Introductions - Ian Paterson

[sirotcipateb]

Hi My name is Ian and I've owned a Chinese mini lathe and CNC-converted mini mill since 2007. I have quite a bit of scrap metal and not much money or time to throw at my hobby, so most of the tooling on my "wish list"  is stuff I'd like to make one day ;-)

My most recent project has been a set of tapered saddle gibs for my 7x12 lathe which required a combination of manual and CNC work. During that project, I came up with a handy spreadsheet to calculate chip thinning from speed, feed, bit size, etc. If anyone is interested in that let me know and I can post it. Photos of the project can be seen here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/1Ck2QK7CsRD4jSXE7

...And here's a link to my website with some older projects:

http://www.ianpaterson.org/projects/index.htm 

I'm glad to be on this group and I'm looking forward to hearing from other machinists in Victoria!

Ian

 

[Admin]

hey Ian, welcome aboard!

[Ian Paterson]

Hi Everyone,

On this, the longest night of the year, I'd like to thank Mat for setting up this group and all our members for sharing projects, advice and stories. I think it's becoming an interesting little group and I always look forward to seeing new posts in my inbox. I think we can all agree that 2020 has been a pretty freakin' weird and challenging year, but for me at least, the Victoria Hobby Machinists group has provided some respite from all that.

I'd like to send out my best wishes to all our members: May your machines provide enough torque, your fixtures provide enough rigidity and your instruments provide enough accuracy. May these dark nights be free from excessive runout, backlash and chatter, and may the coolant and ideas flow freely. Finally, I hope everyone is doing ok and I wish you all the best holiday season possible given the circumstances, regardless of what alloy you've chosen to work with.

Ian

On Tuesday, 14 July 2020 at 09:17:06 UTC-7 Admin wrote:

hey Ian, welcome aboard!

[Admin]

Hey Ian, you beat me to it! Thank you for the great post .. I agree that the group turned out to be more than I ever expected and I'm glad the like-minded found a place to share ideas and ask questions .. I'm very excited to finally put some names to faces when our situation has changed and we can do shop meet'n'greets and really get to know each other (and by that I mean, envy each other's machine tools, or gloat about our own ;) .. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone reading and here's to hoping 2021 will bring normalcy back along with plenty new tools and tooling of course ..

cheers

mat

[David Wrate]

Indeed! 

My thanks and best wishes to everyone as we draw 2020 to a close. 

Perhaps in 2021 we can finally do some shop tours!

David

On Dec 21, 2020, at 12:37 PM, Admin <mathis....@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Geoff Robson]

Hear Hear!!

I may not be the most active member or contributor - but I do read just about every post...  

Thanks everyone - glad to be a part of the group!

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[Rory Brown]

Thanks very much to everyone.  I also read every post and have yet to find one that I did not find interesting.  This was a great idea Mat.  Thank you for taking the initiative and talking me into signing up.  To you and everyone else All the best of the Christmas season!

Rory

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[Admin]

Ian, did you document your CNC conversion someplace? I Have a Craftex CX601 and am just starting to toy with the idea of CNC-ing it .. I don't even know where to start with that process however .. do you have a good "trailhead" where to start from?

Merry Christmas!

[Ian Paterson]

Hi Mat,

Sorry, I haven't checked the group lately because Christmas :-).

I documented my CNC conversion only as far as making a folder where I dumped various PDFs, notes with URLs and some photos. The specifics won't be too relevant for you though because your machine is different. The technology available to people doing homebrew CNC conversions has improved since I did my conversion and I would encourage you to aim for the more recent developments if at all possible. Definitely stay away from anything that uses a PC's parallel port - that's now obsolete IMO. Instead look for a dedicated motion controller that takes the task of interpreting G-code and sending timed pulses away from the computer. Such devices usually communicate wtih the PC via ethernet or USB. I personally use a Xulifeng USB motion controller but there are lots of other (likely better) devices available these days. This Old Tony used Ethercat controllers for his Maho CNC conversion and they seem like a Cadillac option if you can afford them. Another thing that's coming within reach of the home user is closed loop steppers and servos. Marco Reps has several Youtube videos about those on his channel. For the mechanical side of things, you might want to look for a CNC conversion kit for your machine. I presume your mill is a Busy-Bee branded version of some ubiquitous Chinese mill that's also sold by Grizzly and a bunch of other vendors. If so, then there must be a conversion kit that comes with mounting hardware, ball screws, ball nuts, drive couplings, etc. Some kits may also offer motors and some may not, but either way, a conversion kit will save you a lot of work because screw size, ball nut location, mounting brackets, etc have already been figured out for you.

I'm afraid I don't have a good "getting started" URL that I can point you to, but I can offer some points & tips

• Stay away from parallel ports and anything that requires your PC to send timed pulses to the drivers. PCs aren't designed for  real-time jobs like that and there are lots of boards available now that take that task away from the PC.
• Go for the latest technology if possible such as dedicated motion controllers, closed loop servos/steppers and look into Ethercat controllers. Watch Youtube videos by Marco Reps and This Old Tony's Maho CNC conversion
• To save yourself a lot of work, try to find a conversion kit for your type of mill. The ball screws, ball nuts, couplings, etc shouldn't be affected too much by what type of electronics you decide on.
• Decide whether you're going to use Windows or Linux after you've settled on the motion controller you want to use. My controller for example, only works with Mach 3 in Windows, so that's what I had to go with.
• Do some online searches for others who have converted your type of mill, but be aware of how long ago they did it because the technology is changing rapidly.
• Say goodbye to the simplicity of walking up to your mill for a quick job. CNC adds a huge layer of abstraction between your idea and the metal you want to work with.

Finally, I'm happy to try to answer any questions you may have along the way, but please be aware that I'm not a pro. If you want to have a phone chat, email me and I'll send you my phone number.

Ian

[Alex Kunadze]

Hi folks,

I'll throw my 2 cents in, since I have basically the same mill (King
KC-20VS) and am in the middle of CNC conversion. I'm only at the point
of fabricating mounting brackets and bench-testing steppers and
software, so most of the information below is theoretical only at this
point.

CX601 is basically a clone of BF20, which is known by many names and
brands, most notably Grizzly G0704 and Precision Mathews PM30V. If you
search the net for "G0704 CNC" you'll find an ocean of information and
full or partial conversion kits. There's also a huge thread on
cnczone.com about an early conversion by Daniel Kemp (AKA
hossmachine). He also has a site about it:
http://www.migration.g0704.com/ He sells a DVD with all the info,
which I bought, but it is really just a collection of all the pics and
prints that are already available on his site or cnczone, so not much
point in it besides convenience. There are a million other threads
about these conversions, you can easily spend a year reading through
all of that :)

I got the ballscrews and motors from here:
https://www.automationtechnologiesinc.com/products-page/g0704-bf20-pm25mv-x2-x3-kit
I opted not to get the mounting brackets. They seemed a bit too
expensive, but would definitely save you time.
As Ian mentioned, there are better options for motors nowadays. Don't
know much about closed loop steppers. They seem to be regular steppers
with encoders on the back, theoretically giving you protection from
lost steps, but it seems to be a half-assed solution. Then there are
Clearpath servos, which are great and easy to use, by all accounts,
but fairly expensive. All depends on how much cash you're willing to
throw at it.

As for electronics, I do not trust Windows, especially coupled with
parallel port signaling. MACH3 seems to be an old tried-and-true
program, but it feels archaic to me. MACH4 was supposed to be a modern
replacement, but by all accounts it seems to be buggy and unreliable.
So I've opted to go with Linux CNC. It's a lot less user friendly than
MACH3/4, but it is free and widely used. It is also the basis for
Tormach PathPilot, which is a really solid endorsement. In fact, I
bought a copy of PathPilot (which is technically free, since it's
based on LinuxCNC) and intend to switch to it eventually, coupled with
a Mesa card for signal generation, but I want to get the machine
running with a parallel port first.

Ian raised an interesting point that once you do the conversion you
lose the ability to use it in manual mode. Having done a BF30 mill
conversion at Victoria Makerspace, I can attest to that. We were
hoping to retain manual functionality, keeping the handwheels attached
in parallel with the motors. Alas, the steppers turned out to be the
problem in that equation. When powered down, the magnets in the motors
only allow you to move the handles in 1.8 degrees increments, which
makes it impossible to achieve any sort of precision. It can be
overcome by mechanically decoupling the motors, perhaps a clutch of
some sort, but that's a difficult proposition. Don't know if servos
would have the same problem. Another half-solution is "conversational
CNC", PathPilot being a good example of that. It's a way to tell the
CNC software to perform simple operations without having to create a
full-blown CAD model and associated CAM toolpaths. You can tell it,
for instance, to mill a rectangle with given dimensions and feeds and
speeds by punching in appropriate values in a dialog box. I've never
tried that in practice, but I'm hopeful that capability will make it
easier to live without manual operation.

Anyways, happy surfing. Let me know if I can help with anything.

Cheers,
Alex.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/victoria-hobby-machinists/28ec5bbd-1440-4dc7-9190-54fd678c28cen%40googlegroups.com.

[Ian Paterson]

I was just browsing CNC hardware on Banggood, and it seems like dedicated CNC motion controllers are the norm now, so there's lots to choose from and parallel port control is effectively obsolete and dead. From what I've seen so far on Banggood,  you can get standalone controllers which don't need a PC, Mach 3 controllers, Mach 4 controllers and GRBL controllers. The Mach 3 and Mach 4 options rely on proprietary Windows software, while GRBL is open source I believe. So far, I haven't found anything on Banggood that uses Linux CNC. I think it's important to consider obsolescence when choosing a CNC setup because you probably want your machine to serve you longer than a typical PC lasts and the cheap brands sold on Banggood have questionable post-sales support and I wouldn't even count on them being in business several years down the road. For this reason, I think I tend to favor standalone units or controllers that are compatible with open source software.

On a tangential topic.... I've had my Mini Mill running as a CNC machine for almost 7 years now and I have yet to start using any kind of CAD or CAM software. I'm still just writing short G-code programs in Notepad and running them with Mach 3. Does anyone have recommendations for CAD or CAM software, preferably open source?

[David Wrate]

FreeCAD gets good reviews as far as I know. Can’t speak to CAM as I do everything in Fusion360.

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[Ian Paterson]

Thanks David, FreeCAD seems like my best bet for open source CAD, but the development seems slow. FreeCAD has been around for 18 years, yet its current version is 0.18 which usually means beta software. I'm not a pro though, so maybe I can put up with beta idiosyncrasies. Another option that piqued my interest is OpenSCAD (https://openscad.org/), but the modeler is text-based, so you have to write code in order to design something.

Regarding CAM, I'm still unsure of the best option. A quick Google search reveals this Reddit post (https://www.reddit.com/r/CNC/comments/aizatc/free_and_open_source_camcnc_software/), but I haven't looked into any of them yet.

For other group members who use CNC: What CAD/CAM are you using? Is anyone using conversational CNC?

Ian

[Alex Kunadze]

This may be an obvious question, but why not use Fusion360? There's
really not much choice if you want a solid CAD/CAM package for free.

Opensource is really the wrong model for CAD/CAM software. The effort
to produce even a half-way decent package is stupendous, and the
audience is very niche. When there's already a very usable free-to-use
package out there it doesn't make sense to make the effort.

Cheers,
Alex.

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[David Wrate]

I have to agree with Alex. F360 is completely seamless. I drew up a simple model last night, did the CAM and had a g-code file in five minutes.
I’m using Openbuilds controller software for my Arduino/GRBL board and it works perfectly.

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[Ian Paterson]

Alex & David, you both raise a very valid point. My reasons for favoring open source or standalone solutions are based on philosophical principles that I'm stubbornly trying to uphold. I've worked in the field of IT since the mid '90s and I'm just not comfortable with the cloud based "software as a service" model that we see today. The free version of Fusion 360 has some restrictions on how you store and export models as well as preventing the use of rapids when sending to your CNC machine. Also, Autodesk is free to change their policies and has done so in the past. I guess I don't want to be tied to a proprietary platform which may limit how I can use my designs or where the developer could impose unexpected restrictions in the future.

The following video talks about some changes that Autodesk made to the free version of Fusion 360 in 2020:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlnEThQ4HR8&ab_channel=Maker%27sMuse

If I had anything more than just a casual need for 3d CAD or CAM software, I'm sure I would feel different about it though.

Ian

[David Wrate]

I totally hear and support your principles Ian. I’m an open access/FOSS advocate also. 

My challenge is that as a complete novice I cannot navigate the open source CAD applications I’ve tried. 

I think maybe once I’m more skilled that I’d be able to climb the learning curve more easily.

D

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[Ian Paterson]

Hi Everyone,

Well, the longest night is upon us again and I'd like to wish everyone good health, connection with those who matter to you, and inspiration in whatever form that may take.

I'm really glad to be a part of this group and want to thank everyone for their contributions. Thanks also to Mat for bringing us all together!  Hobby machining is an interest that none of my friends or family share, so it's nice to find a community of enthusiasts right here in my own city.

Happy Solstice Everyone!

Ian

[David Wrate]

Well the best of the season to you and yours!

David

On Dec 21, 2021, at 1:26 PM, Ian Paterson <ipat...@dominionblue.com> wrote:

Hi Everyone,

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[Mat Stoeckle]

Hey Ian and the rest, 

Merry Christmas to all of you and hopefully we can visit each other’s shops in 2023! I am certainly looking forward to seeing what you guys are up to!

cheers

mat

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[Rory Brown]

The longest night is probably most appropriate for me, because most of what I do is figuratively in the dark anyway.  I must confess that over that past 4 or 5 years I have gained a tremendous amount of respect for machinists.  I am a retired Biologist and have only recently become interested in machine work.  I’ve managed to accumulate some machines by restoring and reselling old  Canadiana (mostly lathes, drill presses and bandsaws) and then reselling them, putting the proceeds towards upgrading my collection of tools.  I have learned a lot, but the more that I learn, the more I realize that I don’t know.  I am grateful to Matt for inviting me to join this group and all of interesting material that is posted by it’s members.

I hope that everyone here has a safe, healthy and happy holiday and look forward to your posts in 2022.

Rory

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[Alex Kunadze]

"...hopefully we can visit each other’s shops in 2023" - this wish is
becoming a New Year's tradition :)

Merry Xmass everyone!

Cheers,
Alex.

> To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/victoria-hobby-machinists/63F1B6FB-007A-4A98-B6BC-A6F0486E63B4%40gmail.com.

[Chris Luginbuhl]

Hello everyone,

  I wanted to write an introduction and figured I'd resurrect an old thread rather than start a new one. 

 

 I'm glad I find this group. Thanks to Mat and all of you for sharing your knowledge.

  I am not a machinist, but did a lot of machining, mostly making medical device prototypes. Got to equip a couple of shops for work, manual and CNC.

  I don't have any big machines at the moment (nowhere to put them if I did), but I have a Shapeoko CNC router which can do aluminium if you're careful and a 3D printer which can do polycarbonate. At the moment I've been doing a lot of sewing, both clothing and technical stuff for bikes, boats, camping etc. 

   Anyway glad to be connected with all of you. Hoping one of these days I'll have my garage of dreams (the kind that has a mill and lathe). And maybe we'll be able to connect in person one of these days.

All the best,

Chris Luginbuhl

[David Wrate]

Welcome Chris, I’m just about finished building a PrintNC CNC router.

[Ian Paterson]

Hi Chris, It's nice to have you on board! I think your skill set will be a welcome addition to the group.

Ian

[Ian Paterson]

Hi Everyone,

...And here we are again. After tonight, daylight will slowly start to seem less scarce, but for now, I hope you're all managing to bring a little light into your workspaces for fun, creative expression, respite, or whatever floats your boat.

Happy Solstice everyone!

Ian

[roryn...@gmail.com]

Nice candle Ian.  Best of the season to you too.  Watch those metal cuttings.  The last time I brought some into the house, my wife stepped on a tiny metal filing and had to get a doctor to get it out of her foot.