NEW MILL TURN ARRIVED

[smallblock]

My new Mill Turn machine was delivered and I've got it set up, so I thought I would share some thoughts on it. This is my 4th machine from Shoptask/Shopmaster since the old 17-20 XMTC back in '93. The quality, fit and finish and functions are a lot better now than in those days, but the price is a lot more as well. The new machines are full CNC, but still with manual functions and a factory DRO, so no more dials on the handles. The setup is the same as earlier machines with the bench legs mounted upside down to form the crate frame work. I have a forklift in my shop, so lifting the machine onto the legs was easy- for others you will need to rent a hoist. The bench is a lot better than the prior models with nice finished panels, casters for moving and locking doors in the front. I had it out of the crate and in place in about 2 hours from the time the truck dropped it off. It comes with a computer, monitor and licensed Mach 3 software and has a nice swing around mount for them. The DRO display also has a swing around mount. Running the carriages back and forth was real smooth with the gibs adjusted nicely and no table rock. The new mill head doesn't use a quill, but the entire casting moves up and down on 6 linear rails and twin ball screws. Haven't checked tram yet, but the motions are nice and smooth. There is a nice LED light in the casting that shines on the table and lathe chuck for good vision. JT sent me a service bulletin in advance for a couple things to look for. Apparently, the Chinese changed the motor pulley diameter from the original design, so it was necessary to go into the Mach 3 setup and make a change in the spindle pulley settings. The steps per inch and velocities were all pre set and the initial run through was within 0.001" on my tests, so I will make the fine adjustments later. There were also a couple adjustments necessary in the VFD coding also due to the pulley change. In the service bulletin there was a caution about a possible mis-wiring of the mill sensor and 1 VFD low voltage wire. I checked my machine and indeed they were wrong. The Chinese had connected both mill sensor wires to the same terminal on the Gecko drive, which was not a problem except that the Mach 3 settings were set to receive signals from 2 separate terminals on the Gecko, so it was necessary to move 1 wire to the second Gecko terminal. The other issue was a low voltage wire from the VFD was connected to the wrong terminal and needed to be moved in order for Mach 3 to maintain steady rpm of the spindles. It took a few minutes to do these changes and everything is working fine. At the same time, for my own peace of mind I checked the tightness of all the wiring connections inside the control panel. All the wires are nicely routed and marked with coded tags. I didn't find any loose connections, only a couple of the screw terminals that turned another quarter turn with the screwdriver. I would recommend that anyone do this just in case. There were a couple funny misspellings on the decals too. The lathe chuck is now 6" diameter and the hole through the spindle is 1.5"- a real improvement over the old machines. So far just cutting air and getting familiar with all the functions.

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[wreckermech]

I have been hoping for a look at the new mill portion to see if the difference would be great enough to justify upgrading my still new Patriot cnc .I look forward to reading how your mill turn compares and possibly photos of the new bridge.

[smallblock]

Wrecker-
I considered the same thing before getting the new machine. You could probably do it by fabricating the framework for an extra set of columns on the tailstock end and maybe search e-bay for the pulleys and belts, but you would still be using the steel columns unless you bought all 6 sets of linear bearings. I searched E-bay myself, but could never seem to find the proper sized stuff I needed all at once and didn't want to invest in some of the parts just in hopes that I could find the rest later on- that's a recipe for a project that drags on forever. The mill head casting is completely new on the Mill Turn and they have re-cast the main bed with the column supports built in. They have also re-cast the lathe column to eliminate that bolt on steel plate so its now a single cast piece with extra webs to support the mill head weight. Of course the bore for the lathe bearings must be a lot bigger to accept the 1.5 " bore spindle. Here are some pics.

[wreckermech]

Have you milled any steel to compare the cutting speed and chatter vs. the Patriot? I am still struggling to make the table and bridge more ridged and deaden the resonance of the table.

[countryguy]

Sorry all. I think this should have gone on a new thread. But I did spend a bunch O time getting this mill the way I need it for now.



I know I'm a bit of a newb but i have spent a lot of time on my 2010 CNC unit trying to get to a better rigid cutting experience. Below are a few of my notes on what I did. I always welcome any feedback and continued suggestions. I think that rigidity is an common issue w/ many small mill configs as I read about how to solve it. . To me it was a bunch of little things and not 1 big thing to help get the machine to do what I wanted. As a final note, I ended up going after a large 30taper SuperMax CNC Mill for larger hard steel work. It does become an issue of machine limitations at some point but the Patriot does perform far better after my misguided newbie antics described below. I have cut 1045 hard steel on this unit w/ success. Not deep cuts mind you, but it works and chatter is better.

Repaired the top pulley chatter. the cutter will bounce hard and caused me several ruined cutters at first. JT has a fix and I have a fix of my own.
Put on a new TB woods polished shiv on the motor.
Polished the spindle top pulley. And yes, it sounded much much smoother and quieter when done.
Put in a new Weg 2hp motor. (mill part only) Solid CT (constant torque) and VT (variable torque) numbers.

Plamsa cut numerous .25 steel plates for all of the blue table leg and cross bar junctions. Bolted everything on w/ 5/8 bolts. Basically a bunch of gussets. I have a pic on the site here.

Cut up a piece of the Wifes hard rubber horse mat flooring. Put this under all the legs. Took a smackdown on it, but worth it! $35 bucks at TSC to replace it.

On the tailstock end, I took some 8 to 10 inch lengths of 1" Galv pipe and a 1" to 2" adapter/transition for each end if the pipe. It looks like a dumbbell (sort of). You can see it in the pic above. I put this on the blue table between the Tailstock mill base & the table wall. Grind 1 end of the 1" to 2" pipe transition to match the angle of your mill base on the tail stock end. Tighten it up! Try a piece of rubber in there tween the pipe and the mill base possibly? Again, Just trying things for better non-chatter conditions.

On the ball screw to quill spindle bracket- It flexes (as most of us know). I put in the steel stiffening plates. You can get these from me or JT. PM for pics if you wish.

I support the steel horizontal plate at the far end w/ a bottle jack and piece of steel for an extension. I do notice a difference when running and not having it in.

There is a really good white paper from Tormech on Spindle (below) No slipping of tool holding allowed! :-)
http://www.tormach.com/uploads/444/P...tslip-pdf.html

Final item I usually try: When I mount my work to the table I keep it as low as possible and I go overkill on the workpiece bolt down. Like it is part of the table.

Tooling: Told to keep my end mills on the smallest possible size! any endmill over 1/2" on something hard is probably not for this machine (Exactly what I was told). No claim on it's value since I have not tried cutting over a 1/2" endmill anyway.

Almost pulled the trigger- There are several notes about adding an epoxy-sand resin to pack into your machine to help solidify it. I wanted to try and get some mass inside the large Mill head beam. No time but anyone here possibly do that on theirs ?



Off to the morning chores. Have a nice day all,
CG.

[Engineering_101]

Have you run into any problems with yours? I just got mine all setup and am having some issues. Note:this is my first machiene, so I may be doing something wrong. Also, I went through the service bulletin and made the changes.

The first problem I'm having is that the tool holder doesn't fit in the r8 collet, it seems like it might be too long.

Another issue I have is that all of my mt3 adapters other than my live centers don't fit in the tailstock. I believe this problem is due to the flat ends on these binding somewhere in the back.

The other issue I'm having is with the movements using the jogging feature. When I'm moving forward or backward(xaxis) and I switch from left to right(zaxis) with the table while still holding down the arrow key moving either forward or backwards, the motors seem to bind up/ not like it. Is this normal?

Also, the dro in mache and the dro on the machine are giving me totally different numbers even when zeroed at the same point. Is there a fix for this? The backlash is set to what came from the factory and seems minimal compared to other systems that I've used in the past.

Finally(for now) how do you changed the steps per inch in mach3? When I jog the x axis 1.000 inch machines 3 reads 1 inch, but the drop gives me a reading of around 1/2 an inch.

Thank you in advance for any advice you may have.

[wreckermech]

It sounds as if the motor tuning , ports and pins , and possibly the native units (mm or in) in mach 3 need to be verified and tuned. Your motors may be assigned to a jog key that is all ready in use by another axis.

[wreckermech]

The best way to get your setup straight would be to attach a copy of your mach3 .dxf file with the most current date to me or post it here so it can be loaded on my or anyones machine to find the setup errors. There are just WAY to many variables to attempt this one post at a time.

[wreckermech]

Ok , lets try to help by not listing the growing pains with shopmaster machines but actually address what might be wrong. For instance ,the tailstock and lathe spindle have different tapers mt3 and mt4 . Next, collets do not have keys but the mill spindle does. And finally the machine dro and mach3 dro WILL NOT MATCH. Why? Because the mechanical dro will read the exact distance traveled to include any ball screw backlash the software dro will only read what mach3 thinks an axis moved. If you lose any steps because stepper motors do not use encoders mach3 will not know and only display what should have happened.

[Engineering_101]

Good old JT just selling the china junk with inspecting it.
1. The key inside the collect is to big to fit the slot of the collect. File the slot wider to fit the key.
2. Poor design on the tailstock. Yes you might have to cut off the ends to fit into the tailstock so you can use them.
3. I guess JT didn't do his inspection (Which you paid $2000 for him to do) The velocity is probably to high cause it to bind and not move. Lower it in the motor tuning.
4. Another inspection JT didn't do. The kids in China probably didn't install the DRO correctly its most like loose or mounted on an angle.
5. Check to see if you are in radius mode or diameter mode this should correct it. Being its off by 1/2 your probably in diameter mode.
Good luck deal with JT

That's about the best advice yet. It seems like all of the little adjustments and tweaks to make the machine run correctly weren't even a thought at the factory.

Ex: Some people have an mt4 taper on their spindle, others (like me) have an r8 chuck.
I just don't understand how someone could ship a machine without inspecting or test running it first. It's the little things that count, and so far, I'm finding that it's the little things that have been overlooked.(like failing to include some parts that I ordered)

I'm thinking that I should have just shelled out the extra cash and gone with a tormach.

On another note, do you think that the ends of those tapers need to be cut off to fit in the tailstock? I'll post some pictures a bit later. (When I get home)


And yes the machine's dro is off. I know this for a fact because when I'm cutting a part, zero it on that cut position, move away then move back to "zero", I'm diving in to the part taking off a fair bit of material. Reminds me of cheap digital calipers that never actually return to zero.

Do you have any suggestions for fixing this? Would calling JT be of any help?

[wreckermech]

When you say you have an R8 chuck are you referring to the lathe chuck or the mill? The reason I ask is that the shaft that the lathe chuck is mounted to, is where the mt3 taper is. For example if you want to use say an ER40 collet chuck you would need to remove the lathe chuck and install a ER40 collet adapter with an MT3 tapper and a draw bar.

[wreckermech]

It just dawned on me what you were talking abou in regards to cutting off thing to fit your tail stock. DO NOT CUT them. The tail stock is fully retracted and when it is that is how it pops the tooling out of the tailstock. just extend your tail stock an inch or so then firmly slide MT4 taper your using like the taper adapter for the jacobs drill chuck then to remove it just retract the tail stock untill it comes free.

[Engineering_101]

When you say you have an R8 chuck are you referring to the lathe chuck or the mill? The reason I ask is that the shaft that the lathe chuck is mounted to, is where the mt3 taper is. For example if you want to use say an ER40 collet chuck you would need to remove the lathe chuck and install a ER40 collet adapter with an MT3 tapper and a draw bar.

I'm referring to the mill. My understanding is that the mill chuck was an mt4 on some machines. Mine however is an r8

The chuck that I'm having issues with it the one on the tailstock and using the adapters with the flat ends. The live centers fit, but the others all get hung up at the end

[wreckermech]

The R8 quill spindle has been standard for quite a few years now. I think a photo will be worh a thousand words but I suspect its the right combination of adapter thats the issue.

[Engineering_101]

It just dawned on me what you were talking abou in regards to cutting off thing to fit your tail stock. DO NOT CUT them. The tail stock is fully retracted and when it is that is how it pops the tooling out of the tailstock. just extend your tail stock an inch or so then firmly slide MT4 taper your using like the taper adapter for the jacobs drill chuck then to remove it just retract the tail stock untill it comes free.

I know about the retraction toolremoval on the tailstock. The flat edges bind somewhere in the back noma there how much I move it out. As I noted previously, my live centers work fine.

On another note is your tailstock centered? Mine seems to be off, and even with diligent adjustments, I can't seem to get it to zero out... specifically its about slightly lifting up on the parts with the live center. Would shimming the back help?

[wreckermech]

I am at a loss. I need a photograph to help. My tailstock hight was dead on for the height left to right only a slight adjustment was needed.

[Engineering_101]

I am at a loss. I need a photograph to help. My tailstock hight was dead on for the height left to right only a slight adjustment was needed.

I'll post pictures and possibly a video link once I get home. I hope my problems are just user error. I've used lathes and Mills before... but those were at school where my tuition goes into buying some of the best "toys" I've ever laid my hands on

[Engineering_101]

I am at a loss. I need a photograph to help. My tailstock hight was dead on for the height left to right only a slight adjustment was needed.

here's a few pictures
as noted, the live center fits perfectly, I actually did a test run with a small piece of delrin to check if it was binding up after I did some adjustments... now its fine. before I adjusted it this time around, it would actually scratch the piece and give me a measurable amount of distance that it was off. this time around, even without drilling a center hole to place the live center in, it sat perfectly and gave no issues.

the picture of the inside of the collet is to show where the tts-style toolholder is hitting a shoulder in the collet, preventing it from seating nice and secure in the mill head. could this be due to the length of the tool holder? I'm assuming that this would be the culprit.

the pictures of the live center is to show that it is seating properly in the tailstock.
the picture of the drill chuck adapter is to show the flat end that I think is binding up somewhere in the back of the tailstock. and the picture of the drill chuck adapter in the tailstock is to show that it slides in, then binds up in the back somewhere leaving a bit of a gap where you can see that the taper is not making contact, and thus not seating properly. in fact it's so loose, that I can easily spin it around with my hand.

Thank you again for your time!!
It's nice having someone on the other end that has the same machine to give me advice on fixing these issues.



edit: to avoid any heckling I'd like to note that I did take the jacket and ring off before operating the machine when I trued the tailstock.

[smallblock]

Do you have any suggestions for fixing this? Would calling JT be of any help?

Well, it seems to me that would have been your logical first step, considering that most of the people posting here have the older style machines and couldn't be of much help. If you read my original post, you will see some of the issues that I found and corrected easily. My machine came with a Morse # 4 spindle and also was equipped with an R-8 adapter sleeve. You need to be careful, because the R-8 collet will fit up into a Morse #4 taper and can be deceptive because it will seem to fit, but it won't be accurate due to the taper angle difference. So be sure you don't actually have a Morse # 4 taper spindle. On the tailstock, contrary to what another older machine owner says, you can cut the tangs off the arbors. Tailstocks are designed to pop out the taper when fully retracted, and some have varying lengths of the tang depending on manufacturer. You may need to put the arbor in, then measure how much you need to cut for a perfect fit. The tangs are soft and easily cut. You need to read and understand your DRO manual, because it has a lot of functions. You may be in Absolute mode, meaning that your DRO is measuring from a pre-set zero point, you should set it to Incremental mode. Also be sure your axis designation is not set to read 1/2 scaling. You cannot verify your DRO accuracy by comparing to the Mach 3 DRO, because Mach 3 is only reading your G code commands, not the actual carriage movement. If you want to verify your DRO you need to use a dial indicator. Regarding the TTS style tool holder, that is an extra long type and not intended to fit flush to the collet. It is also a 20 MM size. If you want to make use of the TTS style holders for a variety of different tools you will have to invest in a set of them like the Tormach users do. As far as shelling out the extra cash for a Tormach, by my figures it would have been about another 20K by the time you got the lathe and mill both and you still would be on their forum asking for advice about the workings of the the various tapers , tools , DRO and Mach 3.

[countryguy]

Good points WM & smallblock.

Here is my suggestion: The DRO's will have calibration setup. The Jensens all do. When you have the dial gages setup for X and Y. You move 1". When it's exact as possible, and repeatable, you then check the DRO. If the DRO does not read 1" you will enter the DRO's offset Cal screens. They will have you complete a process to "calibrate" the DRO and scale it to the measured movement. Once you have that. you then tune Mach3. Move 1" and get Mach3 tuned to 1 inch. It's what I have to do and it came out much better overall...

points: As noted- Mach3 is not a closed loop system like Servos. missed Steps and exacting 1:1 moved on DRO and Mach3 simply is not going to happen (all or most of the time).
Once thing many do: Use of Servo systems and DROs are much better- But still have DRO to Servo/Encoder/Backlash errors. Many put on "magnetic encoders" and feed that into the Servo Drivers/PLC inputs thus replacing the encoder pulses. This means you are not measuring the distance moved via motor encoders, but actual distance the table itself is moving. It's something I want to try w/ linux CNC and scales if I could.... Someday.

Mach 3 cannot perform this type of work thay I know of. There are micro-step server systems as closed loop stepper systems but I have not researched how they do what they do and if Mach3 can even get into managing any offsets ir missed steps.

ENJOY your new rig!

Ok , lets try to help by not listing the growing pains with shopmaster machines but actually address what might be wrong. For instance ,the tailstock and lathe spindle have different tapers mt3 and mt4 . Next, collets do not have keys but the mill spindle does. And finally the machine dro and mach3 dro WILL NOT MATCH. Why? Because the mechanical dro will read the exact distance traveled to include any ball screw backlash the software dro will only read what mach3 thinks an axis moved. If you lose any steps because stepper motors do not use encoders mach3 will not know and only display what should have happened.