Another Haimer tip bites the dust or at least the mill bed

When I was at NYC CNC I saw that John was selling posters as shown below.

I didn’t realise the significance until I started doing CNC …..

I had been doing OK on breakages of late then like buses, two came along at once.  One was excusable (to my conscience) but the second was a disaster always likely to happen.

I had the Haimer held in a collet in the Myford VMB manual mill.  This means you need both hands occupied to contra rotate the collet and spindle when locking and unlocking.   I just overdid the realise pressure and the Haimer dropped out onto the mill bed.  Crunch, expletives, gloom, expense.  The tips are not cheap at GBP20+ each but Amazon do sell them.

There is the same issue to a lesser extent on the Tormach when releasing the power drawbar even though you are holding the Haimer the sudden momentum of the drop from the collet can sometimes catch you out if the mill table is close.

While discussing my gloom with a friend he suggested putting some sort of protection around the tip when loading and unloading from the spindle.   The Haimer is not an ideal shape for gripping something along these lines given its curved surfaces.  However after some thought a solution was found.   I drew a simple cylinder in Fusion that was 40mm long, 38mm OD and 32mm ID and 3D printed it.  Note these dimensions are for the Haimer FH 3D Taster version.

The cylinder sits over the probe and rests on the outer rim of the tip mounting.  The 32mm ID is just tight enough to squeeze the Haimer rubber gasket and so hold the tube in place.

Not only is this useful for mounting and dismounting the Haimer but it also works as a general protect guard when not in use.

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FlatCAM Update and experimental copper cutting

I’m quite pleased with progress converting GSpark PCB gerber files to CNC with FlatCAM.   The conversion process is straightforward and the resulting GCode looks OK.

I have tried cutting copper using the cutters I have to hand but quickly realised I need to get some much finer ones in carbide.  My tests with modified dental burrs does not work or at least not for very long before the burr goes blunt and the cut width degrades.

I have ordered some 10 degree included angle 0.1mm wide cutters but they won’t be here until February.

The picture shows two runs.   The left hand run used 30 degree cone shaped burr and the right hand run used a modified teardrop burr.   The initial cut on both was where the stars are.

The left hand cut left severe copper burrs which were easily removed using a scalpel blade flat to the surface of the board.

The right hand side was clean of all burrs but gradually degraded in quality as the cutter became blunt.

The teardrop burr was ground to half diameter in an attempt simulate a more normal engraving cutter profile.  I must have drawn the temper in the grinding process.

More experimentation needed once the better cutters arrive.

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Welding and being well and FlatCAM

Welding Course

Despite being laid low with flu since New Year I’ve attended two of the evening welding classes much to the contrary advice from my wife.  With hindsight she was right – I should not have gone the first night such was my state of health.

The focus so far has been on MIG welding and I am slowly getting the feel of things.  Too many variables to start with what with power, angle of attack, closeness to the job and of course wire feed rate.

How anyone did welding without the modern auto dimming helmets astonishes me.   They are amazing.

Not much else to report given the state of health but clearly I have now started to creep back into the workshop so health and state of mind must be improving.  Made a note in the diary to get a Flu Jab next year.

FlatCAM

Anyway more interesting stuff – my friend has asked if I can mill a prototype printed circuit board on the Tormach for him.   My initial thoughts were to bring the design into Fusion and do the CAM there.   However a conversation with a friend in Namibia lead me to FlatCAM which is a wonderful little program.   It takes the Gerber files from the PCB design package and converts them to GCode.   It is simple to use and produces nice code listings.   It gives you options to add your own GCode initialisation strings.    There are a few YouTube videos out there if you are interested.

More results to report when we have milled some copper.

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Tormach PathPilot Version 2 Release – Issues with Shared Folder

I ordered my upgrade to newly released Version 2.x.x of PathPilot for my PCNC440 machine and to be honest the instructions for doing the upgrade were clear and straightforward.   Care is needed as this is a complete clear out of the old version so backups needed to be taken of your GCode files and your Tool Table etc.  Don’t fret however as all this is talked through quite clearly in the downloaded support document (TD10530).

The software loaded well but I then had a couple of problems.

Prior to the upgrade I had a shared folder on my desktop PC that allowed me to blob across the GCode files to the 440 machine without leaving my desk.  After the upgrade this shared folder had disappeared and try as I might, refused to return.   I could ping the Tormach so it was on my network but it was not being seen from a data point of view.

I eventually gave up and posted the problem with Tormach.  They came back quickly with a fix as follows.  This is a simple to do and assumes the ‘green light’ on the internet button (on the status PathPilot page) is lit.

  1. When in the PathPilot working screen, press CTRL+ALT+X to bring up a terminal window.  (A word of warning here …. my keyboard silicon protector overlay supplied by Tormach had legend that did not match the keys underneath …. check what you are really pressing …)
  2. Type gedit smb.conf.share and click enter on the keyboard. This should launch the file for editing.  (Note: 1 space between gedit and smb.conf.share)
  3. Change “security = share” to “security = user”
  4. Reboot the PathPilot controller
  5. Open a folder mapping dialogue on your desktop PC File Explorer and map to an unused drive letter.   Note the format is something like “\\tormachpcnc\gcode” but read the instructions from Tormach.

The other issue I had initially is that I could not load DropBox which is a new facility on PathPilot.  As by now I had solved the shared folder issue, this was less of an issue but belt and braces called and finally it loaded OK.

Note that you must reduce the number of folders seen by DropBox on the Tormach or it will flood your memory storage space.  Tormach give instructions on how to do this by listing the folders that need to be ignored.  You cannot cherry pick them from a dropdown list but instead you need to paper list them and then manually enter them.   Also note that any folders you are blocking that have more than a single word name format need to be encapsulated with ” ” when entered in the blocked folder list (unless you have underscored any spaces).   I reduced my DropBox folders ‘seen’ on the Tormach to just one which will contain my GCode files.

DANGER – do not simply delete the DropBox folders that are not of interest in the PathPilot File screen or you will delete them permanently from the DropBox cloud storage.   All your pictures of Auntie Agnes with her Sherry at Christmas will go down the tube ….

Upgrade Documents on the Tormach Site can be found here and you will need the following two documents

TD10345 Networking PathPilot

TD10530 Upgrading to PathPilot V2.x.x

I have posted this information on the NYC CNC Forum and John has also created a document in his site Library.

Good luck with the upgrade.  The resulting code isn’t dramatically different but general presentation of graphics and fonts is better and the conversational programming is slightly changed.

Finally I cannot emphasise enough how responsive Tormach Tech Support are if you have an issue.  Without their help I would probably still scratching my head regarding the above.

Disclaimer : –  This post and many others on my website feature references to Tormach and its products.  I have no connection to Tormach Inc financially, commercially or otherwise.  I acknowledge that Tormach®, Tormach Tooling System®, TTS® and PathPilot® are all registered trade marks of Tormach Inc.

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PathPilot Upgrade to Version 2.x.x

I registered with Tormach for the free upgrade to the new release 2.x.x of PathPilot.  A memory stick arrived this morning with the new code.   It is fairly complex process but their documentation is quite easy to follow and understand.

All seems to have gone well with the upgrade except I can no longer see the shared drive for dropping files into nor can I get the Dropbox feature to load.  All of which suggests the network connection is not working but I not winning so far.  Gloom but not a disaster.  Fresh eyes another day.

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