For anyone interested in doing the motor upgrade and pneumatic drawbar from Priest Tools. From the edge of the drawbar support plate to the column is 6.25”. The 3HP micro max motor needs about 6.5”. You’d need at minimum a 1” spacer to give a little belt adjustment but 2” or better would be best unless you want to do a tensioner instead. That’d be getting a little busy on top of the mill though.
Holy cow that's literally cutting it close! I'm surprised the piece didn't come out with that little contact. Looking forward to the Epoxy Granite update. I've been researching it for mine. I might just do it while converting to CNC.
That's actually going to be the first project I take on when I take the machine apart. I want to give it as much time as possible to cure while I work on upgrading all of the other components. I'm hoping it makes a noticable difference to the machine rigidity and surface finishes on parts
If you set your tolerance lower in the operation for the outside profile operation (in Fusion), you can get rid of the faceted effect the part has. Can't wait to see how much faster you can rough aluminum with the new motor. Would have made a huge difference on this part.
Yea I wasn't sure if the faceting was a product of tolerance or if it was due to backlash in the machine. Admittedly the machine is a little neglected in the gib adjusting and lubrication department haha. I unfortunately didn't see the faceting until the part was already out of the mill or I probably would have tried running the contour again with a lower tolerance.
Yea I would say for a homemade CNC machine it's really pretty good. Around the sides of the part there is a little strange light reflection that looks like faceting (I couldn't feel it and I didn't notice it until I was editing the video) and I haven't seen that finish before. Not sure if it was a tolerance setting in fusion, the fact that I was doing a 1.5" DOC or maybe my backlash is catching up to me. I have noticed that my X backlash is creeping up but I've been neglecting setting the gibs until after the upgrades. Overall real happy with the part and the customer definitely didn't complain
When I saw that part on IG I thought it was a new motor mount or something for your upgrade. It is really hard to take your only mill out of commission when you still have customer orders coming in. Maybe you need a second spindle :-) How do you set your WCS on a part like that? Do you still use the center of the part for XY?
I have been debating a new machine for a long long time. Basically just waiting until I move and get a proper shop so I have space for a real VMC next time. As for WCS, I used center of the stock for X/Y like you said for my OP1. For OP 2 I just used the center of the large through hole in the middle to make sure it was lined up correctly. Happy with how it came out
