Member postings for Zebethyal

My workshop is a pre-fab garage with only minimal insulation, and if I don't do anything, rust will start to appear on a new item in a matter of days.

For lathe/mill beds and other areas of exposed cast iron, I use Johnsons Paste Wax, as recommended on various woodworking forums, to prevent their table saws rusting.

For chucks, tooling, etc, I spray with a coating of ACF-50, as recommended by Chris Heapy in this thread.

ACF-50 will also neutralise any existing rust to prevent further spread.

With regards delivery costs, Amazon ideally want you to subscribe to Amazon Prime, at which point all deliveries are next day and free.

With regards the kids pressing the button 50 times a day, there is apparently some smarts in the system to realise that you do not actually want 50 new packs of toilet roll.

Edited By Zebethyal on 07/09/2016 08:03:08

I asked a similar question in May of 2014 and was directed to this link, which I had read previously but forgotten all about.

It is an article by Evan Williams for creating a delrin nut the easy way - most likely the same 'evanut' referred to by Bazyle.

I ultimately used this method to produce a replacement cross slide nut for my Mellor lathe - details of my making it here

Edited By Zebethyal on 03/08/2016 14:32:31

I have not read your article as I don't subscribe to ME, as such I don't know the size of the boards you are talking about.

However, if you are looking at mass producing, dependant on board sizes, you may be interested in using Itead Studio:

5cmx5cm 2 layer board 10 pieces for $9.90

5cmx10cm 2 layer board 10 pieces for $14.90

10cmx10cm 2 layer board 10 pieces for $19.90

They also offer a small batch option from 10 to 8000 pieces

All with free shipping - I have used them for stepper driver boards and Sanguinololu boards, processed and shipped in 4-6 days.

No affiliation, just a satisfied customer.

I would say to the OP, how far do you want/need to go with understanding electronics?

You mention struggling to commission a 3D printer - depending on what set of electronics you used, this can be anything from a set of modules (Arduino Mega, RAMPS shield, StepStick/Pololu stepper drivers), an all in one board (Azteeg or Beagle Bone) or a solder it yourself controller, again with StepStick/Pololu drivers (Sanguinololu, etc). whichever route you take, they mainly achieve the same thing - they provide a microcontroller platform on which to run some firmware (Sprinter, Repetier, etc) which in turn needs a few dozen parameters setting in order that it works correctly with your printer and steppers.

All that is in addition to configuring the mechanical printer for squareness, minimal backlash, an accurate origin and being able to traverse your bed accurately such that the nozzle is the same distance above it at all points in a given horizontal plane.

There is very little electronics knowledge required - from the moment you have plugged all of the modules together and wired up the motors and power supply, the electronics side is done and dusted.

Some understanding is required with regards what each of the firmware parameters do (even if you use a known checklist and only ever set them once) and how to upload that firmware, and then some trial and error with regards understanding what difference the various printer settings can have before you find some that are optimal for your printer.

Just trying to clarify what the OP is actually after and whether or not they really need to understand electronics, transistors, op-amps, etc, etc, for what they are trying to achieve, or if they were simply a little overwhelmed by whole end to end process of commissioning the 3D printer, most of which actually has very little to do with electronics itself.

If the wish is to move onto making other projects from scratch, then there is a wealth of information provided by others above in this thread.

They are about £7.00 each from RDG tools and other similar suppliers:

last time I used any round head rivets, I made use of some rivet punches, one to protect the pre-formed head and one to form the cut end after initial peening over.

Enjoying the conversion, especially liking the offset motor idea.

Biggest downside for some people may be that it requires another milling machine in order to perform the conversion - many of the other conversions, while not necessarily optimal in design are 'bolt-on' with minimal machining.

One simple addition that can off-set a side mounted Z axis leadscrew might be to use a gas spring. It could also be used to help the offset motor if doing your Z axis conversion. The spring use also means less work for the Z axis motor. This is a useful and cheap modification even if you don't CNC as it is a vast improvement over the factory spring.

Some of these modifications may be more attractive if the various UK suppliers made the castings available as aftersales items like they do in the US.

Edited By Zebethyal on 28/07/2016 09:11:25

Clickspring shows a similar fixture plate for a rotary table on his site - I intend to make one at sme point in the near future:

To further the discussion on registers, my Mellor lathe has its register at the same diameter as the thread, much the same as this Myford MF74, proving it was pretty common back in the day:

There may well be additional benefits to having a useable register, but I have not noticed them on my lathe yet.

I will freely admit that there are much better methods of mounting a chuck than with a spindle thread, but this is what I have.

In all the tests I have performed, the chucks and faceplates locate repeatably against the abutment face using just the threads.

The rear of the backplates, or the abutment face, would need to wear significantly between fittings to cause any real difference and even then so long as it is still concentric and I am not attempting to re-cut a thread between fittings am I ever going to notice?

There is no register on the backplates or faceplates, in fact there is a significant gap where the register would be expected to exist, to clear the threads when initially mounting the chuck/faceplate before engaging the threads.

These lathes were good enough for all sorts of precision engineering jobs back in the 1930s and 40s.

Food for thought?

Edited By Zebethyal on 26/07/2016 15:05:31

Regarding warranty - what are you looking to do with the machine?

If you are looking to convert to CNC usage, or change out spindle type, etc, then warranty may be void as soon as you start replacing parts, how much can you modify before your warranty is worthless? This is of course less of an issue if you intend to use the mill 'as-is'.

With regards spares, the only companies I am aware of that actually list parts as an available after sales option are Arc, and to a lesser degree Amadeal in the UK (Grizzly in the US offer pretty much any part, but shipping won't be cheap) most suppliers will probably replace a part if you manage to break it if still under warranty.

Other potential UK suppliers, in addition to those listed above, for a similar size/price machine would be SPG Tools, Amadeal and Toolco, there may be others.

The question there would be - is this actually more or less than the myriad of current watt meters consume?

The idea being that the supplier is not supposed to charge you for energy consumed by the meter itself.

Ultimately they may be saving energy by rolling out these meters if they are more efficient than say the huge industrial style Sangamo ones that many older houses have - Sangamo believe that "big is beautiful"

I personally like the promotional comment that "Smart meters will mean consumers get accurate bills - you will only be billed for the energy you actually use" - how is this any different from estimated bills that are 'trued up' with a meter reading? At the end of the year you have still paid exactly the same amount for the actual quantity of gas/electricity you have used.

Paying someone close to minimum wage to go around reading meters, or better yet having the customers send them in themselves for free, is thousands of times cheaper than rolling out smart meters.

British Gas started rolling out smart meters a few years ago, but it is only in about the last year and a half that they have actually been able to do anything useful with them - their software for dealing with what came in from the smart meter simply didn't work.

Now they finally have a working set of software they are pushing harder for rollout of smart meters.

They have also been investing heavily in 'Big Data', this system has feeds from their billing systems and also from the smart meter system, as well as many of their other systems, so that they can better predict when someone is likely to default on their payments.

Curious as to how well this performs for tightening/loosening the drawbar.

My main concern would be that the plastic might split by the two mounting mounting screws on the front, however my concerns may be unfounded.

If made available for download, the STL files would be good for the MT3 versions of this mill.

The R8 version, as sold in the US, has the spindle lock hole sllightly lower down.

I know this because I swapped my spindle from MT3 to R8 - here are the two spindles side by side for comparison:

The larger hole in the R8 spindle is for a pin to locate in the R8 slot - not supplied with the spindle, and more hassle than it is worth if fitted anyway.

The one Bob mentions is the Rage 4 with a 185mm blade, this one claims to cut 45mm square, so Bob was pushing the limits a bit at 50mm

I have its bigger brother, the Rage 2, which has a 355mm blade, this is the one rated to cut 122mm square or 130mm round.

I bought it second hand on the Bay for £60.00, collection only. It is certainly not light at 22kg, compared to 10kg for the Rage 4, it is also double the price at around £180.00 new.

I also have a 6x4 bandsaw, and since this is always setup, it tends to get used more.

The chop saw is way more accurate and produces nice clean cuts - I last used it to shave about 1-2mm off a length of 40x20mm aluminium extrusion and also to cut some studding to length both pieces were for my lasercutter build, both would have been a pain on the bandsaw, and the first one nearly impossible on an abrasive saw to keep it accurate.

When I was looking for a mill of this size to convert to CNC, I initially settled on the SX2P, but eventually decided that there was insufficient space under the table to do this and opted for the older style X2 as this is a tried and tested model for conversion - look up Hoss Machine and many others on the web and on the CNCZone forums.

Ideally I wanted the LittleMachineShop model 3990 - R8 spindle, solid column, bigger table, gas spring, belt drive brushless motor, etc, but nobody this side of the pond stocks that model.

I was lucky and found an end of line X2 at a decent price (they were changing to a new paint scheme and selling off the old stock for a hefty discount) and have replaced/upgraded several items on mine already - gas spring conversion (the stock spring is rubbish) 3 axis DRO, MT3 to R8 spindle change, solid column upgrade (inlcuded longer Y axis) and I am in the process of machining the parts for my CNC conversion, which is my own design but was influenced by the designs of Hoss and Donald Bird.

Many of the parts I have removed stand a good chance of being used again - MT3 spindle will become a 4th axis. Old column may become new X axis table, I could even 'super extend' the Y axis with the old base casting just like the Hoss X2 'Freak'.

With regards warranty, I pretty much accpted that as soon as I started pulling it apart, I could forget about that.

Future plans still include a power drawbar, an articulating head and a quick change 8 station carousel for Tormach ATC style tooling.

There are also off the shelf CNC kits for the X2, although I believe CNCFusion are being a little unresponsive at present and may have stopped production.

The Sieg X3 is also a popular machine to convert to CNC and is slightly bigger and beefier but may be outside your price range at around £1600.00.

Also In the X3 price range, is the RF45 style of machines, another popular choice to convert to CNC (Chester Lux is one UK example at around £1500.00) although these will be significantly bigger and heavier than an X2 - (I am thinking about one of these as my next mill) Bob at CNC Cookbook has converted one of these as has Hoss.

If you do choose an X2 style mill, there are loads of how-to articles relating to no end of potential modifications you can make, there will be no shortage of people to ask for help and advice should you need it.

I would ask a couple of questions first:

How accurate do you need your scales to be? you mention 0.5um/0.000019" resolution for glass scales, would 0.05mm/0.002" resolution be good enough with say, Igaging style scales?

How accurate is your mill and to what tollerance are you looking to make parts?

If you are happy with paying $400-600 for your DRO, and you/your mill can hold very tight tollerances, then who am I to argue with you?

Personally I chose to use Igaging scales ($135.00 inc P&P from USA for all 3 axes) and TouchDRO from Yuriy's Toys for a total combined cost of under $200.00 which includes the cost of a 10" dedicated Android tablet.

I doubt my mill is rigid enough, and my manual machining is certainly not good enough, to hold better than 0.05mm on successive finished parts anyway.

Edited By Timothy Moores on 28/06/2016 13:51:53

The thing I keep reading about PCB milling is that ideally you want the mass for that as well. I keep looking at building a PCB milling machine, but ultimately I think that when I have finished CNC converting my Seig X2 that will this will actually be a better platform than anything I can build from scratch, I will just need to attach a high speed spindle of some sort with low runout.

I know plenty of people have great success with engraving on the Shapeoko and its clones - check out their forum if you haven't already.

I appreciate that the footprint of a Shapeoko is probably larger than your KX3 but it would weigh substantially less. The Chinese engravers are even smaller and lighter and pretty much self contained with a variety of spindle options.

For most of what you are looking at doing, you may need to be looking at router spindle speeds or higher (20K+ rpm), the 6K rpm mentioned on that motor isn't really fast enough.

I have no personal experience with that particular item, but from the looks of it, it does not appear to be much more rigid than your average 3D printer, which in turn is not really expected to take any kind of chip load.

All depends on what you are expecting to mill with it - I see the images show various items supposedly machined with one, the question there would be: how long did each one take to produce?

Many of the Chinese CNC machines on 'the bay' are far more rigid and many are less than half of the cost of this item - search for something like '300w CNC'

Another possible alternative might be one of the many Shapeoko clones, again depending on what you are wanting to machine.

If you are expecting to machine steel, then you will need a much heavier more sturdy machine most likely made of cast iron.

If you are wanting to use it as an engraver/router for plastic, wood, or possibly aluminium, then so long as you take it slowly, many people have achieved decent results with both the Chinese items and the Shapeoko clones.

Edited By Timothy Moores on 24/06/2016 15:13:38

Edited By Timothy Moores on 24/06/2016 15:13:53

I agree that time effort goes into designing these items and I am not attempting to detract from that, I give full credit to anyone whose ideas I make use of and build upon and would hope that the same would be done by anyone who builds on any of my ideas.

In this particular instance, if you read the thread on CNCZone regarding the development of this item, it was developed as a 'fun' project by Kwackers/Steve Ward in 2006 for his own use and he decided in November 2007 to make it available to the wider community for free.

Since the Division Master also appears to have been developed/released at around the same time, who is to say which was developed first, without checking with the individual developers, one chose to capitalise on their invention and sell it for what may be considered as quite large sums of money, the other chose to give theirs away to the wider community for free.

Steve to this day promotes the use of self builds of his division controller on whatever type of circuit board suits the builder, and even provides a set of instructions for building it on strip board. He has made the more recent versions of the firmware closed source to prevent China, etc capitalising on his work, the firmware is however still made available on his site to download for free.

Similar things happen in the RepRap community, many people bought 3D printers in the early days purely to make money from others wishing to join the community, by printing and selling sets of 3D prints and other hard to find parts for sometimes quite substantial profit, this in a community where the products in question are predominantly open hardware and open source software.

Much of this has been now been stamped out by China mass producing these items cheaper than it is economically possible for individuals to do. Yes, China is now profiting instead of individuals, but in this instance the masses gain cheaper access to a community where large numbers of designs are made accessible via sites like Thingiverse for free, that being a site that I regularly check for ideas from and also give back to it with my own designs.

Ultimately we are all "standing on the shoulders of giants" since none of are self taught from first principles that we worked out for ourselves - as has been discussed in the 'secrets' thread either you can choose to share knowledge or in some way try and profit from it.