CNC bound
finally was able to order the steppers and controllers to CNC my Mini Mill, just going to do 3 axis for now (hope to do 4 then 5 in the future)
Also ordered a copy of Howard Buckley’s book, hope to see that in a couple weeks.
Already have some good software, just need to learn how to use it 😳
once I get the mill setup and also get up to speed on the software I hope to make next gen version of my stock as well as a full air rifle 😯
(don’t really need CNC to make the air rifle, will be a nice exercise though)
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was able to get the ball-nut back together, took a couple tries but its done.
The return pipe was split length wise, freaked me out a bit at first, then I simple packed one side with grease and stuck the balls onto it, closed it up and pushed it in.
Started to tram my mill and notice the front to back alignment was off by a few thou, need to find/make some shims and try to correct it
well after several hours of screwing around with my X axis I finally got it working- sort of.
I had to grind away some material from the bottom of the table to clear the ballnut and bearing block.
I spent most of my time trying to get it to move smoothly, well long story short, my GIB was bent from using the GIB lock!! took me a good whiel to figure it out, I straightened it out a bit and then added a 5th screw and that made all the difference.
Got the stepper hooked up and immediately ran into another problem, the ballscrew is slightly warped and with a ridged connection it makes the table wobble up and down 😯
only happens on the last 6 inches when the table in moving to the right.
So I played with the stepper setup on the first 6 inches and was seeing 99 IPM 😀
Just ordered a helical from CNCfusion so I can run it the whole length, hope it doesn’t take to long to get here.
I had to pry the return feed off the nut even after I removed both the screws.
You have any closeups of your…. nuts 😯
well the smooth sailing came to a crashing halt, was able to finish up the X axis ballscrew, but then when I went to put the ballnut on it lost some balls, tried to do the trick YN did, can’t get the feed pipe off 👿
So I just threw on the 3rd one for now.
set it up on the mill, binding like crazy, need to figure out what’s happening, probably just need to adjust the bearing block, but I’m afraid that the ballnut might be sitting too high and I’ll need to do some more grinding on the X/Y carrier
If you haven’t checked your spindle column alignment, you might want to.
easiest way to see if its off is to first use a center drill, drill a small hole, then switch to your longest drill bit and see if it’s point is in the same spot, mine was off by .05 to .1
its a pain to fix but will make life much easier if you cnc
Finished drilling and tapping the Z column and head
Heres the completed Y and some shots of the mods I made, the front mod gets me an extra half inch or so of Y travel, the back mod gets back the travel lost to the ball-nut
Oh yea, I bought a set of X/Y bearing blocks from Hoss, didn’t want to dink with them mysef
Ahhhh.. I’m probably going to mount my bellows bracket thing to the top of the stepper bracket because right now it sometimes gets stuck in between and makes the Y miss steps when It’s still a few 1/10th’s away from the limits.
dogwood, you and yn are killing me. When i got my machine I really thought manual controls w/ 3 axis power feed would be enough, especially when I add DRO. The repeatability of the cnc though really has me thinking bad stuff may be in my future.
glue, I had a plastic “shield” glued there to keep chips out of the belt
Cool beans. Ballscrews are pretty cool.
Whats that Putty looking stuff on the Y axis?
Just installed the Y axis, all I can say is “WOW” what a huge difference the ball screw makes, can’t wait to hookup the stepper and wail on it 8)
finished the Y axis ball screw, I had previously put a couple of thrust bearings in the stock (non)bearing block, it helps a great deal to get the Y running smooth with minimal back-lash
I try not to think about how much it’s Cost 😀
I just like to put it down as a educational expense 😀
The linear accuracy of the ball screw is +- .001″ per foot, as to what the back lash with the selected nut, I couldn’t find any references.
I have a cost breakdown right now so I’ll post it in my thread so I dont hijack Dog’s.
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I’m still waiting on a coupler for the X, but I was able to setup the Y,
Nice reliable 108 ipm 😯 and .003″ backlash 😀
I’m running half steps, so I should have a good resolution down to .0005″
Once I get the X setup I can finish making the parts for the Z- which right now only has a rapid speed of 6 ipm 🙁
I also ordered a sheet of rubber, going to replace the front bellows with it, should protect the belt setup as well as the ways, might need to create some sort of guide for it though