Member postings for Ian Skeldon 2

Thanks Neil.

Just wasted an hour of my life, up until now I have been very happy with my Chester DB10 lathe. It's not perfect and needed a lot of setting up to get it to cut to 0.01mm taper over 120mm, but I got there in the end, the leadscrew nuts constantly need tweaking to take out the backlash but all in all, it's not bad.

Today I decide to make sure that the compound slide was also cutting parallel, so piece of ally round into the chuck, first cut and then a light cut, micrometer showed it bob on, parallel, as did the indicator in the tool post.

So using the indicator in the tool post I clocked the compound slide on the ally round just turned. Just over 0.3 out when lined up on the markings, now matter how I trammed it, it was always showing light at the chuck and heavy at the tailstock end.

After several attempts to get it right I twigged what was wrong, can you guess?

Gentlemen, many thanks for all the help.

From the sound of it, PLA is likely to be good enough for what I want and isn't going to degrade within 3 months etc. It seems as though the factory 3d printer is reliable (based on feedback on this forum) and support seems to be good, must be something you only get access to once you have bought the printer?

Once again many thanks for your advice gents.

Hi,

I apologise as I know there are similar threads elsewhere in the forums, however I do have some specific questions which will help m eto choose which printer to buy.

Q1, Which of the most commonly used filaments gives the strongest finished component pla/abs? (or other)?

Q2, Which of the current range of 3D printers up to £800 is most capable in respect of, (a) print quality, (b) using both filaments equally successfully, (c) complete package with any required software in the bundle.

Q3, I have looked at the factory 3D website, it looks easy enough to buy their printer, but I couldn't find largest print size it can do, none of the links for support, spares etc worked so it doesn't instill confidence and put me off buying from them, any advice for alternatives?

Q4, Is there a dedicated 3D printer, help webpage offering generic advice such as temperatures, feed rates etc for particular filaments?

I have started to get good results with Fusion now and feel that buying a printer is the next logical step but I want to get it right.

Thanks,

Ian

While having a quick play tonight I discovered 'SLOT ' what a muppet !

I simply drew a slot to the required dimension and even though the top half of it was in free space, I went on to extrude with a negative figure and bingo, worked straight away.

Anyway many thanks for offering help chaps, I now have several ways to achieve what I was after.

Ian

Good luck Ron, hope she's up and running in no time.

0.8 backlash, pah that's nothing. When my chester first arrived it was just about double that, yes really.

I used the old techniques of back winding and coming in again to eliminate or at least reduce errors and actually got very good results, but in the end I decided I was either being stupid, or lazy, even worse a combination of the two.

So I took the cross slide off, the leadscrew nut did indeed have a slot machined into it and two small grub screws so that the thread could be distorted enough to take the backlash out. I swear I got it so that I couldn't actually measure the small amount of play left in it, sadly it doesn't seem to last more tha about 4 or 5 months before it needs just the smallest of tweaks again, luckily it takes about ten minutes.

Thanks Jason, now I get it.

Very nice Neil, shame it doesn't use steam but hey other than that it looks very well made.

Many thanks both Rod and Jason,

I haven't had the time to try anything yet but I can already see that I made the mistake of adding a hole, rather than drawing a circle....Doh.

I will follow this up once I have had the chance to try the suggestions.

Once again many thanks for the help.

Ian

Hi Ronan,

I will give it a go, will let you know how it pans out.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Ian

Hi,

I have completed a drawing with fusion 360 and mostly it went very well. However there are two ordinary plain holes on one of the faces that I wish to extend (imagine a U) so that the hole becomes a slot up to the adjacent face.

I just cannot get it to work, I will upload the image (STEP) for gurus to take a look. Also I have very limited options for exporting the drawing and cannot get it to export as a 'STL' file, is this normal and if so how can I print it off?

Many thanks,

Ian

Ahh slight problem, I can't upload image as it isn't in jpeg format.

Edited By Ian Skeldon 2 on 10/06/2018 20:39:25

Edited By Ian Skeldon 2 on 10/06/2018 20:40:21

Can't edit my previous post but I have re-read that you use magnets glued to the scale, so if you can offer advice on where to buy these type of scales.

Thanks,

Ian

Hi George,

How are these gauges attached to the machine and where can they be bought?

Many thanks,

Ian

Hi,

I can see why it's called a 'hot tube' engine, but what doeas the hot tube do, heat water, expand air?

Thanks,

Ian

Thanks for the idea Bazyle, I will check it out, although I don't think Myford did any adjustment on the nuts it will be pretty easy to check.

I will have to look at fitting a new lead screw with Ball Screws, although not expensive it might be very time consuming. Funny but I did think the cutter speed should have been higher, not sure where I got the lower figure from. I do sometimes use WD40 as coolant/lubricant but haven't tried parrafin, will give that a go as well, Oh and no more climb milling, although I have always got away with it until now.

Thanks everyone,

Ian

Hi NDIY and Andrew,

Yes I was climb milling, feed rate was a bit slow as I tend to wind in a bit on the slow side, no coolant or cutting fluid in use. The tool seems to have good clean cutting edges laterally but maybe the edge on one of the ends is a little dull.

I was traversing the x axis and both y and z were locked. The vibration deffinitely seemed to be coming from play in the tables x axis. I know from hand feeding (taking out backlash as I go) that there is room for improvement but not sure on the best way to achieve this.

Thanks again for your input gents, I value your views.

Ian

Hi,

Having enjoyed using my Myford Mill for a few light jobs I recently tried taking a slightly deeper cut than I normally would. I will point out that I tend to mill only aluminium and this was the case recently.

Spindle speed was 380rpm and tool was a two flute, half inch diameter end mill, intended depth of cut was 1.5mm at 5mm wide, hand fed.

I noticed a little vibration and quickly reduced the DOC. However I am left thinking that I should service the table and try to reduce the backlash in both the x and y axis.

Does anybody have any experience of doing this with this particular machine? If so can you offer any ideas or advice please?

PS, I also think my cutter speed should have been higher ?

Thanks,

Ian

If I am not mistaken the WM250 is essentially the same machine as my Chester DB10, and if so there is little you can do to adjust the bed as the mounting holes run laterally (along the lathes length) rather than across the lathes width which would assist in untwisting the bed should you need to.

I got around it by mounting on a very sturdy bench with a solid metal surface, luckily that was all that was need with mine to turn parallel cuts.