Member postings for simon Hewitt 1

Does anyone know what this micrometer measures?

It's a Moore & Wright No 973 3T,

and says 1/16" - ½" on the anvil

What is this? Some sort of tapping head for sure. Both taps revolve at the same speed and direction when its rotated, and the arm sticking out must be to stop rotation of the head. But why the strange flange drive? How would it be driven into and out of the work? There is no longitudinal movement anywhere so the feed must be at the same rate as the thread advances. Manufacturer is 'Bush Newark', Coventry. It seems very nicely made. Not sure I can think of a use for it!

Thanks

Simon

In fact, looking at the lathes site, mine is the K.1.A series 2 on page 2 here

What a great illustration. Mine is newer than that with the motor behind the column and modern style multi-sized V pulley, but the main column and the table adjust are exactly the same.

Chinese balls screws are remarkably cheap and I have a windscreen washer motor that will probably do, I will post a photo when complete.

Thanks Chris Evans - I think I will go this route. The screw is almost exactly 1 M long, and as you say, pitch is not critical, it just has two bevel gears and a winding handle. I am tempted to go for a ball screw and lead, and an electric motor, with an up/down switch, just for fun. Also I am not certain it is an Acme thread, looks like a square thread, but its difficult to see clearly until I pull it out. And it weighs a lot!, must be > 150kg.

Does anyone know where I could get a ¾" 4TPI lead screw nut? Outside dimensions not important, its to fit an old pillar drill, the table lift is by lead screw and it has stripped out the thread in the table carrier. Thanks

Simon

Does anyone know where I can get 4BA half-nuts, one size smaller?

I can get one-size-smaller, and I can get half nuts, but not both at once.

Thanks

Simon H.

$89 plus shipping and possibly import duty is a bit steep, I do like the idea of a quartz mechanism driving a slotted disc with an optocoupler, i may even do this for the heath-robinson value. It seems to have some sort of hour synchronisation mechanism. It has 3 wires, and it looks like the black-red drive it normally with a 1 minute pulse, but as the hour ticks over, a snail cam moves a switch such that it can only be driven by the white-black pair. I am guessing that this pair are active (with 1-minute pulses) from teh hour, for say 10 minutes. So any clock that is out of time will tick normally out of time until the hour is passed, then will stay still until this white-black pair start up on the hour, and this has to carry on long enough for the snail-cam switch to move back to the red-black contacts.

Thinking as I type - i don't need this, I just set the time and leave it.

Does anyone know the volts used? It looks like low voltage, maybe 12? I will start out with a box of AA cells and a switch and see how I get on.

Thanks

Thanks for your replies. I have got a quartz movement, but I like the idea from Mark Rand, and if its a pulse every minute a 555 and a relay may be enough. Do any of you know what supply it needs? There are 3 wires, I am guessing 2 supply and one signal, is it 240V or something else (110V as IBM is US? 48 V for telephone exchange use?) And any guess at the age? The case is plywood and it looks maybe early 60s to me. I don't think Antiques Roadshow will have much interest, but its a nice piece of industrial history.

Thanks again, Simon

Hello all

Can anyone tell me anything about this clock mechanism? Is it useable? I think it will look great in my workshop.

Simon.

The black barrel on the left is spring-loaded, with a simple moving pointer that lines up with a fixed pointer to provide a repeatable force. I don't think the movement is necessarily enough to accommodate particularly elastic material. On the end of this barrel, it does say 'made to NPL design', so yes it is as per the specification from Robert above.

I don't think the posts are to suspend the work as they are not central, both are 'behind' the barrel for right-hand use. Lightning conductors seems more likely, I will try outside with a calibration piece next time we have a thunderstorm.

attempt 2:

I am nearly out of the solvent given to me by a Southern Electric engineer some time go called Kem-Safe. I am not sure how safe it really is! What solvents do you use and recommend? For general workshop use, cleaning marker blue, cutting oil, grease, general use?

Simon.

John Haine:

I am building a CNC with Mach4 and UC300. So far I have the software installed, with the same problems listed above, you have to tick UC300 plugin before it is visible as a motion controller. No further yet, at present I am soldering up all the cables, should be ready to get an axis to move this weekend.

So far Mach4 looks 'nicer' . My main reason is I hate VB and want to learn Lua!

A bit late, here is the drill complete, an in regular use. It works very well but lacking a bot of torque at low speeds for large drills. There is just one pair of step pulleys, and the lowest ratio is not quite low enough. There is space for a 3 pulley system, maybe a future project.

(Cannot add new photo just added to my gallery?)

Edited By simon Hewitt 1 on 28/10/2018 10:01:03

Edited By simon Hewitt 1 on 28/10/2018 10:01:54

Edited By simon Hewitt 1 on 28/10/2018 10:03:51

Thanks for all the helpful comments. I am using a motion controller, the UC100, and use of W7 laptops is widespread with an external motion controller. I have taken it to bits, and think it MAY be because I overtightened the Z gibbs, causing the motor to stall and the motor driver to trip – but this does not really explain the chaos. Anyway, I have decided to replace the lead screws with ball screws, and upgrade to a UC400ETH, in the hope that Ethernet is less noise prone than USB. It’s an interesting project anyway, I will report back in a few weeks.

UCCNC looks good, and I have all CNC4U hardware, motion control and driver. Any other experience of UCCNC?

I did not follow his series at the time, but I will read them now, they are all n a pile on the bedroom floor. Not sure if its 32 or 64 bit, I will check. Thanks for that!

My CNC Mill has a fault and I am looking for any suggestions or ideas.
Symptoms:
Mach 3 on Windows 7, HP Laptop
USB to UCX100 and MyCNC HG08 motor controller
Mostly clicking and typing into Mach3, and also fine jogging with a
wireless MPG.
"ref all home", then G28 to place near the centre.
G54 then G0 X0Y0 puts the cutter above the centre of my job, and then X30 to put cutter above the actual cut surface
Move Z down and jog till its about 3 mm above the cutting surface, then jog up until a
4mm ground spacer fits under the cutter, and thentype 4 into Z.
Now XYZ are set to zero in the centre and top surface of the job, all sweet so far.
Z50 to get the cutter clear (there is a central bolt holding everything in place, clear that)
now pay attention please:
In the MDI line, I type G0 X30. Table starts the X move AND the head shoots up (Z), faster than normal 'fast',
then the motor fault switch on one of the driver units trips and stops mach3.
I have to switch off and reboot to recover.
I can jog with the MPG and type into MDI line to move all over the place without problem, but
repeat the setup and it mostly goes wong - i.e. its only when the cutter is down to about 40mm above the table
that the problem occurs. And only when entering G0 X0.

So any ideas gratefully received!
The mill is a Champion 20V, the whole head moves up/down, fixed knee.
I bought it (used) a few weeks ago and have made several jobs without problems
(well many newbie errors, but all explainable), this fault is new.
Damp?
crosstalk?

Thanks!
Simon

Any advice on what size? home or 'trade' kits with disposable cylinders are quite reasonable and very portable, but the replacement cylinders are £18.50 each (on one web site). How long would they last? And how hard to use a 9KG Propane bottle?