Member postings for David Colwill

Managed to get my Denford Easiturn up and running having rewired it and fitted a UC300 motion controller. Also have got it levelled on the anti vibration mounts that came with it when I got it 5 years ago. I can now use constant surface speed which seems to work very well. The UC300 has the equivalent of 5 parallel ports, so I can now think about adding some kind of pendant with functions that I use most often. It also has an analogue port which can take pots to control spindle speed and feed rate override.

I'm looking forward to trying it out especially as Dolphin sorted the post processor out so that it now does contours correctly.

David

Many thanks Harold there are a couple of articles that I need to find.

David.

Brave man!

Probably best if you get security to stop them tearing themselves limb from limb

David.

After an epic workshop shift around I started on the first of need sorting out machines, the Denford Triac. The old computer had failed so I had to get a new one up and running. Although I have copies of everything it has still been a traumatic time as I couldn't remember where various files needed to go etc etc. I had a brief panic when I couldn't find the tool changer macro but finally it's done .

Interesting stuff about the LED lamps. I only use them when they are out of the way or enclosed. The version that I had ( see my post free lights ) had no metal parts exposed but even so were extremely flimsy. There is much to be said for ripping them apart and running them on low voltage.

Regards.

David.

I would like to look at the series covering the Bentley BR2 build by Lew Blackmore which was some time in the early 1980's. I am happy to subscribe to ME but only if I can access this on the digital archive.

Can anyone tell me how far it goes back?

Many thanks.

David.

The usual way would be to use a fixed steady but if you have to do this regularly it would be a bit of a faff.

Regards.

David.

I would say X- (slide moving away) off X+ and Z- off Z+ but that's just me .

David.

Who says DTI's aren't cheap I got one for £11.79 including postage, made by that well known firm Mitutogo. I do have an expensive copy though, it's made by some Japanese company of a similar name.

Regards.

David.

Hi,

I'm pretty sure that the Z axis screw on mine is 5mm pitch. You say that you have no acceleration ramp, I found that I had to fiddle around with acceleration in mach 3 to get things working nicely.

Regards.

David

The task for today is to try to get the 3D printer printing nylon (no easy task).

I too am in the process of altering my workshop around an have made a 1;20 scale plywood floor plan and a pile of paper cutouts. It seems by far the best approach and it is much easier to move the paper around than the machines themselves.

Regards.

David.

Hi,

When I converted my bridgeport clone I had the same dilemma. I opted like you to keep the old screw and as a temporary job stuck a 34 size motor via a 2:1 reduction straight on to the shaft that takes the crank handle. I used drivers that connect straight into the mains. I have run this reliably at 1500 mm / min with no gas struts or counter weights. I have never experienced any problems at low feed rates. The machine has a DRO fitted that is completely independent of the CNC and the accuracy is in the order of .02mm which is more than good enough for my purposes.

In your shoes I would certainly try gearing via a toothed belt as I know it works.

Regards.

David.

Ps I have no plans to alter the set up other than to fit belt guards.

Spark testing may help.

**LINK**

Regards.

David

A magnet is the obvious first thing but not all stainless is non magnetic.

Regards.

David

I'm told that the two Lancasters are flying over Gedling ( Nottingham) fair on Sunday at 4.00 or 4.30. I haven't been able to verify this but will probably head over there as it isn't very far.

Regards.

David.

Ian

They certainly are pretty flimsy things and I'm not sure that I'd want one anywhere that could be knocked. I have put 4 of them in our kitchen and they seem alright to me. My main reason for changing over to LED lights is the abysmal life span of a halogen. One batch of 10 bulbs lasted a little over 3 weeks in the fitting over my desk. Fortunately they were leftover from a job so I wasn't paying.

However I was only trying to point out that should anyone have a faulty one it may well yield a very nice compact low voltage light source.

Regards.

David.

Earlier this year I had a job that involved fitting 100 GU10 led spot lamps to a piece of scenery. whilst sliding the lamp unit in place one of them had the pins knocked off. I kept the damaged unit and filed it away. It surfaced last week during a clean up and I took it apart.

What I ended up with was a disc 43mm diameter by 10mm thick comprising a circuit board and a plastic lens. Running at 9V it draws 120ma and gives a very respectable light.

Whilst playing about with it I accidently connected it to the wrong side of my power supply which caused it to get so hot that it melted the solder on one of the leads. Miraculously it survived!

So should you come across one that is defunct it may be worth a play. We paid £4-00 each for them (in quantity).

Not sure if this will help anyone.

Regards David.