There is a new manual milling machine in the lab, an Optimum WF-20. The design of the machine is similar to the Aciera or a Maho, with the table moving in X and Z, spindle in Y. The spindle can be flipped over for horizontal machining. We decided to get a machine with a small … Continue reading New manual milling machine
I've upgraded Ubuntu and EMC2 on the Atom 330 machine I have for controlling the lathe. The Atom 330 is a dual-core chip, but with Hyper Threading the OS can see four cores. That's not good for real-time performance, so the first thing I did was turn off HT from the BIOS. Next I did … Continue reading EMC2 upgrade
Ubuntu 10.10, Maverick Meerkat, Now Available - Bjarne Stroustrup Reflects On 25 Years of C++ - Zuckerberg's Side of 'The Social Network' - "someone might build something because they like building things" bouncing water droplets - Machining an SLR camera from scratch - The Turner's Cube: Classic machinist's exercise - Cheap Prototype PCBs from DorkbotPDX … Continue reading Links - 2010 Oct 21
We have a 1994 LPKF Protomat S91 PCB mill in the lab for making prototype PCBs. Here it was used to cut a circular part (not a PCB) which was first drawn in CorelDraw, then saved in HPGL format, and then opened in BoardMaster which is the program that controls the mill through a quirky … Continue reading PCB Milling
The lathe-project I bought in November is slowly moving forward. I got an Optimum/Quantum 100mm 3-jaw chuck for it today. Turns out the spindle needs to be disassembled to attach the chuck, so this was an opportunity to look at how the spindle is built. The front bearing seat is machined into the spindle box, … Continue reading Lathe chuck
Number of wires from servo-motor to controller on my lathe build: 19. 1: Motor power U 2: Motor power V 3: Motor power W 4: Hall sensor +5V 5: Hall sensor U 6: Hall sensor V 7: Hall sensor W 8: Hall sensor GND 9: Encoder +5V 10: Encoder A 11: Encoder B 12: Encoder … Continue reading Wires, wires, wires…
Drilled four holes for AMP-connectors and used a hole-punch to make cut-outs for eight 25-pin D-connectors. The four motor-connectors will provide 3-phase power to the spindle-servo, the X- and Z-servos, and a high-speed live-tool spindle. The servos have three Hall-signals and three(single-ended) or six(differential) encoder signals which will enter the cabinet through the D-connectors. I'm … Continue reading Connectors
A bit of progress with the electronics cabinet for the lathe. Some components have been bolted to the back wall of the cabinet. From left to right: a Bonmet servo-drive for the main spindle servo, a Siemens VFD for the live-tool spindle motor, and to the right two Brushless PWM amps for the X and … Continue reading Lathe Electronics Cabinet
Most of the electronics I've ordered for the lathe has arrived by now. Still waiting for the servo-drive for the main spindle. Bottom left are three switched-mode power supplies: 5V 3.5A (logic etc), 12V 3.3A (brushless amps, E-stop chain, etc), 24V 1.3A (spindle brake) Bottom right are two Chinese 350W 48VDC 7.3A power supplies for … Continue reading Lathe electronics
I've bought a cnc-lathe! Well, it's not complete, more of a cnc-lathe project. A fellow Finnish cnc'er "JHQ" started this project a few years ago, but as he now has a 5000 kg professional cnc-lathe and his own company, he hasn't had time/money to complete this project. There are many project logs out there with … Continue reading JHQ Lathe