Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Heavy Iron

I saw Robert's first article but decided that there wasn't
enough in Nuts & Volts to warrent subscribing to it.
I decided to give conversion of one of the Enco tables
a try and recently got the XY part working. Haven't decided
what I'm going to do for the Z axis yet. The electrics part
of the setup is servo motors from C&H Sales reduced 2:1, Gecko
G340 drives and a case/power supply from Dan Mauch. Current
software I'm using is TurboCNC on a puny 33Mhz 486. I can
get about 60IPM rapids from the setup. Milling is real funky
but I'm sure that is mostly caused by the fact that I'm using
50 year old Delta woodworking drillpress for the spindle. I'm
not too worried about the chuck falling of as it has a fair
bit of runout and I've been trying to remove it for a while
and haven't succeeded. I'm using the stock leadscrews and have
about .010" of backlash in the X and .005 in Y. If I ever
come up with a Z I may invest in upgrading to ballscrews or
fancier ACME screws. Dan Mauch was real helpfull regarding
mounting of the motors and such.

Drew


ths992001 wrote:

>
> Anybody else following Robert Nansel's "Heavy Iron" project in Nuts &
> Volts?
>
> He's planning on using those XY compound tables from Enco. Large one
> for XY bolted to a 10" channel iron and the smaller one on a 4" X 6"
> X 1/8" Thk box section column for Z. Lashed together with angle iron
> brackets.
>
> My thoughts:
>
> It won't be close to square - no problem, you can tram it in. Just
> make sure you align your spindle to the Z axis before tramming the
> spindle to the table.
>
> Not nearly rigid enough for cutting metal - must be ok, because some
> guy sent him pictures of his machine w/ a 1/2" endmill cutting
> aluminum. I'd weld up a beefy frame from heavy plate, personally.
>
> Needs ballscrews for CNC - no problem, its small enough for those
> cheap 5/8" ones to do fine.
>
> Seems like a good way to make a cheap, light duty machine that is
> bigger than a sherline but smaller than a milldrill.
>
> Tom S.

--
Drew Rogge
drew@...