Move the collumn further back, extending the head forward and milling out the slot in the middle. I have seen some who have gotten up to 6" of travel on the mill. I have about 5" on mine.
Yeah, I may be pushing my luck on the Y axis but gonna find out.
Awesome if it works. Can always scale it back to 10 or 8 inches if necessary.
Maybe I'll try thinking of baseball.
The prints are done, looks good on paper,now to make the parts.
Thanks again for the head dimensions guys.
Going on another vacation in 2 weeks. Spending this one just playing around with the mill. Heaven. Thats the plan anyway.
Move the collumn further back, extending the head forward and milling out the slot in the middle. I have seen some who have gotten up to 6" of travel on the mill. I have about 5" on mine.
Have the parts made for my belt conversion.
Thanks JayC.
I modified some plans he gave me from a yahoo member.
If the belt from LMS shows up, I'll get it installed this weekend.
Won't post the plans till I make sure it works.
Made changes to allow everything to be made on a conventional mill and lathe.
no need for CNC, rotary table, boring head or keyway cutter. Simple.
Later, Hoss
Wow, looks great. Not sure if you've been asked this already or not, but do you do this as your occupation?
Yeah, I've been around machine shops since High School. (oh crap, my 25 year reunion is this summer)
I've been a Prototype and Tool and Die Machinist the past 14 years with my present company.
Still use conventional equipment, the CNC equipment is used by the older guys.
That's why I built my own so I could learn and have fun too.
Later, Hoss
thoes are some really pretty parts.. hope i can do work of that quality when i grow up.. hehehehe
Grizzly X3, CNC Fusion Ballscrew kit, 3 500oz-in bipolar steppers, 3 203v Gecko's, Linear power supply from Hubbard CNC, Mach 3, BOBcad Pro Art V22, Rhino.
good job hoss!! u will love the belt drive, its sooooo quiet and u will never ever ever have to worry about breaking gears!!!!!!!!
u might have to remove the intermediate gear shaft and pull out the gear change parts from inside the head, but that should be easy if u plan on removing the head anyway
how are you going to tension the belt, i have noticed the slot on the top plate but no tension screw are you gonna do it just by hand
Thanks guys,
I never thought about tension screws, Just gonna do it by hand.
It works on the old full size mills i've used before.
I have all the prints redrawn but still wanna see if it all meshes together first.
Maybe today.
Got USPS tracking # from LMS.
It says the belt was delivered yesterday so I guess I better go check the mailbox.
Have Fun, Hoss
Installed!
The belt conversion is ready to go.
Had to tweak a couple things, will update the prints and post them later today.
good heads up skmetal7, the intermediate gear shaft was in the way but i went the lazy route and added a 1/2 in. hole in the base to clear it. I'll be tearing it apart in a few weeks to remove it. I'll add the hole location to the print in case
anyone doesn't want to mess with removing the head.Just put the gear lever in neutral and removed the handle.
I reused one of the locking levers I didn't need anymore for the x and y axis.
An easier solution would be to tap the hole in the riser m6x1.0, but i already had it tapped 1/4-20. I cut off the m6 of the lever shaft and drilled and tapped it 1/4-20. Works for me.
I'll get a video edited for youtube soon.
Glad that low gear finally shredded and forced me to change to this.
Oh, have another chip guard to add to the list now too. That'll have to wait till I'm all done with the changes and upgrades.
Maybe in 2008.
Later Hoss
All credit belongs to Jerry Rollett (original), John Pitkin (updates) of the Grizminimill yahoo group, and you
Jay
Thanks for their names Jay, If they are members here, they have my thanks as well.
I have the new X axis installed now though with the old ballscrew.
Still get 12 inches of travel out of it.
Mounted the lathe attachment and wrote a program so tomorrow I can turn
the end of the new longer ballscrew.
I figure I'll max out at 18 1/2 inches of travel. I had to mount the ballnut on the
outside of the saddle and it blocks a little travel on that side.
Oh well, I'll live with it.
I'll have some pics and video tomorrow.
Later, Hoss
Excellent work Hoss. You are very creative. I can relate to that. Using the Z column for the x-axis is something I never would have thought of though! Great website as well.
Steve
Thanks Steve,
The belt conversion video will up at youtube shortly.
here's a couple pics of the x axis upgrade sans long ballscrew.
Hoss
Hey Hoss, you may want to build in a sensor for the spindle RPM. So it will readout in Mach 3.
Good idea Bob,
Have any links to someone that has done it?
I'm getting a speed control board from cnc4pc
for another project and will want to take care of it then.
Thanks, Hoss
I remember ordering some parts to hook up to the Shumatech DRO for spindle RPM.
I'll have to dig them up sometime and see if they'll work.
Last edited by hoss2006; 06-23-2007 at 10:07 PM.
I have a simple circuit that will work. Requires one integrated circuit , one photo sensor and a resistor. According to ArtofCNC all you need is 1 pulse per revolution. It's a circuit I've used for home grown wheel encoders on hobby robots I draw up te circuit diagram tomorrow ... too tired to do it now.
Jay
Hoss, I used this on my Harbor Freight 3 in 1 Mill /Lathe. I put a piece of black tape on my spindle pulley and mounted sensor on the guard. The circuit is shown in the pictures.
looks good Bob,
similar to the one from Shumatech
I have the parts SOMEWHERE.
what port(input signal) would I need to hook up to in Mach 3?
Thanks Hoss