Member postings for Squarepeg

Thanks I'll take a look there.

I've ordered mine through eBay, it's a Chinese seller but says it's UK stock. I have my doubts but we will see. I did check with OMTech though and it is one of their resellers. It says it will turn up this week but if it doesn't I'm in no rush as I won't set it up until the door is done and I can have the space in the garage back

Ah fair enough, lots of learning for us both to be doing then. Pretty excited about it though, I've only got a lathe at the minute so it's a nice addition to the garage.

Dave

Part of the reason I've gone for the insulated roller shutter door as an upgrade from my current up and over is to reduce the draught in the garage and hopefully warm it up by helping to retain any heat. To begin with I'll try running the standard extraction I guess but just open the door to the house to supply more air as the garage is integral.

Hopefully my extraction will be no more than 2m, I plan to run it straight up the wall behind the laser and outside as high as I can get it. Where do you buy your material from? I see lots of people saying that you should only by laser specific ply due to some being bad quality, doesn't cut as good or even contains glue that gives off dangerous fumes. I haven't yet even looked where to source any.

Interesting to know about the cooling, I'd just assumed that the heat from the tube was enough to warm the water fairly quickly but it's good to know you can run for a couple of hours at a time with no issues. I'll see how I get on and then maybe add a chiller during summer if it's required.

Did you use the digital ammeter that comes with the machine or have you added an analogue like lots of people seem to do?

In regards to the repeatability and set up, that group I mentioned earlier has lots of free files that help with set up so as test cards to dial in your settings and little adapters to easily and quickly set your focus length (after a ramp test) if you don't already have them.

Thanks for all the information, its really helpful.

Dave

Yes it seems to be quite highly regarded, I've just downloaded the free trial to have a play with but will purchase it when that runs out. Thanks for the tips, at the minute it's still all a bit baffling to me but hopefully when it arrives and I get going it will all start to make sense. I'd forgot that I wanted magnets too, thanks for the reminder, I'll get them ordered along with some material.

I'd debated running it out the door for now, but I'm about to get a roller door fitted and I'm not even sure if you can have them part way open or not. Sooner or later I'll end up having to add a vent anyway though so I may as well just bite the bullet and get it done. I'm just a bit apprehensive about drilling a 6" hole through the wall of my house as the garage is integral. I plan to build a trolley too, the 60w does come with castors but the machine will be too low to the ground without some sort of trolley and when I rearrange the garage I'll put the workbench next to the laser for my laptop.

I'm thinking I'll run the water pump for a while and then upgrade to a chiller if I find I use it for longer run times, although that's another few hundred quid. I'd also like to upgrade to a decent in line extractor, AC infinity cloudline S6 seems to be the recommended one. Do you get much smoke from yours? With a lot of this I'll just do it as I go, so if it's smokey then I'll upgrade the extraction etc.

Dave

That's reassuring to know. I'm going to download the trial version of lightburn and play around with it before it comes and watch some videos etc. I'm in no rush to get going so want to set everything up first, maybe cut some test cards and do a ramp test etc. I think it may be 6" ducting so I need to add a vent in the garage, I'm just hoping it's not 8" as I initially thought they were 4". Looking forward to getting stuck in with it though, hopefully it'll arrive this side of Xmas so I can start in my week off work. Out of interest there's actually a really good OMTech Facebook group full of useful information and posts if you haven't come across it.

Hi,

How are you finding the OMTech? I've just ordered the 60W model and now waiting for it to be delivered. My partner will use it for her work as she's a self employed designer and I get to tinker with it. I'm just hoping it runs more than it needs tinkering with! I've now got to rearrange the garage, waiting on an insulated roller door being fitted and work out where to run the extraction.

Dave

Thanks Zan and Stevie, both good ideas that I will try out. I'm going to keep chipping away at this until I've solved it, even if its a combination of errors and takes a while to do.

Thanks again!

Just for future reference if anybody comes across this thread again, this problem turned out to be the belt. It looked absolutely fine but swapping the belt solved the problem. It seemed to be the ribs on the back of the belt somehow pinging the edge of the headstock pulley as they merged with a slight twist in the belt.

Thanks guys. Unfortunately I didn't get as much time in the garage as I'd hoped this weekend but I have made a start last night. I'll work through the advice and hopefully get to the bottom of it or at least make an improvement. Just wanted to say thankyou for everyone's efforts to help and offer advice.

Dave

Thanks for all of the suggestions,.

Dave, I'm not sure I have tried rotating the spindle but to be fair I've checked the alignment at least 5 times in the last month using different methods so I'm confident the spindle has been in multiple positions, however I will spin it next time I check the alignment for sure. With working full time and having young kids I only get a couple of hours late in the evening so I'm hoping to get my dads tailstock and spend some time looking at it this weekend.

NDIY I tried something similar before my last alignment and randomly 1 hole drilled with taper and another big both ends. I started to put it down to process which I when I got my dad round and basically said there you go, use your tools and drill a hole as you would on yours. It drilled big...

Nigel, good points there thank you, I will definitely be swapping tailstocks next to see what results I get. I terms of material I've been using both aluminium and brass and getting the same results so it must be the lathe or the process however, I will use the same material across both lathes to be sure.

SOD it really has baffled me too, it just makes no sense. I have stuck with the alignment myself for a while, especially due to it being a relatively small lathe and Chinese so there's probably more quill movement that normal, tailstock won't always lock in the exact same position due to tolerances etc etc. It's the drill wander that throws me, if it's going into a centre hole drilled on the same axis then surely it shouldn't wander on entry. Drill big due to being eccentric I get, but if it's on the same axis why would I wander away from its axis?

Definitely a tailstock swap will be first on the list, followed by another re-alignment.

Tanks again.

Hi Gerhard,

At first I was checking the alignment by fitting both centres and gripping a blade between them and getting it as level as I could. Quick and dirty I know but rather effective and suitable for what I required.

Using the test bar, I only checked with the quill fully out in the belief that this would amplify any error. I assumed that any taper would show over the length of the test bar (~300mm).

With the hole last night being 4mm, I didn't bother to pilot and it was wandering by a fair amount. I just can't get my head around where it's wandering too if there's a centre there on the same axis. In regards to step drilling there's lots of conflicting information even in these forums, some people say up to around 10mm don't even pilot and others use multiple steps. I've tried many different ways in the hope to find something that stops my problem.

I do agree about Chinese lathes to be fair, with todays technology the repeatability and accuracy available is very good. I just know they also lack quality control at times and therefore have a bad reputation. Other than this issue I am pretty impressed with the lathe.

Brian, to be fair I only bought the lathe this year so haven't had loads of use and I only more recently started doing more accurate stuff so it's hard to tell of anything has changed on that regard. As Dave pointed out I've already tried what you suggested, so I know it's a lathe issue and not a tool.

J, I did think that but have now tried many different drills with the same results but thanks

Dave, good shout. Funnily enough that's what I said to him at weekend and is definitely on my list to try. I can't see any burrs anywhere and I've given it a good clean so I'm happy it's not that. I guess I was just hoping I was being daft and missing something simple or someone else would have had the same issue and solved it. I don't think I can face aligning another tailstock yet even though I think I've become reasonably good at it with all the recent practice .

Thanks for all the suggestions, really appreciate the assistance!

Thanks for all the replies guys, a lot of good information for me to work through there. It's one of those problems that's really got me stumped, and I don't have enough turning experience to be able to just follow a methodical approach and bottom the problem beyond the things I've already tried. I've wasted hours and hours on this already and I'm not really getting anywhere as it just doesn't make sense. Even if something wasn't aligned correct, surely after spot drilling then the drill should at bare minimum not wander on entry. I think of it as in drilling a hole in a cylinder, with an accurate centre drill the drill shouldn't wander... I'm an engineer so consider myself to be a logical thinker and I just can't get my head around this one!

I do have a couple of DTI's so will work through checking the alignment and I'll get my hands on a taper drill to use in the tailstock without the need for a chuck. That will be interesting to see the outcome of, as will drilling from the chuck.

My test bar is the type that has a taper 1 end and fits into the headstock as I said. I was hoping it would be centre drilled both ends to allow me to mount it on centres but it isn't unfortunately. I do wonder if a bar between centres would show different results, especially if ran from a centre made and held in the chuck.

Thanks for all your suggestions, I will slowly work through them all and see what I can find.

Hi all, I'm having real problems drilling on my lathe recently and I can't seem to figure out why. My lathe is a Chester DB8VS and I'm noticing that when I start to drill, the drill bit is wandering so I'm therefore ending up with a larger hole than I require. I doesn't matter whether I centre drill to the chamfer, just the tip, make the smallest mark or even spot drill, the drill still wanders. I've tried pilot drilling, step drilling, drilling straight to size. I've spent hours messing with my tailstock alignment and even bought a test bar so that I can align it better in case it's that. Granted it's not perfect as even the amount of slack in the quill lock causes some play but I was confident that I managed to align it within 0.01mm over the length of the test bar with the quill fully extended. However, each time I disassemble my alignment setup and re-setup I would see some movement (the test bar fits in the taper on the headstock and ran to a dead centre in the tailstock). I also checked the height alignment which I can't quite remember but was happy with, I think it was around 0.020/0.025mm. Originally it was that bad that it was drilling an 11/32 (8.73mm) at 9.5mm over a 10mm depth so you can imagine my frustration. Trying to run my 9mm reamer down it and it obviously wasn't touching it. With the new alignment I've managed to get it working better and thought I'd cracked it, however last night I noticed wander on a 4mm drill (standard length). I even thought it could be my drills as I do only use a cheap drill set (albeit a new one) but have also borrowed expensive drills from work with the same results. It makes no sense to me at all, if I'm centre drilling/spot drilling from the same chuck in the same tailstock how is the drill able to wander so much that it's easily visible? I've tried with coolant, without coolant, feeding faster, pecking etc. At one point a slower speed (than recommended for drill size) made it a lot better but that didn't work at all last night. I'm starting to think that it's a combination of little issues and movements with it being a Chinese lathe. My dad does have the same lathe though and his drills perfect. We've both been scratching our heads on this one as when he uses mine with his drills and chuck even, he gets the same wander. Am I missing something, has anyone had any similar issues with a similar sized lathe and managed to solve it. As it's not glaringly obvious to me it's driving me mad and I'm spending less time in my garage as a result. As a side note there is no play in the headstock bearings. Thanks for taking the time to read this, I've tried to include as much information as I can.

Dave

Good point Duncan. I have been debating if it needed to be central. At first I assumed that it rotated on the mounting bolts in the same way that the top slide does when they are loose. However, on second thought (I haven't got the tool to hand and can't remember) it must rotate about it's own axis on an internal bearing/close fit. Therefore, as you say, it wont matter if it doesn't sit symmetrically on the cross slide.

Thanks for all your help guys, much appreciated.

Adrian, they're not T slots, they're circular slots that allow the usually mounted top slide to rotate. I have no T slots. Thanks for the suggestions though.

Andrew, another good suggestion that I hadn't even thought of thanks, that could definitely work.

Thanks again Michael, I will have a look. I'm in work at the minute so can't get any pictures yet.

Daggers, that's probably the best shout. I'd considered opening up the current holes but not just re-drilling new ones in another position, I guess it doesn't actually matter where they go as the bolts slide in the slots anyway. The holes will get close to that upper (smaller diameter) portion of the tool but I could always bring it in work and get it CNC milled to put a clearance cut in that bit as a drill would just wander when it hits the edge and I need to be able to get a nut on too. Thanks for the suggestion, it's good to know other people have had similar issues.

Thanks for clearing that up Michael.

I'm still trying to figure out how to post images. It seems pretty clunky by todays standards.

I'm removing the top slide, with the tool post attached and trying to mount directly to the top slide mounts on the cross slide. The 2 mounting bolts sit in a circular groove that allow the top slide to rotate.

Sorry gents, maybe I've not explained the problem well enough. My problem is that the mounting holes for the tool are 90mm centres and the mounting in the cross slide is 85mm centres.

Hi John, I should have posted a link to the tool at first as it'll be clear when you see it.

This is what I purchased

That's an interesting idea, although I'm not sure it'd work with this type of tool.

I may have to take the hit and just buy a different type of tool. I just find it really odd that I'm the only person to have hit this problem.

Thanks

If you do a search, there's a few fundametals training pdf's available on the internet. Usually on the courses you just work through these with obviously with the help of a tutor. Granted this is an old one, but the fundamentals don't change much!

SolidEdge Fundamentals

There are also various companies that offer training. This one is quite popular for all sorts of different courses and often does some good deals and plenty of free courses. Haven't used them myself but it's worth a look for anyone new to CAD. There's also plenty of other free courses that may interest some of you that aren't CAD related.

Udemy - SolidEdge Training