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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Leaking compressed air components and Loctite 577

The arrival of the Tormach PCNC440 demanded a review of my compressed air infrastructure.   I have Bambi 24V pot belly compressor which previously only fed a dust off blower.   In addition to this, the compressor now has to feed the new Tormach power drawbar and the Fog Buster coolant system.

To aid distribution I sourced locally a 4 port manifold with an in and pass through in line.   This gave me a couple of spare ports for future expansion.

The Tormach PCNC440 arrived with US style push and lock black tubing and fittings with ubiquitous  1/4″ BSP threads.   Thank goodness something is common.   In total I had something like 15 threads to seal and PTFE tape did not do the job.   Soapy water revealed a bubble factory.

A quick scan on the web and it seemed that Loctite 577 was recommended.  RS had it in stock and it was a revelation to seal the threads.  You just squeeze a thin ring of 577 around the thread and screw it home.  Job done ….. but maybe they won’t ever come apart again …. well that’s a problem for another day.

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Tormach PCNC440 has arrived

Last Monday the delivery lorry arrived and the driver skillfully backed his 7.5T truck onto the drive and dropped off a number of boxes.   Much excitement ensued not only from me but my three helpers – Andy, Dave and Ian.

Dave and Andy set on immediately to assembly the stand and Ian and myself continued with planning how and where the machine would fit into the workshop.

Ian doing a delivery check
The crate

      

Tormach PCNC440
Dave and Andy doing the biz
Progress so far

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Tormach PCNC440 Milling Machine Arrives in UK

Great news that my new milling machine has arrived in the UK and is awaiting clearance at Southampton docks.  (Not so good news but as budgeted was the 20% VAT on the shipped total and import duty of 2.5%).

Some significant moving round is going to be needed in the workshop to get it installed and I expect a number of days downtime while I get to grips with it. On the bright side I have some close friends keen to lend a hand.

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Devon Sea Clock Progress and Update

The Devon Sea Clock took me a little time to understand its working and the interaction that would occur after any change.

Having spent some time on it there are a few notes that might help others working on such a clock Sea Clock Notes May 2021..

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