Workshop Tooling – Page 13 – Woody's Workshop

November 2, 2017November 13, 2018

Spindle Illumination Light for the Tormach PCN440

I am a great lover of having enough light to see what I am doing and being of a certain age my optics are not as sensitive as they used to be. I have fitted Ebay sourced Angel Light ring car clusters as illumination lights on my pillar drill press and on my Myford VMB manual mill. The arrival of the Tormach PCNC440 got me thinking of doing the same.

As luck would have it I had a 120mm OD ring light left over from the VMB installation and this was just about dead right to fit the Tormach 440 spindle diameter. All it needed was a mounting boss.

On the drill press and on the VMB I machined up a boss in Acetal which left a mountain of swarf and I was not looking forward to another session vacuuming out the lathe. Then the thought struck me I have 3D printing so why not print a boss ? It is quite funny how you get locked into one way of doing things and then you step back and realise there are more ways to skin the cat. (Is that a non PC thing to say these days ???)

Booted up Fusion 360 and one extrude pull and two extrude cuts plus three clamping screw holes had a design ready to print. Print time on the Sindoh was just under 4 hours but this would be longer if the central hole for the spindle fit is smaller. The final product looked a lot more professional than the Acetal ones I had previously made.

Tormach PCNC440 Fusion 360 Sindoh 3DWOX — 3D printed boss for Tormach PCNC440 spindle illumination designed in Fusion 360 and printed on Sindoh 3DWOX DP200 and using 120mm Angel light ring LED cluster

It also fits like a glove and the three M5 nylon screws lock it in place. I just need to find a 12V plug top power supply to power it.

Tormach PCNC440 illuminator — Component parts of the illumination ring

Tormach PCNC440 Fusion 360 — Completed illumination ring for Tormach PCNC440

Wider view showing the illuminator and my home made swarf (chip) shield

If you would like the Fusion STL or the link to the Angel Lights on eBay let me know. I have the STL file for the 3D printed small enclosure to suit the regulator for the Angel Lights from a 12V supply.

I also have the Fusion file for the handles on the magnetically mounted perspex front shield as seen above. The handle mountings have 45mm centres to match the magnet plates which are standard UK sourced magnetic latches.

Update : –

While producing a ring light for a client I tried mounting the ring without the plastic lens that comes attached to it. The lens focuses the light forward but does not allow spreading of the light and there is some attenuation associated. Conclusion is to leave the lens off in future.

The other conclusion is to go for the largest ring light you can tolerate for your machine so the light (without the lens) has the chance to diverge wider and illuminate around the tool in use much better. On EBay the most common large size is 120mm OD. They are also available on Amazon.

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September 25, 2017February 19, 2018

Shumatech DRO350 Experiences and Fixes

The Shumatech DRO350 is a kit based digital readout display for low cost vernier scales and can be bought for either a milling machine or lathe. Shumatech appears to no longer trade but I managed to buy the full lathe kit including the box from the UK agent. The US agent is Wild Horse. See previous post from France.

The product is quite well conceived and has a wide range of functions beyond just a basic readout of X,Y,Z scales. The kit was simple to put together and I quickly had it working as a lash up on the bench.

The first problem was the fact that all the connections are configured to come out of the back plate of the plastic enclosure. For my application this was not ideal. The connectors as supplied with the kit also were not the same as the RJ11 on my scale cables.

I created a ‘pod’ in Fusion 360 that would mount on the end wall of the box and carry all the connections. This was 3D printed in black to match the enclosure supplied. Space was tight to fit all the connections into the space and I had to resort to RJ10 style connectors for the scale leads as RJ11 were too large. I had to extend some of the connecting leads. That aside the ‘pod’ concept worked well.

shumatech 350, DRO

There is significant debate on the internet about the Shumatech design and its apparent instability or flickering of the digits on the display. Opinion seems to be mixed as to where this originates. The PCB design is not ideal with some very long thin power supply tracking and no ground plane screening. My two small scales seemed to not suffer this problem but my long scale definitely had a problem.

Once again opinion on the internet is mixed as to how to overcome this. This ranges from changing the wiring in the readout box for better earthing, leaving the batteries in place in the scales or replacing them with capacitors to add smoothing.

I tried all these to no real positive effect on the long scale. I even tried inductive decoupling of the connections at the scale terminations.

I took a step back and tried to run the scale on a separate 1.5V bench power supply on long leads and lo and behold the problem still existed suggesting it was a power supply pick up fault and nothing to do with the Shumatech electronics.

I had to hand a small 9V to 1.5V power supply module based on the AMS1117 “3 legged” integrated regulator. I connected this close to the scale and ran the regulator input from 5V. The jitter disappeared suggesting it was really about the pick up on the supply to the scale.

I had stock of the AMS1117 chips and SMD caps so I made 3 regulator boards and in Fusion 360 created a small box and lid to contain the regulator module.

The pcbs were made as a first job on the Tormach 440. I hand coded the G Code to run a dentistry burr in the chuck to profile the pcb tracking. OK it was a simple job but it gave me some confidence on how to make the mill sing to my tune.

Fusion 360, Shumatech — 3D Printed enclosure for 1.5V regulator designed in Fusion 360

Shumatech, AMS1117 — Power supply module mounted in the plastic box and in series with the lead to the scale.

The finished assembly was then connected in line with the scale lead and close to the scale. For consistency I modified all three scales in this way.

I needed a 5V feed at the display end and to achieve this I cut the display positive lead from the pcb connectors and connected them with a flying lead to the 7805 on board 5V regulator.

On power up the scales all worked well with no obvious jitter and my Myford Super 7 now has a nice readout facility.

For the full story see the following Shumatech DRO350 Experience.

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September 10, 2017February 19, 2018

France Visit, Golf at Brive and a Shumatech DRO350 connection pod

We have had a few days in France to chill out and cut the grass …. lots of grass. The first weekend was spent in Vichy supporting our son at the IronMan event. It was very hot but he did well, coming 7th in his age group.

Once back at our home in the Lot we had a few friends and family drop in to visit which was nice. Euro exchange rate is awful, almost parity with GBP, so things are a bit more expensive than normal.

Brive Golf Course

Our son arrived and he also plays golf so we played Souillac Country Club course and a few days later decided to try the Brive Municipal course. As members at Souillac we got a discount at Brive from the normal EUR40 for 18 holes down to EUR32 which was worth having. The Brive course is long and runs along a valley with a stream running through. Lots of holes with water as a result. The weather was warm so we drooped quite badly after the half way point. Between us we lost quite a few balls. Given the choice I think we would all prefer Brive over SGCC.

Always things to do but Fusion 360 connects

Done quite a few jobs about the place while here and also some home workshop related activity. One of the many things that is good about Fusion 360 is the cloud storage so I could log on in France as if sat at home. We get a 9Mbps connection in the village which for rural France is very fast so connecting to Fusion 360 is no problem.

Shumatech DRO350 Pod

I bought a ShumaTech DRO350 readout kit for my Myford Super 7 before we came out. It is a well thought out kit but sadly the originator of the product no longer seems to be around and promised later versions never appeared. Wild Horse Innovations are the US outlet and they are promising a replacement kit some time in the future. The UK source is Model Engineering Digital Workshop. There are allegedly electrical noise issues with the product and looking at the PCB layout I can see why but I have yet to power it up.

The kit comes with a box with all the connections out of the back face which is not ideal for mounting over the Myford Super 7. My DROs are cheap Chinese caliper devices and have RJ11 connectors on them which is not compatible with the kit connectors. Some of my time here in France has been spent designing a pod in Fusion 360 to fit on the end of the readout box to allow the connections to come off the end. Looking forward to getting home to run the 3D print of the pod and get the project up and running and of course getting back to the Tormach 440.

shumatech 350, DRO — DRO350 connection pod for RJ11 devices

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July 8, 2017November 12, 2018

Abrafile Replacement using Axminster Coping Saw

Read how I modified a standard Axminster Japan ese Free-Way coping saw to replace an Abrafile.

Axminster, Abrafile — Overall view of the modified Axminster Free-Way Japanese Coping Saw

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July 5, 2017February 19, 2018

Record Imp Vice refurbishment article added

I love the baby Record Imp table vice. They are readily available in various states abuse on EBay and worthy of a loving home.

Read how I renovated one and added slot in soft jaws in aluminium and then via Fusion 360 modelled a 3D printed set in PLA.

soft jaws, record vice — Record Imp after restoration

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