Just ordered the last melon (Torus)

[Titaniumboy]

Metalmayhem,

Thanks for the picture on your Torus Pro. This is what I am dealing with on the Torus/NM-145 stand.

Small drain located at the right rear of the mill.



I don’t know why but this pic got rotated 90 degrees CCW. The hose on the “bottom” is the pump discharge and the hose on “top” is the drain hose.

[metalmayhem]

Man I thought mine was bad , I think I'd take a hole saw to that and fit a sink drain or something

[upnorth]

Back on July 11 upnorth posted the above offer.

Guess what just arrived in the mail !!


Attachment 446668


Thanks upnorth. I haven’t hooked it up yet, but the pendant arrived undamaged and looks great.

You are welcome I'm glad to see its going to get used. It always worked well and I would have kept it if was compatible with my Acorn controller. It will make jogging a lot easier for you.

[upnorth]

heres the pic I promised . I thought this was standard on the old stands , and as you'll see there is a whole lot of silicone happening on my mill


Attachment 446690

I see why they get plugged up. The design on the new Torus pro stand it way better. Its completely impossible to plug the chip drain.

[CL_MotoTech]

This sounds similar to what my understanding is of the UCCNC probing screen. I am presently looking at the videos of ProbeIt for UCCNC that was released earlier this year to see if there is more functionality there. CL_MotoTech is way ahead of me on probing with his G0704, and he is using both the Drewtronics and ProbeIt.

We may be talking about different versions of UCCNC? The black and blue screenset has pretty extensive built in probing. I am on version 1.2113 of UCCNC.

ProbeIt is just very intuitive for me. Maybe I was being a wimp with the UCCNC built in probing but I've never worked out how to use it. When I read the help document under the "i" on the probe screens I just get anxious. I've found a few helpful videos via the UCCNC Facebook group, but since ProbeIt is working I haven't felt the need to play with the built in probing. There aren't any probing features that I am currently missing, I can do everything I need.

That drain design is atrocious. Good luck there!

[metalmayhem]

I see why they get plugged up. The design on the new Torus pro stand it way better. Its completely impossible to plug the chip drain.

If I had my time back I would have bought with the new stand , I bought when they crossed over . I was on the site one week then the next week when I planned to make the purchase the price had jumped $2000 due to the new stand . I talked with Kai and they still had an old stand and I was able to get it at the original cost . With the currency difference at the time it was a significant amount of change and I figured I could have a nice heavy duty aluminum stand made for less

[Titaniumboy]

Man I thought mine was bad , I think I'd take a hole saw to that and fit a sink drain or something

I see why they get plugged up. The design on the new Torus pro stand it way better. Its completely impossible to plug the chip drain.

Yeah, my stand has serious prostate issues.

If I had my time back I would have bought with the new stand , I bought when they crossed over . I was on the site one week then the next week when I planned to make the purchase the price had jumped $2000 due to the new stand . I talked with Kai and they still had an old stand and I was able to get it at the original cost . With the currency difference at the time it was a significant amount of change and I figured I could have a nice heavy duty aluminum stand made for less.

Sounds like we were in a similar situation. At the time I bought Novakon’s last Torus, the Stepper Pulsar was available with the new stand. The cost increase was around $2000 and I never really get a clear answer as to what the extra money was going to buy me.

Now I know.:


So I have the cold comfort that all the extra work I am going through with the coolant system is really a case of saving money.

[Titaniumboy]

We may be talking about different versions of UCCNC? The black and blue screenset has pretty extensive built in probing. I am on version 1.2113 of UCCNC.

ProbeIt is just very intuitive for me. Maybe I was being a wimp with the UCCNC built in probing but I've never worked out how to use it. When I read the help document under the "i" on the probe screens I just get anxious. I've found a few helpful videos via the UCCNC Facebook group, but since ProbeIt is working I haven't felt the need to play with the built in probing. There aren't any probing features that I am currently missing, I can do everything I need.

Wait, what? What the heck is a black and blue screenset?

I’m on the latest stable version 1.2111. You’re using a newer version?

I can’t find any videos of anyone actually using the UCCNC built-in probing. I never checked in with the Facebook group because I’m not on Facebook. Like you, I read the same help document and it just looked like a hot mess.

I’m going to download ProbeIt for UCCNC tonight. The CraftyCNC guy appears really relaxed about people actually buying a license.

That drain design is atrocious. Good luck there!

Yep!! And it’s all mine! I’m a lucky guy.

Got any pics of how you modified your G0704 for flood coolant? My G0704 wants to grow up and be a CNC someday.

[Titaniumboy]

You are welcome I'm glad to see its going to get used. It always worked well and I would have kept it if was compatible with my Acorn controller. It will make jogging a lot easier for you.

I stayed up late last night and got the Vista CNC P1A-S pendant operational. Man, this thing is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The process was fairly painless. I obtained the appropriate download from the Vista CNC website. One of the items in the extracted zip file was a hardware download for the pendant itself. Launched the exe file, followed the instructions, plugged the pendant into the laptop, and the pendants firmware was successfully updated.

The next step was to place the dll file into the UCCNC Plugin subdirectory on the mill computer motherboard. Then pop into the Configuratins General Setting tab, click on the Configure Plugins button, and click on the appropriate Enable box. I restarted UCCNC and the pendant was up and running.

[upnorth]

If I had my time back I would have bought with the new stand , I bought when they crossed over . I was on the site one week then the next week when I planned to make the purchase the price had jumped $2000 due to the new stand . I talked with Kai and they still had an old stand and I was able to get it at the original cost . With the currency difference at the time it was a significant amount of change and I figured I could have a nice heavy duty aluminum stand made for less

Well this will make you sick then. I bought my mill when Novakon was moving from Canada to the USA. For some reason there was a delay in them shipping it out. To make up for the delay they threw in the new stand and a vise for free.

I wonder if it would be possible to modify an old stand to be like the new one. Mine has a large cutout under the mill when the chips fall into a removable tray. It also has a wash down pump that blows the chips under the mill into a tray. Doors open on the front and the trays slide out for cleaning. My only issue is the wash down nozzle (actually a garden hose type sprayer) is it clogs with chips that make it past the screens in the chip tray. I will be modifying it soon so there is a filter in the line to prevent that. Its under the mill but I can try to take a photo of where the chips go if you want to see it.

[upnorth]

I stayed up late last night and got the Vista CNC P1A-S pendant operational. Man, this thing is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The process was fairly painless. I obtained the appropriate download from the Vista CNC website. One of the items in the extracted zip file was a hardware download for the pendant itself. Launched the exe file, followed the instructions, plugged the pendant into the laptop, and the pendants firmware was successfully updated.

The next step was to place the dll file into the UCCNC Plugin subdirectory on the mill computer motherboard. Then pop into the Configuratins General Setting tab, click on the Configure Plugins button, and click on the appropriate Enable box. I restarted UCCNC and the pendant was up and running.

Glad you got it working. I miss it but so far not enough to replace it. The Centroid pendant is expensive but I'm sure when the warm weather ends I will crack and order the wireless one from Centroid.

[CL_MotoTech]

Wait, what? What the heck is a black and blue screenset?

I’m on the latest stable version 1.2111. You’re using a newer version?

I can’t find any videos of anyone actually using the UCCNC built-in probing. I never checked in with the Facebook group because I’m not on Facebook. Like you, I read the same help document and it just looked like a hot mess.

I’m going to download ProbeIt for UCCNC tonight. The CraftyCNC guy appears really relaxed about people actually buying a license.

Yep!! And it’s all mine! I’m a lucky guy.

Got any pics of how you modified your G0704 for flood coolant? My G0704 wants to grow up and be a CNC someday.

I had to go look at the forum but it appears as though you have to be on 1.2112 for the black and blue screen set. I recommend making the switch. - forum.cncdrive.com • View topic - UCCNC test releases posted in this thread

I have had no issues running new releases even though they aren't in "stable" release designation.

Below are a few photos and you can see the drain under my G0704. It's larger than the base of the mill, and the chips just wash into a "chip tray" which is comprised of a plastic tote. I can cut a lot of aluminum before I empty the tray, it works wells. Version 2 with chip auger is inbound. I use a 3000gph water feature pump to move the coolant, it's not high pressure, but I get lots of volume. I currently use 5 nozzles, I can't use 6 because the 6th nozzle crashes the tool changer haha. The coolant is cleaned of chips via a sedimentation labyrinth in the chip tray, then there's a passive 5 micron filter in the secondary tank. The pumps are like $40, and I have had at least two literally fall apart, but that took lots of use.

I have a PS4 pendant, I love the thing. I had one of those wireless XHC units, and it just doesn't compare the Vista unit.

[CL_MotoTech]

This photo I think provides a little more perspective. This was before I finished up the ATC and got the coolant ring going.

[Titaniumboy]

Sorry for the long absence. I haven't posted since late July but I have made some serious progress during that time.

CL_MotoTech, thanks for all of the pictures of your flood cooling system on your G0704. Very nice. By the way, did you see that Hoss has shown up alive and well?

I have not upgraded to the Black and Blue version of the UCCNC software yet, nor have I downloaded ProbeIt. So no progress on the Drewtronics probe so far. I needed to put the probing on the back burner to work on making chips.

I have been concentrating on the flood coolant system so I can begin milling aluminum. Here is what I started with from the factory, more or less. The Chinesium LocLine has an orange valve and also an internal clear tubing that the real LocLine does not have. The only change from the stock mill is that there was originally a black plastic fitting that the hose attached to on one side and the LocLine attached to on the other side. That black plastic fitting fell apart years ago from just sitting idle, so I changed it out to a plain brass fitting held on with cable ties.





Here I have swapped out the crappy LocLine with real 1/2" LocLine. The only downside is that the new LocLine does not have a valve like the old stuff did. The good news is that the stock coolant pump and new LocLine deliver a ton of coolant at a very nice pressure. The bad news is that the pump and LocLine deliver a ton of coolant: so much coolant is pumped that the coolant tank drains and the pump starts sucking air in less than two minutes. The main issue is that the single factory drain is smaller than a quarter.







So I installed a ball valve. The pic below shows where I tried attaching the whole assembly to the mill head with a conduit clamp, but this left the LocLine with too much play to be usable. I next tried securing the ball valve with cable ties, but that didn't really work either. How the heck are you supposed to hold securely onto LocLine?





My solution was to 3D print a LocLine bracket. I was able to find a model of a 1/2" LocLine element on GrabCad. I modified that model in Solidworks so that my bracket has one complete LocLine element plus a fractional element on each end. I ended up having to scale the model up by 102% in order to have a perfect fit.

I'm not gonna lie - it took me about 8 hours total over several days to figure out all the incorrect ways to model the bracket before I finally stumbled across a way that did work. I suck at Solidworks, but doing little projects like this force me to learn new skills in Solidworks.





Here is a test fit of the bottom bracket.





And here is the final LocLine bracket installation. Clamping the LocLine using the original factory holes places the LocLine fairly high up on the mill head, but it hasn't been a problem so far. The 3D printed LocLine bracket is holding the LocLine rock solid.






I adjusted the ball valve to throttle down the flood coolant so that the puny factory drain is not overwhelmed. Even throttled down, the flow rate does a great job of clearing away chips. The coolant system is finally ready to cut some aluminum !!

The LocLine bracket and valve installation was completed about 2-1/2 weeks ago.

[upnorth]

Loc line is a good improvement. I never liked the original coolant line and nozzle it never stayed pointed in the right direction. I was going to suggest that you put a t in the line so you could use two nozzles. It vastly improves the chip evacuation. I see though you have one of the old stands so the drain will overflow. You should seriously consider taking a hole saw to the stand and fitting in a sink drain or two. I found while one nozzle works well there are situations (pocketing or slotting) where the chip evacuation would get bogged down because the coolant was coming in from he wrong direction. Two nozzles eliminates this. My nozzle kit came with 3 different sizes. If I remember right I went with the middle size. I will eventually go with the smallest size. It blew out so much coolant it would sometimes splash out of the top of the enclosure. The stock pump moves a lot of coolant.

[Titaniumboy]

You should seriously consider taking a hole saw to the stand and fitting in a sink drain or two.

A hole saw - or a plasma cutter - is definitely in the future for this stand.

I was going to suggest that you put a t in the line so you could use two nozzles. It vastly improves the chip evacuation. I found while one nozzle works well there are situations (pocketing or slotting) where the chip evacuation would get bogged down because the coolant was coming in from the wrong direction. Two nozzles eliminates this.

Two nozzles? I have something a little different in mind. Go to 17:00 in the video CNC4RX7 to see what I would like to install down the road.

My nozzle kit came with 3 different sizes. If I remember right I went with the middle size. I will eventually go with the smallest size. It blew out so much coolant it would sometimes splash out of the top of the enclosure. The stock pump moves a lot of coolant.

I am using the smallest nozzle and it puts out an impressive coolant stream even with being throttled down by the ball valve. On a recent part the nozzle got displaced by running into the part and so the cutter didn't have coolant being sprayed on it. It took less than 5 or 10 seconds for the HSS 1/4" endmill to have a serious aluminum chip weld occur and I had to hit the emergency stop on your old jog pendant.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------


So while making the aluminum part alluded to above I managed to break the drawbar. I mean, I literally broke the SOB into two pieces.





This is what the drawbar used to look like.





It turns out that some idiot about 6 years ago decided to machine a hex shape out of the four-sided top of the drawbar.

Almost done machining the hex head on the Bridgeport using the 5C collet block



Set up at home on my G0602 10x22 lathe and ready to face the end and cut a chamfer



Finished hex head drawbar. I didn't take a lot of material off the end of the drawbar, but you can see some voids that were uncovered during the lathe facing operation. I finished the hex head by deburring with an 3M EXL grinding wheel and then "polishing" with a 3M scotchbrite wheel.

Evidently I had machined off the welds holding the two pieces of the drawbar together. In my defense, I had thought that the drawbar was a single piece.

It just never ends...

[CL_MotoTech]

This is what I use on my G0704. I run 5 out of 6 nozzles because my ATC likes to interfere with 1 of the 6. That said, it works very well and it saved me a bunch of messing around. I had the model made for making one myself, but the price point was too cheap. They sell them in different sizes, so it may or may not work for the Novakon. Five nozzles is pretty good, I can evacuate chips for most operations with this. My coolant is very high flow but not necessarily high pressure. Of course that drain issue will really be problem if you are running 2000gph.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000...4d9e4c4d3Sx49X

[Titaniumboy]

Ok, we have a milling machine and a lathe and welders. What could possibly go wrong?


The drawbar top has been cleaned up with a chamfer in the G0602 lathe.





The drawbar rod has similarly been cleaned up with a chamfer.





All cleaned and prepped and ready for welding.





TIG weld repair. Not my most photogenic weld. In fact that weld is just downright ugly.





Facing in the G0602 lathe.





Starting to mill away the excess weld material from the hex faces. Luckily I have the manual G0704 mill to make this job easier. Kinda hard to repair a drawbar when the cnc mill drawbar is busted.





Chamfering in the lathe.





After being deburred with the 3M EXL wheel. Just like it never happened.

[Titaniumboy]

This is what I use on my G0704. I run 5 out of 6 nozzles because my ATC likes to interfere with 1 of the 6. That said, it works very well and it saved me a bunch of messing around. I had the model made for making one myself, but the price point was too cheap. They sell them in different sizes, so it may or may not work for the Novakon. Five nozzles is pretty good, I can evacuate chips for most operations with this. My coolant is very high flow but not necessarily high pressure. Of course that drain issue will really be problem if you are running 2000gph.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000...4d9e4c4d3Sx49X

Thanks for that link. I didn't realize you could buy the coolant rings commercially. I may still machine my own just because I need the practice. I spend a stupid amount of time in CAD and CAM because I just haven't used them enough to get efficient.

The drain is an issue, but I'm getting surprisingly good results in clearing away chips even with my neutered flood coolant.

Are you getting 2000gph? I'm going to call a party foul on you because that would be a crazy 33 gallons per minute. Seriously though, I really should measure my throttled down flow rate. I'm guessing I am somewhere between 2 and 4 gpm.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


So in my last post I recounted my tale of woe surrounding my broken drawbar and then my subsequent redemption when I was able, against all odds, to repair that same drawbar. This sordid drama all occurred about a week ago.


After building a shower curtain enclosure, repairing a leaky coolant tank, replacing LocLine, adding a ball valve, and repairing a broken drawbar, I was finally ready to mill some aluminum. Rather than just milling away on a block of aluminum I decided that I would try and make a useful object. The pic below shows my version of a speed vise handle.





And here is the finished version.





And a closeup shot.





I completed the final operations on the back side of the part last Wednesday. I'm not going pretend that this part is perfect or that I didn't run into some problems along the way, because it isn't and I did. I'll go into more detail on those problems later and hopefully you guys can point out the error of my ways for me.

It only took over six years of issues and missteps and procrastination to get to this point.

It sure feels great to witness the power of this fully-armed and operational battle station.

[upnorth]

The stock pump from novakon puts out plenty of coolant. The supplied with the mill nozzle is so small it chokes off most of the flow.