what air consumption of this mill is like. I don’t plan to use it all day most days though, my goa is to do automation experiments and build some stuff with it rather than run parts continuously. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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Apr 24, 2024 14:02
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CarForumPoster posted:I'm glad were chatting about this as this seems like a better idea than I first thought. Respectfully, I think you're backwards on this. Assuming the compressor is only running 1-2 minutes at a time every 30 minutes or so, a 5 gallon bucket in a fridge would stay sufficiently cool for 8 hours such that the dew point of the exit air would be reached. Water would provide better cooling than IPA or an air:air heat exchanger. Straight water in a fridge is it isn't necessarily temporary. You can put a lid on the bucket, run lines through the side, thats basically how the spindle cooler on this machine works but with oil. Add a little antifreeze for its anticorrosive properties and this system could work. Ahh, our assumptions were very different. I was assuming that dry air was needed for paint spraying or other water sensitive processes, where you want the dew point as low as reasonable. That or the total air demand would exceed the very marginal ability of a mini-fridge to usefully cool a larger thermal load. The main issue with the little minifridge air cooler is that the compressor in them isn't exactly designed for a high duty cycle, or a high thermal load. You're looking at ~770 BTU/hr with a 1/4 HP compressor, which gives you a 200w maximum thermal load. That's the useful load when the inside temperature is very close to the outside, and it derates the colder you need the end result to be. If you're only using the compressor like an hour a day, and the little chiller can pre-chill the water overnight, you might be able to make it work, but it would be kinda marginal. The major air needs in a machine shop are mostly either machine specific, process specific stuff like bead blasting, MQL systems, or general blowing off stuff. On a greased spindle machine that old, I'd doubt if it needed clean air for much more than the power drawbar, and that's a marginal load you can ignore unless you're changing tools constantly. The MQL systems generally use about 1 CFM of compressed air. That's about 7 gallons a minute of air, which means that compressor now has a 20% duty cycle, and thermal load of (2 HP x 746 W/HP x 20%) 298W, which means the mini fridge is already 50% over it's 100% duty cycle cooling capacity. The thing is, an MQL system doesn't give a poo poo about how dry the air is, you're using it to spray water based coolant on a part. So dry air is wasted on it completely. I'd look at every process you plan on doing in that garage that requires compressed air, and then determining if any of them actually need class 2 or 3 air, like the HVLP gun, and if they do, how much air they'll actually use and how often you'll use them. Chances are pretty good that a large enough intercooler, a decently high flow fan and a high quality water separator is all you need for 95% of your shop's air needs on a gallons-of-air basis, and the few processes that want that fancier dryer air can be served with a inline desiccant cartridge dryer and an inline sub-micron filter.
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Apr 24, 2024 22:11
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Day 4: No oil, mo problems The way lube pump isnt running and I'm not sure why. The way lube pump is clearly an aftermarket dealio and has some reconnections in a few spots. Worryingly though, the spot on the power board where a factory oil pump would be wired in is absent. Instead the power wires for this thing go through one cabinet into another and disappear into a large group of ziptied wires I'd prefer not to have to re tie. Even if the way lube pump did turn on...  Not sure if that happened during the move or it was already like that but the pump sump was bone dry and a siphoning action was letting drips of oil hit the chip tray. I shoved the line back in the fitting and applied 120V to the pump with the machine off and hooray! The way lube pump at least moves! I noted some leaky fitting but TBH its better than Id expected given there's no fitting on that oil line. It appears to just be an intermittent pump, 0.5m on 40m off. Push come to shove I can leave it wired like this for now. Imgur isn't letting me upload videos rn to show you but I also got the machine to do a tool change (after crashing the ATC thrice, doesn't seem to be as damaging on this machine as others thank god). You see, Fadals lose position every time they power down. To regain a zero you are supposed to line up some tick marks with the axis and run a "cold start" command for it to attempt to self calibrate. Before shutting down you're supposed to do a "home for power down" command. Well the z axis does not appear very tolerant of being off this tick mark. If you aren't dead nuts on it will cold start without alerts then crash the ATC into the spindle. Also, if air pressure drops below like 85PSI it will fail to extract the tool and then the tool pocket ordering will be wrong. So I will be soon plumbing up my larger air tank and, when it arrives, the new compressor. Also, recovering from an estop seems to require a power cycle, though hopefully I am just not familiar with the machine and that isnt true. Also, the spindle chiller appears to be tripping the breaker. Could be bad bearings/seals have cause it to die or it could be that its just a tiny rear end 2.5A breaker. This week I'll apply some power to it manually as well and check current draw. Before that I have to clean my garage. Fitting this behemoth in meant shoving everything to one side of it. The month long delay in getting it here meant I pulled out tons of tools from that cramped area to do stuff but didnt put them back. Its a disaster zone and doing good work means fixing this and probably building/buying a mobile tool workbench. Methylethylaldehyde posted:The MQL systems generally use about 1 CFM of compressed air. That's about 7 gallons a minute of air, which means that compressor now has a 20% duty cycle, and thermal load of (2 HP x 746 W/HP x 20%) 298W, which means the mini fridge is already 50% over it's 100% duty cycle cooling capacity. The thing is, an MQL system doesn't give a poo poo about how dry the air is, you're using it to spray water based coolant on a part. So dry air is wasted on it completely. Yea you may well be right. I might give both a try, we'll see once the compressor and what not are here. Kinda continuing on this thought, I'm surprised I don't see people running a loop of copper pipe that they thermally strap to the air tank. Use the air tank as a big radiator. I'll most likely get a blasting cabinet eventually, I really like the "Apple" look of sand blasted + anodized aluminum. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Apr 25, 2024 |
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Apr 25, 2024 15:47
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CarForumPoster posted:Yea you may well be right. I might give both a try, we'll see once the compressor and what not are here. Kinda continuing on this thought, I'm surprised I don't see people running a loop of copper pipe that they thermally strap to the air tank. Use the air tank as a big radiator. I'll most likely get a blasting cabinet eventually, I really like the "Apple" look of sand blasted + anodized aluminum. There isn't much point in doing so. The air will cool in the receiver anyway and if you are running the compressor hard, the receiver will heat up. I have a refrigerated air dryer and it doesn't help much for intermittent use. Most of the water still seems to settle out in the receiver judging by the amount that comes out of the drain. Once I start running the air spindle/air blast/other high volume user then the air dryer helps. I actually leave it off most of the time.
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Apr 26, 2024 01:40
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In addition to that ultralight Milo benchtop CNC mill, there’s another one from the Voron folks: https://youtu.be/7g0iSbNkXFg?si=uDkRsEY4Grztfylw I’m real curious about their LinuxCNC testing. Hopefully at that $2-3k price point, reasonably large volume, and nice to have accessories like coolant, enclosure, and tool setter it’ll get more folks into machining as an upgrade from 3D printing. E: SMW tooling plate is pretty tight also.
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Apr 27, 2024 23:52
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Days 5-10: Tool change woes and first chips I'll eventually put together a bunch of the video clips I've recorded of getting this thing in and getting through some of the errors. Wordy update for now: I think I've finally figured out the process to reliably "cold start" the machine if it gets turned off other than at X0Y0Z0. If I'm off on this it allows the ATC to crash. Not including limits switches on this was such a stupid rear end decision. I recovered from the ATC crashing and the machine not knowing which tool was in what pocket. Theres now a couple tools in the machine! I was all ready to start doing some automated tool changes then it started throwing a spindle orientation error. This thing uses a hall effect sensor for spindle and the PO warned me that something was wrong with the "howl effect sensor". Simply cleaning the chips and muck off it seemed to fix it. Getting to the hall effect sensor meant I remove the spindle sheet metal where I discovered an incredible amount of rubber debris. I am guessing the belts are not long for this world. The idler pulleys make a brushing noise likely because they're caked with a tar-like muck which is melted rubber particles dissolved or suspended in various oils or coolants it seems. Its loving nasty under there, lots more cleaning to do. Taking the sheet metal off also revealed that the air line to a solenoid that appears to lock the spindle in position during tool changes appears to just slip out of its push to connect fitting. The inside of that fitting is drenched in mystery black sludge oil and it won't reliably push to connect. Likely the inside of that solenoid is nastied up too. When the belts get replaced, Ill clean it out. For now, I shoved the air line back in after some cleaning and FINALLY the machine changes tools most of the time! - The oil line still leaks and the oil pump is still hooked up to a lamp cord but at least its lubricating the ways (and my floor). - I have no spindle chiller as its tripping the breaker as I thought before. Not sure if the spindle has a thermocouple I can monitor to kinda see how much I can get away with this, its on the list. - After having the machine on and trying some tool changes and running the spindle at 100-800 RPM with no load, the machine threw a spindle overload fault one of the times I tried S150M03. I feared the worst, a broken spindle or a dying VFD. Going back to the spindle VFD cabinet however, the VFD's LCD showed an error indicating one of the legs of the input voltage was low, and indeed it was. I'm getting 250V between 1-2 and 1-3 but 235V between 2-3 measured going in to the spindle drive after the transformer. Since Im using a phase converter, this isnt chocking news. The machine has a param for >5% voltage mismatch that I currently have set to "no" but I probably should set to "yes". Going to read a bit more about that param and the implications of those changes, hopefully this wont make the machine totally unreliable cause boy that'd suck. - I've picked up my garage enough that I could do a little more work but mostly I put tools into one pile and consumables/small parts into another pile on opposite sides of the garage like boys and girls at a middle school dance. I'll need to actually clean and organize so I can not only get to the rest of my tools but also to be able to use my welder, lathe and other bigger tools that are packed away for the move in. EDIT: Cut some wood chips jogging it. Baby steps, but happy to make the steps regardless. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Apr 30, 2024 |
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Apr 30, 2024 22:14
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CarForumPoster posted:I think I've finally figured out the process to reliably "cold start" the machine if it gets turned off other than at X0Y0Z0. If I'm off on this it allows the ATC to crash. Not including limits switches on this was such a stupid rear end decision. I recovered from the ATC crashing and the machine not knowing which tool was in what pocket. Theres now a couple tools in the machine! I was all ready to start doing some automated tool changes then it started throwing a spindle orientation error. This thing uses a hall effect sensor for spindle and the PO warned me that something was wrong with the "howl effect sensor". Simply cleaning the chips and muck off it seemed to fix it. Getting to the hall effect sensor meant I remove the spindle sheet metal where I discovered an incredible amount of rubber debris. I am guessing the belts are not long for this world. The idler pulleys make a brushing noise likely because they're caked with a tar-like muck which is melted rubber particles dissolved or suspended in various oils or coolants it seems. Its loving nasty under there, lots more cleaning to do. Taking the sheet metal off also revealed that the air line to a solenoid that appears to lock the spindle in position during tool changes appears to just slip out of its push to connect fitting. The inside of that fitting is drenched in mystery black sludge oil and it won't reliably push to connect. Likely the inside of that solenoid is nastied up too. When the belts get replaced, Ill clean it out. For now, I shoved the air line back in after some cleaning and FINALLY the machine changes tools most of the time! No limit or home switches is really stupid. Are there at least batteries on the encoders to keep position when powered off? (guessing no) My mill has the same style of hall effect spindle position sensor and it has been very reliable once dialed in. I would go through and clean out all of the gunk in the head as you _will_ be back in there to fix things. CarForumPoster posted:- The oil line still leaks and the oil pump is still hooked up to a lamp cord but at least its lubricating the ways (and my floor). I suggest cleaning out the lube oil reservoirs and flushing with fresh oil. On my machine, the lube oil reservoir looked fine but the bottom 1/3 had gelled and not much was actually getting through the pump. CarForumPoster posted:- I have no spindle chiller as its tripping the breaker as I thought before. Not sure if the spindle has a thermocouple I can monitor to kinda see how much I can get away with this, its on the list. 99% chance that the only impact of losing the spindle chiller is a loss in Z axis accuracy due to thermal effects. Unless that is a 10k or greater rpm spindle, the chiller is an option for precision and not required. This is especially true since this is a belt driven spindle. A direct drive spindle is more likely to require spindle coolant. CarForumPoster posted:- After having the machine on and trying some tool changes and running the spindle at 100-800 RPM with no load, the machine threw a spindle overload fault one of the times I tried S150M03. I feared the worst, a broken spindle or a dying VFD. Going back to the spindle VFD cabinet however, the VFD's LCD showed an error indicating one of the legs of the input voltage was low, and indeed it was. I'm getting 250V between 1-2 and 1-3 but 235V between 2-3 measured going in to the spindle drive after the transformer. Since Im using a phase converter, this isnt chocking news. The machine has a param for >5% voltage mismatch that I currently have set to "no" but I probably should set to "yes". Going to read a bit more about that param and the implications of those changes, hopefully this wont make the machine totally unreliable cause boy that'd suck. Running with a phase voltage imbalance increases the stress on the rectifiers and filter caps in the inverter input stage. If the imbalance is high enough (yours might be) then one leg effectively does nothing and the following phase will see greatly increased peak current. This will have varying effects from nothing to exploding caps/diodes. Given that the caps are very old and a new spindle drive is 10-15k, I would look at trying to get the phase converter balanced better. The rotary phase converter I had before the phase perfect was only out by 3%.
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May 1, 2024 03:05
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The no home or limit switches on old fadals really is the dumbest poo poo, you're totally hosed if you don't set it to go to it's cold start home before turning it off.
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May 1, 2024 03:55
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ZincBoy posted:No limit or home switches is really stupid. Are there at least batteries on the encoders to keep position when powered off? (guessing no) My mill has the same style of hall effect spindle position sensor and it has been very reliable once dialed in. I would go through and clean out all of the gunk in the head as you _will_ be back in there to fix things. I am not sure if theyre encoders or resolvers on this machine but they have some sort of built in homing mechanism. Thats why you have to line up the indicators before it does the "cold start" procedure. The "cold start" has the motor feedback find that home position. Guessing if I ever remove a ballscrew I have to do some procedure to define a new home position since the position on the lead screw will be different. Also seems like it could be off with if backlash increases. Just a dumb dumb decision. If it was a cost issue it'd be so much better to use lower quality micro switches and then do the same thing, it'd cost almost nothing. But yea this is the plan for sure, I'm gonna make make this thing sparkle. Presently its fuckin GOOPY. Smells awful. ZincBoy posted:No limit or home switches is really stupid. Are there at least batteries on the encoders to keep position when powered off? (guessing no) My mill has the same style of hall effect spindle position sensor and it has been very reliable once dialed in. I would go through and clean out all of the gunk in the head as you _will_ be back in there to fix things. Bold to assume this $2500 CNC mill had oil in the reservoirs. Bone dry (through siphoning it appears). That said once I replace that line and source a new filter, I will def replace the inline filter and pump enough way lube though to find leaks. I'm sending waylube through now and it looks like some is coming out. ZincBoy posted:Running with a phase voltage imbalance increases the stress on the rectifiers and filter caps in the inverter input stage. If the imbalance is high enough (yours might be) then one leg effectively does nothing and the following phase will see greatly increased peak current. This will have varying effects from nothing to exploding caps/diodes. Given that the caps are very old and a new spindle drive is 10-15k, I would look at trying to get the phase converter balanced better. The rotary phase converter I had before the phase perfect was only out by 3%. Noted, I added looking into this more to the to do list. As an aside, I made my first cam program with fusion 360 today. Seems dead easy. (Previously I'd used MasterCAM, NX CAM) Just a little face mill and machine a pocket deelio. I need to understand how the work and tool offsets work on this machine but once I do I'll load it up and run it, hopefully tomorrow. EDIT: Oh and my air compressor that I ordered a week ago and was supposed to arrive today is still on the other side of the country and FedEx updated it to "label unreadable, created new label" which probably means the box is loving wrecked. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 03:59 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 03:55
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Is the thread bored of my near daily posts about what’s up with the mill? I’m kinda using it to make an outline of a video script, and it helps to know what you all find interesting. Here’s a few pics Motor fault that turned out to prob be RPC imbalance:  Spindle detect to lock orientation looking a bit knackered. Note the glooped up Hall effect sensor on the right. This is after a quick rag wipe down of the frame and spindle top.  And the air line that doesn’t stay in, is filled with gloop. Also note the high/low idler pullies with melted rubber gloop caked on.  Lots of cleaning to do. I ordered this tool setter around 8pm last night and it arrived by 8am the next morning. It was $3 cheaper than other retailers and of course free shipping. Absolutely bonkers. 
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May 1, 2024 13:52
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I'm enjoying the posting please keep it up
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May 1, 2024 14:07
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Also enjoying it very much, just don't have anything to add.
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May 1, 2024 14:18
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CarForumPoster posted:I am not sure if theyre encoders or resolvers on this machine but they have some sort of built in homing mechanism. Thats why you have to line up the indicators before it does the "cold start" procedure. The "cold start" has the motor feedback find that home position. Guessing if I ever remove a ballscrew I have to do some procedure to define a new home position since the position on the lead screw will be different. Also seems like it could be off with if backlash increases. Just a dumb dumb decision. If it was a cost issue it'd be so much better to use lower quality micro switches and then do the same thing, it'd cost almost nothing. Most likely it's an incremental encoder with a once-per-rev marker. It turns the motor until it sees that marker and then it knows where it is, which is why you have to start it within the indicators on the axis. The smarter versions will save which "turn" the ballscrew is at when you power the machine off so it can rezero in one rev no matter where you start. Sounds like yours isn't smart, and if it's not at the right position it'll just be off by a few revolutions and have absolutely no idea. In theory it should be more reliable and accurate than a limit switch home since it can't get jammed up and it's totally contained in the encoder. But yes, you'd need to do a grid shift if you replace the ballscrew, just like on an absolute encoder system. Yeah, it can be a bit affected by ballscrew wear but there's really no way to completely take that out of the equation since it'll always be off when you switch directions. That being said, it's always a good idea to have limit switches as well to prevent overtraveling. Bad implementation of an OK (not amazing) idea! Great stuff, BTW. Not commenting much since I don't have much to add, but reading excitedly whenever you update! Karia fucked around with this message at 14:37 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 14:19
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Oil line seems to be >1/8", smaller than 3/16" compression fitting and is missing its ferrule. Who the gently caress uses 5/32 line?! Anyway, this missing $.19 part is probably all that’s needed to have the ways properly lubricated. It’s a shame the mini lathe isn’t set up as I might be able to rustle up some copper or brass rod. Hopefully the 1/8 NPT oil pressure line kit I ordered will arrive tomorrow. EDIT: Actually the bottom of this line is a mystery size as well so I better figure out whats needed here. EDIT2: Bottom is a 4mm or 5/32" compression fitting. I might get lucky with this oil line adapter kit, We'll see tomorrow, if this doesnt get fixed tomorrow, oh well. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 17:53 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 16:52
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Day 11: First program run! https://i.imgur.com/QIqfCEm.mp4 Aww yeaaaa! Got two tools setup, it tool changed successfully, the whole deal. Caught that the offsets were wrong before sending a facemill into the table too. It was a good day. I couldnt blow air as both my air hoses were in use elsewhere. Remembered 30 min into program that I owned the shop vac in the video. I let that program run for about 45 minutes before shutting it off. Everything seemed to run perfect I was just running it super duper slow with light cuts so it woulda been 1.5 hours of babysitting. Nothing seemed amiss though, if anything the machine sounded better once it got warmed up a bit. Before I keep pushing it I want to finish setting the shop up. The next things for that are: - Install my portable A/C. - Install an air dryer, a preliminary set of hard lines, air hose for the machine, fix existing leaks. - Put away tools and small parts/rearrange garage - Do a test run with my welder - Build a mobile lathe/welding/tooling stand. Put lathe, welder, tooling on it. Upcoming in the near future for this machine - Fix the oil line and spot check that way lube is making it to at least some of the places. - Figure out a replacement oil filter and buy it - Get the right oil for it. - Look under the way covers - Clean it. Clean it again. - Patch the holes in the coolant tank. - Level it. - Use ballbar/Generally check how straight, square and parallel the axis are. Tram spindle - Check axis backlash and update parameters with correct backlash. - Figure out the tool changer alignment, it seems off though not enough to crash. - Check spindle run out/bellmouthing. - Check condition of the various tool holders I got. And then I can make some parts!!! I'll prob do another program to make a bench mould or something. I have a few bags of quikcrete that will be blocks soon enough, and a firepit that needs a new bench. CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 21:22 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 20:42
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A story in two parts. Part 1: (Sound optional)  Part 2:  
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May 2, 2024 01:28
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