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Member postings for EtheAv8r

Here is a list of all the postings EtheAv8r has made in our forums. Click on a thread name to jump to the thread.

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Thread: New Blocks on the Block
16/11/2011 11:23:50
Thanks for the heads-up on these 321 blocks John
 
I think these look really useful and will get me some - I think I can probably handle any swarf cleaning problems, and JS knows his stuff and what he is doing, so I imagine they are well thought out, well made and will be versatile (as you described) and very useful.
 
Edmund
Thread: Hacksaw blade tension
17/09/2011 22:11:44
Posted by blowlamp on 17/09/2011 00:56:51:
Posted by EtheAv8r on 16/09/2011 23:42:07:
... and now I am fighting with DraftSight and Cut-2D in the hope of one day being able to pass a file to Mach3 and make something!
 
Edmund
 
Edmund.
If you want a test file to cut on your mill, just let me know what you're after and I'll draw something up and generate some Mach3 compatible g-code for you to play with.
 
 
Martin.
Martin
 
That is very kind og you thank you. It is not that I have something specific I want or need to make - yet; it is a question of getting to grips with the various tools (hardware and software) and the work and process flows. I am making slow progress, but I am at out of the house on work days from 06:40 to 21:15 so only really have week-ends, which are filled with a lot of other stuff!
 
From December I will be switching to part time (3 days a week) working and will have a bit more time.
 
Edmund
16/09/2011 23:42:07
Thanks John S for the pointer to the Lennox in your post above; as a result of which mine arrived today with 3 packs of blades.
 
However I must be wary as your posts keep costing me... time, effort and dosh and a huge (but fun in an odd sort of way) learning curve on several fronts, after all I was planning on just getting a smallish manual mill and ended up getting a KX3, and now I am fighting with DraftSight and Cut-2D in the hope of one day being able to pass a file to Mach3 and make something!
 
Edmund
 
PS I am not allowed to throw my Eclipse hack saw at the neighbours cats - even though they come in a poop all over my garden, so not quite sure what to do with it, seems a waste to just bin it!

Edited By EtheAv8r on 16/09/2011 23:42:22

Thread: Commercial projects???
25/08/2011 16:26:52
I resolved not to post further as I had had my say.... but kept up with the thread...
 
Now lost the will to live so signing off. Will come back next week when hopefully 'Silly Season' has past and normal service is resumed.
 
Ta taa for now! (Hopefully a lighthearted end to this thread?)
25/08/2011 13:48:17
I am glad it is not just me (Ramon & Blowlamp also appear to be examples - sorry for any others I may have missed) who thinks this thread has got completely bonkers, with some seemingly childish and possibly spiteful remarks, is somewhat out of control and it is all rather unnecesary!
 
There may be some agenda I am blissfully ignorant of, but if the point scoring and digs were to stop, maybe we could get back to helping, guiding and supporting each other with (mainly) hobby workshop type things?
 
I am all for debate, disagreement (there are always many ways to do something, none of which is necessarily wrong...), and banter - I love banter - but.................
 
 
Thread: tilting vice
12/08/2011 16:01:03
If you are a subscriber, Digital Issues is your friend.....
Thread: mini mills - which is the best?
11/08/2011 10:45:15
The Super X3 has a 1000W motor, giving a lot more (twice in theory) power than the X3 and appears to have other upgraded parts based on previous experience of the X3 in service. I thought the extra cost of the Super X3 over the X3 was well worth it.
 
 
10/08/2011 16:55:22
Not that I am any expert, but if I were going to buy a small mill, it would be the Super X2 Plus from Arc Euro, and as a beginner get the preparation service so it is all set up and ready to run on delivery.
 
When I was still deciding what to get, if I had gone for a manual mill, it would have been the Sieg Super X3. However I went mad and got the KX3.
10/08/2011 11:26:11
Posted by Clive Hartland on 09/08/2011 21:01:28:
Perhaps Tim who started the thread could give us an idea of his price range to buy a machine.
Looking through what is available I am now looking at' Wabeco' machines.
Even thinking of going to the works in Austria to visit and look at what they have.
I think one might just fit in the back of my Estate car.
What do I tell the customs though?
 
Clive

You can see them in Stamford, Lincolshire - possibly a bit closer? That is where I got my Wabeco lathe. I did not go for a Wabco mill though - I nearly did, but I went Sieg KX3 to save some dosh. Hope I made the right decision!

Thread: I need a mill ? Manual or CNC??
02/08/2011 10:30:34

Had my new Sieg KX3 and stand and other necessary bits all delivered from Arc Euro two weeks ago (only a week after ordering). I initially removed all the outside casing and installed the stand and built the PC the next weekend weekend, but left the mill sat on its pallet. This Sunday I borrowed an engine hoist and got the mill up onto the stand and bolted down, cleaned up (not a lot of shipping gunge to remove actually), connected up PC and got ready for initial setup.

I was ready to test it out late Sunday night. Had a quick try using the Jog function using the Up/Down, Left/Right and Page Up/Page Down keys on the keyboard and the Z axis goes up and down, and faster with the Shift key held down, Y Axis moved back and forward and faster with the Shift key held down, but the X axis does not move (but there was a change in the ‘hissing’ sound from the controller and the DRO displayed it as moving), but it did move OK at full speed with the Shift key pressed, but the spindle did not spin up at all when started, so there was a bit of setup to go through. It was now 23:20 and time to retire.

Next step was to go through the setup FACs made available by John Stevenson on the smallcncsupport site, and hopefully get it all sorted and ready to run!
I managed to get out to the workshop last night for an hour and went throught the FAQs re machine setup. All the issues now resolved, everything working, table and head all now move in correct direction (all three needed reversing) and all jog slow and fast with the shift key now the motor tuning numbers have been corrected and the step pulse width has been upped to 5 (some were 2). All three stop at limits and jog off after Reset hit (previously had to power off mill and wind the X axis off the switch and then power back on).

A quick distance move check looks OK but was not accurately done, I just wanted to see if it was close or way out, it is close and hopefully bang on!

I need to determine if spindle RPM is correct.... need to find a tach that will help here, but so far all is looking promising.

Thank you John for your FAQs and documented assistence here; without which initial setup would probably be a bit of a nighmare!

So far I think I have made a good decision to go with this set-up.

Thread: Online subscription renewal
29/07/2011 10:04:40
Posted by David Clark 1 on 28/07/2011 10:25:05:
Hi There
We tried the search of all posts.
It bought up too many so was dropped.
regards David
 
That is why most other forums have an "advance" search facility, so that the serach terms can be refined with additional and/or conditional search criteria.
 
Tis a pity as there is a goldmine of really useful information buried in this forum, but no adeqate tools to mine them with.
28/07/2011 09:20:50
Before we get a redesigned subscription page, my vote for No1 Improvement would be a Search that included the content of the posts rather than being able to search on in Thread Title only.
 
There is lots of good information buried away in past posts.... but finding it is pretty much impossible. Being able to search within posts is a standard feature of most (if not all) other Forums I have used. Search restricted to Thread Title only is generally as useful as a chocolate fire guard.
Thread: GETTING CNC WORKING
26/07/2011 12:50:12
Posted by ady on 26/07/2011 12:02:36:
They still do "new / old" desktop systems on ebay, I suppose because they are still perfectly adequate for business purposes and netsurfing.
 
Seventy quid, including postage here for this one.
 
I'm still running on my old 1.4GHZ stuff from around 2000.

Yes indeed, for my new Sieg KX3 from ARC Euro I got myself a Dell Optiplex 745 with Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz CPU and 2GB RAM for under £60 delivered from ebay. Found a Matrox video card in the bin at work that functions just fine.
 
I am now on the lookout for a touch screen to complete the system, but will use an old 15" monitor until then.
 
I did consider Syil.... and other options, but the setup around the KX3 from Arc Euro seemed so much better (they seemed - and so far have been - such nice, helpful folks) and as John says above, some savings are just not worth making!
25/07/2011 12:46:06
Firstly welcome to the forum.
 
Secondly typing in upper case is consider to be shouting, and will cause offence as it is considered impolite.
 
You should be able to get assistance from Amadeal who are the UK Syil distributers and appeared to me on my visit when researching what I should buy, to be very friendly and helpful.
 
Two years is a long time, and you do not say whether you bought it new from a dealer, used from a dealer, or used privately, and this might make a difference.
 
If there is not so much as a twitch, and you have had 'parts' replaced (which parts), it would seem to be computer /computer comms related. What type of PC is it. Have you tried a different parallel cable? Have you tried a different PC tytpe? Are you sure that the Mach3 software and drivers are installed correctly? Is the PC dedicated and disconnected from any network?
 
Have you tried Mach Support (you do have a full, licensed copy don't you - I believe without a valid licence Mach3 is in Demo mode only)?
Thread: I need a mill ? Manual or CNC??
18/07/2011 10:58:22
Andrew - That is just what I had been thinking/hoping... I will post once I have it running and have a little experience with it.
 
The KX3 was delivered on Saturday morning (great service from Arc Euro) and is sitting on it's pallet in my workshop at the moment. The Dell PC I got on ebay arrived Saturday as well, and I have reformatted the hard disk and installed XP, optimised services, disabled network and audio in BIOS, cleaned up Resgistey, installed proper defrag tool etc. then installed Mach3 and Sieg KX3 5000 configuration files, and will add Cut2D, but driver test returned the required results. I still need a monitor for the PC in the workshop.... and hope to fine a second-hand touch screen jobbie.
 
I was concerned about the minimum speed of 500RPM, but am informed that with small cutters it will not be an issue?????
10/07/2011 12:25:21
Pete
 
It was impressive enough to demonstrate parts can be made quickly (once the job is prepared) and accurately - more so than I will be able to do so manually for quite some time... Also it is easy to drive it 'manually' via the keyboard or screen so lots of simple milling tasks can be done very quickly and accurately (positioning the cutter using the DRO) without using any drawing or G-Code, and this choosing a mill lark has gone on long enough! The KX3 will probably do anything I will ever want and more as it is not so small, and if I need something bigger for the odd one off I can go elsewhere.......
 
Martin
 
Yes... all part of the steep learing curve and new challenges to keep my mind on the learning trail.
 
ady
 
As per Johns kind clarification, two stage speed range with each range having a variable speed. My bad for calling it a back-gear because a) that is what the chap from Amadeal called it and b) I am a beginner and so get some terminology wrong.
 
Edmund

Edited By EtheAv8r on 10/07/2011 12:28:06

09/07/2011 23:09:15
Decision made. Sieg KX3 on order.
 
Now to fit another steep learning curve into an already overcrowded life.....
07/07/2011 13:00:37
Andrew
 
Thank you for your comments.... re top speed - yes that is a concern, re 4th axis, don't really know, it is a rotary table with a stepper motor attached and a chuck, all on a frame (like a vertcal slide) that can be attached to the mill table vertically or horizontally.
 
I thought low speed with high(er) torque might be useful - as this will be the only mill I will have....
 
Dias
 
Thank you for your input re the BF20.
 
 
Edmund
06/07/2011 11:56:29
OK, current state of play is that I am leaning towards getting a CNC mill rather than just a plain manual mill. If I do go for a manual mill it will probably be an Arc Euro prepared Sieg Super X3, though the Amadeal AMA25LV with 3 axis DRA and Powerfeed for similar money does look great value.

On the CNC side I had thought that converting the Sieg Super X3 with a Syil conversion kit from Amadeal might be a possibility, it is certainly the most cost effective route, but on reflection would involve some additional risk, invalidate the warranty on the mill and result in potential support issues with two different supplied involved – plus I would rather have an integrated ready to roll solution.
The Sieg KX3 bundle from ARC Euro is a bit out of my budget, but doable and possibly the best option, but I have been offered a used (but not for long) Optimum BF20 Vario with Syil CNC complete with 4th axis rotary accessory that comes in at a lot less than the KX3.
 
Can anyone comment on the BF20 Vario? It retains full manual control via handles on the stepper motors, but I believe I can affectively achieve manual control via the Mach3 software, so the only advantage is I have true manual control without having to run the PC. Downside is lower top speed (2500 rpm), MT2 tooling taper and possibly less power and a much less tidy installation, upside is backgear giving good low speed (50 rpm) torque, lighter, 4th axis included and a lot less money.
 
I will make my decision based on any comments/advise here plus mt visit to Arc Euro on Saturday....
01/07/2011 14:11:14
Pete
 
What CNC router do you have?
 
Oh my this could all get rather expensive.... didn't want a holiday this year anyway.....
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