It seems that many user of Mach3 CNC control software love the concept but hate how it is presented as a user interface. I tend to agree as I used to tolerate it on my small CNCEST milling machine. It is certainly not a patch on Tormach’s PathPilot.
While browsing YouTube I came across Physics Anonymous and enjoyed a rant by them about Mach4 and then the joy of seeing their version of a Mach3 GUI which I have to say was a breath of fresh air improvement.
If you hate your Mach3 GUI then have a look at what they are offering as a free download. It isn’t totally bug free but an upgrade is promised.
Browsing this months copy of ‘Model Engineering Workshop‘ I was taken by the idea published in the Readers’ Tips section by Bernard Towers for his ‘Bits and Bobs’ tray for his Myford lathe. A simple but obvious idea. Quite often I am machining small parts or need to make drill changes and the related items all get lost in the swarf, tools and detritus that has accumulated in the tool tray. Either that or I put them somewhere ‘safe’ on top slide and they get knocked off and lost …. we have all been there.
It was another grey and miserable lockdown day outside so the idea looked worthy of an hour or so of rewarding therapy. The nice part about Bernard’s design was the ability to slide the tray in and out on the top slide front edge with a spring loaded T slot retaining strip.
I had inherited a stock pile of surplus nickel silver flat pack RF screening cans with one or two pieces having pre-etched folding lines that would match the size and shape needed. Only a fourth side needing to be cut and hand folded. Conveniently these folding lines were just at the right height for the tray walls so they would not foul the cross slide rotation. Once all four sides were folded up a fillet of solder was run down each corner to seal it and any sharp edges removed. Nickel silver is one of my favourite fabrication materials being rust free, strong and easy to solder.
The tray is held in place with a length of T slot material and I created this as a 3D print in PLA. I included hex profile holes on the lower surface to take M4 Nyloc nuts. This meant I was inverting the retaining construction as shown by Bernard. I also used cap head screws to mount the pressure retaining springs.
A lovely and useful time filler project and I am indebted to Bernard for publishing his idea in MEW.
While I have been successfully using the ELS as an automatic feed, I had put off attempting screw thread cutting. You know how it is. Screw cutting is nagging at you to try, but it is on the ‘too difficult’ pile pending other more interesting jobs. There is always something else to do, so you kid yourself it is justified to put it off until another day. Well another ‘lockdown’ day dawned and I decided today was the day.
My experiences are recorded here as a full write up
This is probably not original but worth commenting on. I have a tooling plate on the bed of my Tormach PCNC440. This has a matrix of M8 holes on 25mm spacing together with intermediate 3.7mm tooling pin holes.
Quite often I have a need to set up my work CNC coordinate system (WCS) such that it is centred on one of the M8 holes.
If I want to do a quick and dirty centre on one of these holes then I use the Laser Centring tool as mentioned elsewhere on my blog.
If I need to be a bit more precise then I have a mushroom/top hat shaped disc with shank that is a tight fit in the tapped M8 holes. PathPilot has a number of probing routines and these include finding the centre of a circular object. Simply push the top hat into the desired hole and then probe the disc for centre. You can use an active probe such as the Hallmark ITTP.
If you haven’t got an active probe you can use a Haimer. Simply align the Haimer tip somewhere close to a maximum point on the disc circumference and advance the axis to show a reading on the Haimer. Rock the opposite axis back and forth and watch the Haimer reading to find the high point on the circumference. Zero the axis. Go to the opposite side of the disc and repeat this process and divide the measured diameter by 2 for the disc centre. Repeat on the opposite axis.
(You can use this Haimer rocking back and forth method to find the diameter high point when cross drilling a circular item to fit grub screws etc).
Two examples from my ‘mushroom farm’
The mushrooms are made with a silver steel shank that is skimmed to be a non wobble (how technical is that ..) fit in M8 (~6.8mm) and an aluminium top hat that is superglued in place on the shank. Once the glue has set the top hat is squared up while held in a collet in the lathe. This ensures concentricity with the shank. The disc will now sit flat to the tooling table when the shank is pressed home and perpendicular in the hole.
Clearly the larger the disc diameter the less centring error there will be.
I now have a ‘mushroom farm’ of discs for all manner of hole sizes. It’s not rocket science but as you well know, I am all for a simple (aka lazy) approach. Apologies to all the Grannies out there.
Myford VMB Manual Mill Conversion to Stepper Motor control
After many years of winding the Z axis up and down on my Myford VMB I have finally got around to fitting motor control and it is a joy to use. I am however suffering from muscle wastage as a result.
A general view of the stepper motor control conversion of a VMB manual milling machine. Only the X and Z axis are completed so far. The control box is on the wall behind the mill and has the Shumatech DRO control panel mounted on the front panel.
I have done a write up for those who might want to also enjoy a less taxing movement of X, Y or Z axis on their manual milling machine. Click on the link below to download as a pdf.
