Just ordered the last melon (Torus)

[Titaniumboy]

Frankly, I would just leave the existing dual cord arrangement the same, but combine the two physical cords into one (more or less) by using cable ties or cord wrap etc to keep them together.

Yes, that would be the smart way to go. Two issues are that my 240 Volt receptacle is not really next to my 120 Volt receptacle, and also that it would be nice for the mill to be "self-contained" and able to run with just one cable being plugged in.

Your second idea of using a step-down transformer made a lot of sense and I went down the rabbit hole and ended up at Clough42's Youtube channel where he also needed 120 Volts at a Bridgeport mill that only had a 240 Volt feed. His solution was to use a 250VA control transformer





You do the calculations and a 250VA transformer only provides about 2.1 Amps, so not exactly a ton of current. In the process of checking the nameplate rating of my monitor I discovered something that changes everything - my monitor has an input voltage range of 100-240 Volts.

I also have a heavy-duty touch monitor that came out of an ATM that I plan on using someday. This touch monitor has a 12 Volt DC input from a typical AC/DC adapter, and the adapter also has an input voltage range of 100-240 Volts.

All I have to do is cut off the 120 Volt plug off of the cable and then route the cable into the electrical cabinet and tie into the 240 Volt terminal block. My kind of modification - cheap and easy.

Thanks for the help!

[burbingus]

Not sure this is up to code, but it seems that you could take one leg off the 240V if you have a neutral and ground available there and run your 120V out of the cabinet. I'm assing you've got 2 phase 240 at the moment.

[Titaniumboy]

Taking 120 Volt off of one leg of the 240 Volt is completely acceptable to the National Electrical Code. In fact virtually every home in the US does this.

The problem, as you noted, is that I didn’t have access to a neutral in the mill electrical cabinet. Novakon only used a 3-wire cord for the power cable - two hots and a ground. I would have needed to change out the 3-wire cable to a 4-wire cable. In addition, I would have had to increase the wire size from 14 gage to 12 gage because of technical issues.

I’m happy to report that my monitor happily accepted 240 Volts last night and did not blow up. I “temporarily” tied in the monitor power cord to a source of 240 Volt in the cabinet.

I have some parts on order that will let me finish this modification in the proper way so that I can then share some pictures. I did swap out the standard 6 ft monitor power cable for a 10 ft cable as the original cable was just a tad short.

[Titaniumboy]

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

CL_MotoTech posted the above on July 31, 2020. I had been running UCCNC 1.2111 which looked like this.




Tonight I finally got the black and blue screen set up and running when I upgraded to UCCNC 1.2113.




Note that this super duper UCCNC version is now running on the 240 Volt high voltage monitor (same monitor as before). It is so nice not tripping over the extension cord for the monitor.

Now all I have to do is relocate the PC Start button and the Main and Drive Power Switches to the front of the mill.

[upnorth]

Nice to see some activity on here.

[Titaniumboy]

Nice to see some activity on here.

Thanks. Sorry it has taken so took to respond, but there has been progress in the last two weeks.

First I had to go through some tools and get them installed in my TTS tool holders. Next up was to measure the Tool Length Offset for each tool.




I decided to use the table as the place to touch off all of the tools. First I made sure that I had homed the mill, then I slowly lowered the tool until it made contact with the height offset gauge and lit up the red light. This height offset gauge is exactly 2.0000” tall within 2 tenths and has a spring loaded top so tools aren’t damaged from overrun. In .001 increments, it took six jogs in +Z to get the red light to out. My Z backlash has gotten worse than the 0.004” that I measured in 2020.




Here is the Tool Offset page in UCCNC. I’m not very impressed by the lack of features on the Tool Offset page. Extremely basic functionality.




And here are four tools measured and input into the table. When each tool had touched off on the height offset gauge, I subtracted 2.000” from the Z machine coordinate shown, and entered that number in the tool table for that tool.




I quickly realized that I needed a better way to hold and manage all the sharp pokey bits. So I grabbed a scrap piece of 2x4 and used some Forster bits to drill a bunch of 3/4” holes.




All of my TTS tools finally organized.

[Titaniumboy]

Now that I had my four tool length offsets measured and entered into the UCCNC Tool Z Offset table, it was time to find the X, Y, and Z for the G54 Work Coordinate System. I used my Lufkin edge finder to discover the -X and -Y edge of the stock. Since the Fusion 360 CAM had the part origin programmed for the center of the stock, I had to add half of the edge finder diameter plus half of the stock length to set the G54 X offset. Similarly, I added half of the edge finder diameter plus half of the stock width to set the G54 Y offset.

To set the G54 Z offset, I placed the height offset gauge on top of the part stock and brought Tool #1 down until it made contact. Let's say this value was -8.000". I then subtracted 2.000" from the Machine Coordinate Z shown in order to get from the top of the height offset gauge down to the top of the part stock, so this value is now -10.000". I then added the POSITIVE value of Tool #1 tool length offset (assume this is -13.000") to the -10.000" previously obtained in order to get the G54 Z offset.

Example: -8.000" - 2.000" + 13.000" = 3.000" G54 Z offset

This sounds complicated, but it is not too bad in actual practice. This diagram perhaps better illustrates what I'm trying to poorly describe in words.




The above procedure is easier on the Haas controls that I've used in the past because Haas allows you to add and subtract numbers when using the ENTER key. Unfortunately, UCCNC forced me to do all these calculations on paper and then enter the final number on the G54 table on the OFFSETS tab.

Shown below is the part drawing and the part shown in Fusion 360.






This relatively simple part required 11 different CAM operations in Fusion 360. It also used four tools on my mill (and five tools on the Haas TM-1) as I don't yet have a face mill and had to make do with a 3/4" end mill for my facing operation.

[CL_MotoTech]

An easy workaround for your math issues is to just use the built in calculator in Windows. My keyboard has a dedicated calculator button, you push it, you have a calculator. It even provides history to your calcs. You do your math, you punch it in the control. But yes, I would agree, a match capable input would be sweet. That said, using a touch probe nearly removes the need for both.

[Titaniumboy]

An easy workaround for your math issues is to just use the built in calculator in Windows. My keyboard has a dedicated calculator button, you push it, you have a calculator. It even provides history to your calcs. You do your math, you punch it in the control. But yes, I would agree, a match capable input would be sweet. That said, using a touch probe nearly removes the need for both.

Good to hear from you again, CLM. This is a new to me refurbished Dell laptop that I'm using for Fusion 360 and Solidworks and I never noticed the Calc key. Thanks for that. My mill pc motherboard is still running Windows 7 and I'll have to check if it has the Windows Calculator also.

I hear you on the touch probe. I have downloaded ProbeIt and hope to get my Drewtronics probe up and running soon.


After the Face Mill, 2D Adaptive, and 2D Pocket operations.




After another set of 2D Adaptive and 2D Pocket operations.




After Spot Drill and Drill operations.




After Bore, 2D Adaptive, and 2D Contour operations.




Finished part after Chamfer operation.




The part on the left was milled on the Torus and the part on the right was milled at school on a Haas TM-2.






I had made the Fusion 360 CAD and CAM at school for a project. To run it on my mill I changed the Post Processor from Haas NGC to UCCNC. I also changed Tool 1 from a Face Mill to a 3/4" end mill, disabled Tool Changes, slowed the RPM's down from 6000 to 4600, and set up my own tool library.

[Titaniumboy]

I had actually run that part from the last post way back on March 5.

There were quite a few “firsts” accomplished on my little Torus during the milling of that part.

1. Used the “Black and Blue” UCCNC version 1.2113 for the first time.
2. Used Fusion 360 to generate the CAM and g-code for the first time. The last part made back in 2020 used SolidWorks CAM.
3. Used TTS tool holders for the first time.
4. Used tool length offsets for the first time in UCCNC.


My next major goal was to get Probing up and running. My Drewtronics probe had been bought in 2020 and it was high time it was put into service. Here is my janky “temporary” connection from 2020.




I started out with a TIR of 2 to 2.5 thousands. Not too bad for out of the box and who knows how much of that is in the probe as compared to the spindle/R8/TTS ER20 stackup.




Probe runout is adjusted similar to dialing in a four jaw lathe chuck. I don’t know how, but I managed to get the TIR under 1/4 thousandth (<0.00025”).




My next step was to download and install ProbeIt for UCCNC from CraftyCNC.com. Eric Brust, who runs CraftYCNC as a one man show, has made it really easy to demo ProbeIt as detailed below.

This is otherwise a fully functional demo, and may be licensed if you find it useful. Future updates to this plugin will not alter the licensing scheme in anyway, so once a license is purchased, the plugin will continue to work indefinitely, on any PC, without internet connection. The license is tied to your UCCNC controller and SN however.

I downloaded ProbeIt for UCCNC version 2.200 and got the following error.




I contacted Eric and he replied that he had forgotten to include some needed files in the download. He suggested that I download and install version 2.201 and that did the trick.

One of the reasons I went with ProbeIt instead of the UCCNC Probing routines is that ProbeIt has the ability to do probe calibration, unlike UCCNC. Lacking a true ring gauge to use with probe calibration, I used the next best thing.




I used double sided tape to keep the trailer wheel roller bearing from moving around during the probe calibration routine.




And into every life must come a little sorrow.

[metalmayhem]

ouch !

[Titaniumboy]

I ordered two new probe tips from Drewtronics and now have them here, but not installed.

I think my funky way of setting the G54 work coordinate system for the Z-axis bit me in the butt.

[metalmayhem]

can you add a safe check point in your probing code ? In the code I use I added an m00 at z1" , that way i can visually verify the xy and z are where they should be before hitting cycle start again

[Titaniumboy]

Probing code? I don’t have any probing code that I know about. All of my probing to establish the G54 work offsets was done prior to any g-code being run.

[Titaniumboy]

After the unfortunate incident involving the Drewtronics probe and the mill vise, I was left wondering whether the damage was limited to the probe stylus (and my pride) or whether I had ruined the entire probe. So I disassembled the probe to see if any internal damage had occurred.

This picture shows the three legged “flat tripod” still in place inside the probe. The probe stylus is screwed into this flat tripod.




This shows the arrangement of how the flat tripod and the internal circuitry interact a little more clearly. Each leg of the flat tripod rests on a pair of steel balls that are electrically insulated from each other. At rest each leg of the flat tripod electrically connects one ball to the other. This electrical connection between the balls is interrupted when the probe stylus moves a flat tripod leg off off of the balls.






The only thing I found wrong inside my probe was that the crash had dislodged the flat tripod from its normal resting place on the three ball pairs. All I had to do to “repair” the probe was to move the flat tripod back to the correct position. I still need to dial in the stylus ruby tip like I did before.

Here is the probe as good as new with the bent stylus as a momento.




One last reminder of the mishap.

[upnorth]

I also have a Drewtronics probe that was damaged. In my case my toolbox with ball bearing slides and no locks rolled onto it's side. Dumped the probe and broke the carbide ball off the tip of the stylus. I'm quite impressed with the quality of the probe for the price. Good to see it survived with a stylus that bent like that. Before I bought mine I asked if it could be repaired after a major crash. I was told yes and the cost to do so was very reasonable. It would probably be worth keeping a crash kit on hand because it's only a matter of time before I need it.

Thanks for taking the time to show what is inside the probe. I wondered about it but not enough to take it apart to see. I still need to get some probe tips so I can get mine going again.

[Titaniumboy]

That sounds like a bad day when your toolbox tips over. It is interesting that your probe stylus had a carbide ball as compared to the ruby ball on mine.

I picked up two replacement probe stylus from Drewtronics for only $58 delivered.




https://drewtronics.org/product/125-...y-ball-stylus/


These probe stylus look fairly easy to make on a lathe. All you need to do is then epoxy the ball on the end like Drewtronics does. But at only $29 each with free shipping it hardly seems worth the effort.

Of course I have been lazy and have not gotten around to dialing in the stylus runout and running the probe calibration routine in ProbeIt again.

[upnorth]

I might have one of the earlier probes. Maybe that is why it has a carbide ball. The stylus in my case was not bent so I tried to silver solder the ball back on the stylus but that was a complete failure. I do plan on getting a pair of replacements stylus from Drewtronics but it's a little more complicated for me because I live in Canada. He is reluctant to ship here. I have a way to get them here but it takes a bit of time and a little more money. I don't think it's worth making them yourself. They are pretty reasonably priced.

[Titaniumboy]

I could buy a pair of stylus and mail them to you?

[upnorth]

Thanks for the offer. My sister moved to the USA a few months ago and she is going to do exactly that.

I was going to edit my last post to say I think there might be a little more to making a stylus than meets the eye. They need to be stiff but not to stiff. They can't deflect but can't be too tough because they may damage the probe during collisions.