Reply with QuoteI'll keep my fingers crossed for you too!Originally Posted by LongRat
Not yet - hoping to receive electronics v. soon!
I'll keep my fingers crossed for you too!
Hi LongRat - have your bits & bobs arrived yet?
BTW I've been trying to add a DIY powerfeed to my own mill - one thing I have found is that there is a lot more resistance to motion at the extremes of travel - I guess the table might need a little cleaning up.
Yes I have got the stuff. I'll get some update pics on this weekend. I'm putting the Smoothstepper and pendant interface stuff in a separate steel enclosure, as I've got no space left in the main controller box.
Great news - I look forward to seeing the pics!
Here's the set up.
The open box is the controller that's currently running my X2. This system has run without fault for 5 years. Amazing when you look at the wiring really.
I added some 1" stand-offs to the Smoothstepper board on the right. This thing is tiny, and I easily hooked it up to my Acer netbook and tested working with Mach3 - although not connected to any contoller yet. It doesn't come with any instructions and the parallel-port adapter leads were extra. I think these things should be standard, even though without internet access you will not be able to get the drivers for the SS anyway. A bit of documentation still wouldn't hurt. Still, I'm impressed with the hardware so far.
The 6-axis pendant is also from CNC4PC and looks solid. I think the cable is reinforced as it weighs a TON. I bought the interface card so this will plug straight into the SS port 2.
On the bottom right you can see the index pulse card, I just thought I would get that so Mach displays the spindle speed on the PC. Not planning to use it for anything else, yet. If I get a 3 phase motor and VFD, you can set up a basic servoing system to get the real output of the spindle to equal the demanded value. For now I'm planning to keep the stock machine's manual variable speed control.
I love the look of that pendant!
I'm not really in a position to criticise your wiring - but I'm a fan of keeping the PSU bits in one box and the low(er) voltage stuff in another. I'm pretty sure I could make a lot of magic smoke with my 72v/22A rats nest of wiring though
Soooooh, have you got it moving yet? And if so, where are the videos?
I completely agree. If I did it again, there would be a separate PSU box for sure.
If I do end up going for a higher voltage PS on this same controller, I will likely run it external to this system.
The pendant was easy to set up with the CNC4PC brains file and plugs straight in to the Smoothstepper on port 2. I'm very happy with the way it all hangs together. I have tested the X2 under Smoothstepper control and it is like a different machine. The smoothness of the motion is in another league, I now realise the noise and inconsistency that I was getting with the parallel port of my P3 700Mhz machine. Every now and then I'd get a 'lump' in the motion that I put down to some grit or something in the ballscrew. Never lost a step through it or had any effect on a part, but it didn't sound good. That doesn't happen at all with the smoothstepper, so it was clearly a lack of pulse cleanliness.
I've plumbed AC power into my garage and built a shelf for the new Smoothstepper + G201 controller. I might be in a position to jog my first axis on the new machine tomorrow! There will be video when the time comes.
Glad to hear you like the smooth-stepper - I'm not a fan of software step-generation either - IMO a little bit of true real-time hardware is a lot better at it, the PC is better suited to doing the complex bit like G-code interpretation and pretty UI's.
I didn't realise you didn't have any power in your garage - this really is a project and a half!
Keep up the good work, and good luck!
Last night I ran the mill under CNC control for the first time! The amazing part is, it didn't break a sweat even using the same parameters as I was using on the X2. That is 1700mm/min on X and Y and 1500mm/min on Z. Got a quick video, but just as I was getting close I ran out of power. Better video soon.
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo88yuwyQJs"]YouTube- CNC WMD30LV BF30 first motion
Congratulations!
The best part of the video is I learned you use the same precision adjustment tool (e.g. hammer) that I do. The second best was seeing that poor little power strip being pulled in every direction at once, LOL!
So, since it takes the same tuning parameters, your ready to make some chips, no? I guess maybe more tuning may be in order, but you are very very close.
Those BF20's are extremely nice looking mills.
Cheers,
BW
Try G-Wizard Machinist's Calculator for free:
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Congratulations LongRat - you must be thrilled!
I'm looking forward to seeing you make some chips under CNC - I've been attacking some mild steel with a 20mm rougher, it's quite scary how much destruction it can cause
SS, C23, C22 and MPG4 Pendant
Hello Longrat, I have followed your build with interest and was excited to see you were using the same BOB and Pendant as I recently received from Arturo.
I have been playing with this set up today and not having a lot of luck getting things to play together.
I have ordered a new X5 linear from Syil in China as I am currently living in Mongolia and thought I could get it cheap being only about 600K from Beijing. By the time I finish paying customs and shipping it will be almost 6000 so I don't think I saved much. Anyway if it ever gets delivered I'll will start a thread on it.
Any pointers you have on getting the pendant to work in Mach. I have followed the install directions from CNC4 but not having any luck changing axis or jog increments.
You are making good progress and it is very informative.
Thanks,
Larry in Mongolia (outer)
Thanks to everyone for their comments. Keeping this thread going has really helped me to get the work done and get this thing running.
I cut my first metal on the WMD30LV this afternoon. It was a superb result and I'm very happy with the resulting test part. First I trammed the head, got it to within 10µm over a ~10" sweep in X, and the factory setting in Y was good to the spec sheet's word, within 10-15µm over a 5" semicircular arc. There are some interesting findings which I will relay.
1) This machine is being totally strangled by the spindle speed. It is just WAY TOO SLOW. I've thought this would be the case all the way along but it is more apparent when the physical reality is in front of you. I was cutting 2.5mm deep at 120mm/min - any faster and the vibration would kick in. The exact same thing would happen on the X2, except at a shallower depth of cut. This machine has the rigidity to rip metal off at 4+ times this rate, if only the spindle was faster.
2) You can't get the head low enough on the column to cut material on the table, without extending the quill. This is very annoying because I do a lot of work on plate materials with no vise. You can feel the rigidity falling away as you extend the quill, I hate that.
Anyway here are some pics of the test part. Material is 6082-T6 12mm thick, Letters are 5mm deep cut in 2 passes and about 240x65mm area. The surface finish is outstanding, especially as this was done mostly dry with a couple of squirts from the can only. I didn't have my compressed air system to evacuate chips either.
The angled cuts are as smooth as those running parallel to an axis. A good indication of thread pitch consistency over a rotation on the ballscrews. The Nook screws on my X2 are nowhere near as good.
Check out the faceting on those curved surfaces. That is in the drawing. On my other machine, the segments would probably have been mostly invisible as flex etc merged them into one another.
It could use a little bit more deburring in places but it served the purpose.
Here is another video, this time of it cutting the test part. Unfortunately it doesn't tell you much, all I can say is the vibration level was nice and low. Look at that quill extension (50mm) - how annoying is that? Also, my spindle speed tacho read-out stopped working shortly after I started cutting. Nothing a blow with the old hammer couldn't fix. Must be a loose wire in the box. The thing is pretty much useless anyway.
"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-RebEUq8lk&feature=channel"]YouTube- WMD30LV cutting
2ndsteel - to answer your questions about the pendant etc.
I found the set-up to work fairly easily for me. I changed the values for the relevant pins that it says on the CNC4PC site, and installed the brain file in Mach. Have you done those steps? I am using the second parallel port for the pendant, which comes directly out of the Smoothstepper - although this shouldn't make any difference at all. Also check you have your LPT2 port address correctly specified in Mach.
I had a couple of issues getting it doing, but I hadn't selected MPG jog mode in the jog dialogue in Mach, and I hadn't powered up the E-stop circuitry on the pendant interface card. Those two things sorted it for me.
One other thing, I am currently only using it in velocity mode, I haven't tried to make it jog a known distance per step yet.
woo, nice.
a few questions:
- whats the tool diametre. what type/ how many flutes.
- why is the quill extended? just to reach the work?
with a 2 flute hss end mill, 3/8" (10mm), you should be cutting in the range of 5-7ipm at 2000rpm and should be able to easily do the full 5mm depth. you should also be using coolant because of the low surface speed.
full width slotting cuts are always the most prone to vibration and heat and welding chips to the cutter. i find that using cutters smaller than 1/4" (6mm) with deeper depths actuallt turn out more efficient with less chatter. the tool "loads" into the cut and deflects rather than vibrates.
for example at 2000rpm, 3 flute 1/4" hss bit cutting 5mm deep at 8.6ipm removes rougly the same material as the 2000rpm example above and should chatter less. again, coolant is important.
Yes the quill is extended because that was the only way to reach the table - annoyingly.
The tool is a solid carbide 10mm 2-flute. I am sure I could have cut at 8ipm if I had the quill retracted and coolant. I don't have coolant set up though. In fact before I reduced the feed rate I was cutting at 250mm/min (10ipm) but the vibration level was excessive when cutting a full-width slot.
I will certainly be trying some smaller cutters soon.
dont bother with carbide at that speed. try to find an HSS or cobal 3 flute bit. HSS will be more durable and 3 flute is stronger and less prone to chatter.
but yes, high speed would benifit you. ive been working out a belt drive for the bf20/wmd25 machine. you could probably do it to the 30 easily. dont know how fast the bearings are good to, but id imagine 4-5000rpm woul dbe safe. im going to push the bf20 to 7500rpm with higher grade tapered roller bearings, and removal of the quill bits.
After a 1 hour run the head was quite warm. I would be prepared to sacrifice the standard bearings by overspeed and then replace with better ones, if I ran a belt drive.
I know that HSS cutters will give good performance at these speeds, but remember I'm not really intending to run so slowly - especially in the long run. Also, the stiffness of carbide tools definitely limits tool deflection, even at lower speeds in my experience. The smaller the cutter, the more important this is. I often use cutters in the 1-6mm range.
ah, cool.
ive moved on from my belt drive to a power drawbar now. hehe. its kinda clever i think. it doesnt use air or hydraulics, doesnt stress the spindle bearings, and doesnt cost all that much.
(its a long weekend here and im bored, haha)
