wolf GFX
Member
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2023
- Messages
- 6
- Reaction score
- 15
Hi all!
I'd like to introduce myself as a new member!
May name is Wolfgang, i'm living in Germany, 63 years young and retired engineer in electronics.
I'm interested in model engineering since about 25 years.
I started out with a homemade lathe built by my grandfather building Stuart 10V steam engine from a raw cast iron set. Due to the design limits of this lathe, this was quite an experience! But the 10V works like a charm - and looks very pretty.
Little later I had the opportunity to take home a chinese bench lathe from work - in a very poor condition, and the traditional chinese quality.
The lathe is rather sturdy though, robust in its overall construction and pretty tolerant concerning little errors in operation.
So i built a Stuart No 1 in 1999 on it, getting more and more aware of the design flaws and poor condition of the lathe. I always dreamed of a Myford 7, but never spend the money for such a lathe.
So is started to improve the chinese bench lathe at various point until I was satisfied with its operation. Quite a few items to address and many hours of machining and dismanteling and rebuild.
Given the tolerances and precision required in the build of the Stuart No1, i quickly got aware that spotting drill positions with a ruler and drilling on a drill press is rather difficult - and not allways a success.
So the decision was clear: I bought a milling machine - again chinese. It's well known as Sieg X2 or harbour freight. I got a good deal on one of these including a machine vise, a U clamp set and an endmill for the price of the machine it self.
I was glad to drill and mill at accurate position using the dials - that's the goog news. The bad news were the quality of the milling machine - and most enoying the noise and vibrations coming from the geared drive and the brusched DC motor. Impossible to operate without hearing protection and a few excuses to may family and neighbours.
This needed to be addressed as well as scraping all surfaces of the slides and the main bearings. The "fine" Z-axis positionig is a nightmare too - far from fine.
So I did all above mentioned improvements, which finally turned this thing in something usefull. The gear drive was replaced with a belt drive and the motor by a 3-phase with inverter - this was a big step in the right direction. There a kits out there from various suppliers, not at all too expensive for the benefit of having a quite and reliable operation. Looking at hese kits and doing a bit of CAD work, I managed to build my own belt conversion - with success.
As positioning with the dials and a backlash of about 0.5mm is a nightmare too, I decided to put in ball screws on all three axis, with a NC conversion in mind!
The backlash prevented any down milling operation as the cutter pulled the piece out of the backlash - and either the cutter or the part was spoiled - generally spoken both.
Great, the bachlash reduced to 0.05 mm up-milling and down-milling were possible - in steel too.
The NC conversion was a completely different story. Beein engineer in electronics with programming experience, the electronics part was pretty straight forward for me. Its bascially an Arduino with GRBL software, stepper drivers, steppers a 1:3 belt reduction, many ball bearings three 1204 leadscrews and ball nuts, power supply and 6 inductive limit switches. And a PC running the popular Candle software.
By theorie all the axes produce a force of about 4500N (450 kg force equivalent). That is about the limit thge machine can handle, a bit more indeed.
Not having access to another milling machine, the mechanics were a rather tedious thing to make. Having the mill half NC and half conventional for the three axis. But I did it. As the whole machine has been dismanteled several times, I reworked the sliding surfaces by scraping to avoid any loose movement. Given the force of the drives I was able to reduce loose play to barely nothing. The result is a mill thats finally usable as a mill - and NC. Conventional milling is done in JOG mode mostly or by short NC sequences - as for example deep hole drilling with part ot full retract of the tool. I use FUSION 360 CAD software for the "real" NC operation - very nice combination with GRBL software in the mill.
Beeing tired of making long cuts with the hacksaw, I invested in a bandsaw too. Chinese of course and of limited quality too, it does its job.
Long story short - this is my setup. A lot of moaning about chinese quality. You might ask, why doesnt he buy decent machines? Well - it is and stays a hobby - with limited budget.
I'll join a few pictures of various projects in another post - there are quite a few.
So for now, just an impression of my workshop - excuse the mess and the chips all over the place! I just completed a Moriya Major Stirling fan to the design of James R. Senft from the drawings in his lovely booklet. I'll post more infos and impressions on the Morya Major thread.
Happy making chips too all the community.
Wolf
I'd like to introduce myself as a new member!
May name is Wolfgang, i'm living in Germany, 63 years young and retired engineer in electronics.
I'm interested in model engineering since about 25 years.
I started out with a homemade lathe built by my grandfather building Stuart 10V steam engine from a raw cast iron set. Due to the design limits of this lathe, this was quite an experience! But the 10V works like a charm - and looks very pretty.
Little later I had the opportunity to take home a chinese bench lathe from work - in a very poor condition, and the traditional chinese quality.
The lathe is rather sturdy though, robust in its overall construction and pretty tolerant concerning little errors in operation.
So i built a Stuart No 1 in 1999 on it, getting more and more aware of the design flaws and poor condition of the lathe. I always dreamed of a Myford 7, but never spend the money for such a lathe.
So is started to improve the chinese bench lathe at various point until I was satisfied with its operation. Quite a few items to address and many hours of machining and dismanteling and rebuild.
Given the tolerances and precision required in the build of the Stuart No1, i quickly got aware that spotting drill positions with a ruler and drilling on a drill press is rather difficult - and not allways a success.
So the decision was clear: I bought a milling machine - again chinese. It's well known as Sieg X2 or harbour freight. I got a good deal on one of these including a machine vise, a U clamp set and an endmill for the price of the machine it self.
I was glad to drill and mill at accurate position using the dials - that's the goog news. The bad news were the quality of the milling machine - and most enoying the noise and vibrations coming from the geared drive and the brusched DC motor. Impossible to operate without hearing protection and a few excuses to may family and neighbours.
This needed to be addressed as well as scraping all surfaces of the slides and the main bearings. The "fine" Z-axis positionig is a nightmare too - far from fine.
So I did all above mentioned improvements, which finally turned this thing in something usefull. The gear drive was replaced with a belt drive and the motor by a 3-phase with inverter - this was a big step in the right direction. There a kits out there from various suppliers, not at all too expensive for the benefit of having a quite and reliable operation. Looking at hese kits and doing a bit of CAD work, I managed to build my own belt conversion - with success.
As positioning with the dials and a backlash of about 0.5mm is a nightmare too, I decided to put in ball screws on all three axis, with a NC conversion in mind!
The backlash prevented any down milling operation as the cutter pulled the piece out of the backlash - and either the cutter or the part was spoiled - generally spoken both.
Great, the bachlash reduced to 0.05 mm up-milling and down-milling were possible - in steel too.
The NC conversion was a completely different story. Beein engineer in electronics with programming experience, the electronics part was pretty straight forward for me. Its bascially an Arduino with GRBL software, stepper drivers, steppers a 1:3 belt reduction, many ball bearings three 1204 leadscrews and ball nuts, power supply and 6 inductive limit switches. And a PC running the popular Candle software.
By theorie all the axes produce a force of about 4500N (450 kg force equivalent). That is about the limit thge machine can handle, a bit more indeed.
Not having access to another milling machine, the mechanics were a rather tedious thing to make. Having the mill half NC and half conventional for the three axis. But I did it. As the whole machine has been dismanteled several times, I reworked the sliding surfaces by scraping to avoid any loose movement. Given the force of the drives I was able to reduce loose play to barely nothing. The result is a mill thats finally usable as a mill - and NC. Conventional milling is done in JOG mode mostly or by short NC sequences - as for example deep hole drilling with part ot full retract of the tool. I use FUSION 360 CAD software for the "real" NC operation - very nice combination with GRBL software in the mill.
Beeing tired of making long cuts with the hacksaw, I invested in a bandsaw too. Chinese of course and of limited quality too, it does its job.
Long story short - this is my setup. A lot of moaning about chinese quality. You might ask, why doesnt he buy decent machines? Well - it is and stays a hobby - with limited budget.
I'll join a few pictures of various projects in another post - there are quite a few.
So for now, just an impression of my workshop - excuse the mess and the chips all over the place! I just completed a Moriya Major Stirling fan to the design of James R. Senft from the drawings in his lovely booklet. I'll post more infos and impressions on the Morya Major thread.
Happy making chips too all the community.
Wolf
Nice to see someone with a Emco and from germany ! i am from Austria and welcome you !
