One thing leads to another...

[EdK]

(08-22-2015, 07:48 AM)Pete O Wrote: ...
I did manage to run the machine this afternoon enough to convert one of my crossfeed nuts into a paper weight. My first ever milling project was to ruin my first ever internal acme threading project! Thankfully I threaded two blanks while I had the lathe set up so I still have one more to ruin.

You've got a ways to catch up to me. I trashed three before I got a good one. Then the fifth one was easy.

Ed

[Pete O]

You won't believe how I stuffed up the nut. I realised late last night that I had put the feed dials for the x and z axis back in the wrong places when I was cleaning things up (didn't even consider at the time that the dials are different), so I have a 0-125 dial on a 5tpi knee lift and a 0-200 dial on a 8tpi x-axis screw. Took me ages to figure out where I had gone wrong to make what was supposed to be a .500 step, about .62something before I even took the finish cut

I had both pieces in the vice, I'm glad I decided to do one at a time. Was the last operation on the piece.

[Pete O]

Another update; the contactor issue is sorted. I caught up today with my friend who designed the phase converter and supplied me with the components. I described the contactor issue to him and he said it sounded like the solenoid was running on the phantom phase, suggested I swap the feed wires around, rotating positions so I don't reverse the motor. Did that and Voila! the machine starts and runs exactly as it should, with the exception that it is slow to spin up in top gear. Also there is another minor issue in that the 'inch' switch, which is a momentary switch used for lining up the teeth when changing gears, now functions as a start switch rather than an inch switch. Nothing that I can't live with, and another friend who is a sparky with motor-control experience is coming to use my workshop next week so will get him to sort it.
Anyway, I got the machining done on my last feednut blank this afternoon, one minor glitch there too, the mounting tab ended up .003 oversize and is that much too thick to go into it's slot, will scrape it by hand and hopefully fit it up tomorrow. I've a lot to learn about this milling business.

[dallen]

nice that you got the contactor issue sorted out so easy


The make files and sand paper for little things like .003