CNC SIEG X2P Mill project with LinuxCNC

[davro]

Hi All

Though I would share my adventures of converting my SIEG-Super-X2P-HiTorque-Mill Please note I am a complete newbie to this machining business and never even used a milling machine before this one, treat me gentle ;)

So far I have bought a SIEG Mill and Lathe along with an average computer installed LinuxCNC. Bought a ParPort breakout board some 1.5 amp stepper motors and drivers and power supplies managed to wire it all up without blowing anything up (this still amazes me ;) balanced a monitor on top of the Mill and am playing around with GCode doing lines, squares, circles and such.

Currently I have the XY axis working and calibrated to a fashion and I am now looking into the Z axis, here is a list of videos on youtube documenting the build so far ...

Cheers

[mexican jon]

Looking Good

[awemawson]

Welcome.

You will probably find that if you hold your cutters in a 'normal' Jacob's type drill chuck that they tend to pull out so your Z position will sink. 

You need a collet chuck.

[davro]

Welcome.

You will probably find that if you hold your cutters in a 'normal' Jacob's type drill chuck that they tend to pull out so your Z position will sink. 

You need a collet chuck.

Cheers for the advice I really do appreciate it, I have a complete set of ER32 Collets with an R8 taper shank was using the chuck for holding a Sharpy Pen while I was playing with some GCode circles

[davro]

Finally got the milling machine up and running including the Z axis!

Had a very enjoyable day in the garage with Adam a very smart 10 year old learning gcode and doing are engineers dance called the Squid according to Adam

After checking out most of the tools in the garage, Adam would like and air compressor for Christmas lol

[SwarfnStuff]

Granddads and grandchildren can have good fun together. It's great to see your "little helper" in your workshop. I Doubt my 6yr old grandson would have the attention span needed yet. In fact I know he hasn't, being the outdoors type. An Air compressor? Amazing what takes their fancy.
Cheers,   
John B

[davro]

I was very surprised with Adam he has the patience of an old man and a very logical and practical mind even come up with the suggestion to use a piece of paper to find out if the Z axis had touched down.
 
I did cover over the plasma cutter but the air compressor provided great fun blowing his jumper up. I think he was sold when he found all air tools hanging up ;)

[davro]

Just a little update on the mill.

Upgraded the x,y motors to 180Ncm 6mm Shaft Hybrid Stepper motor's and drivers, also have put all the electronics and computer motherboard and drives into a nice strong proper electrical box that I rescued from a skip, not a mark on it looks like old three phase distrubution box the wiring needs some dressing and finishing.

Here is a test that went quite well, I was using the LinuxCNC import image functionality! I simply made an image in Gimp typed some text generated png file and then imported said png into LinuxCNC up pops a dialog box configure some basics, toolsize, depth ... and all the gcode is generated.

[davro]

[Brass_Machine]

So I just watched the last two videos in this thread. I have some questions and comments... I am going to back through the videos etc to see if I can find the answers, but, I will ask anyway in case I can't find them.

1. I see a (what appears to be) Locost 7 in the vid. Powered by a Hayabusa engine. Do you have a build thread or videos anywhere of the car? Would like to see more about it.
2. I also saw some CF headlight buckets. Did you fab those as well?
3. Anodizing setup... good stuff. One of these days, I would like to be able to do that... care to share more info about it?

Thanks!
Eric

[davro]

So I just watched the last two videos in this thread. I have some questions and comments... I am going to back through the videos etc to see if I can find the answers, but, I will ask anyway in case I can't find them.

1. I see a (what appears to be) Locost 7 in the vid. Powered by a Hayabusa engine. Do you have a build thread or videos anywhere of the car? Would like to see more about it.
2. I also saw some CF headlight buckets. Did you fab those as well?
3. Anodizing setup... good stuff. One of these days, I would like to be able to do that... care to share more info about it?

Thanks!
Eric

Hi Eric,

I don't have any videos of the build only some pictures but it's going to be completely rebuilt in the near future as I would like to have the chassis media cleaned and powder coated again as the old power coat was poor quality and I have a few chassis modification planned, the car is a Dax Rush MC (motor cycle frame round tube) with camber compensation on the front end, you can see the inner workings below (hopefully)


The car has a lot of pure carbon fiber parts (no glass fiber) on it now all moulds and parts home made in my little workshop, I made the headlight bodies from scratch made the mould from the original pattern. then the layed up the carbon fiber and infused with epoxy resin, then I decided to test my airbrushing skills with a little design.

I post most of my carbon fiber projects/antics on talkcomposites http://www.talkcomposites.com/10707/Body-Package-for-Dax-Rush-with-Side-Intrusion-Bars
Recently made a carbon fiber accelerator pedal that came out quite nice, I really need to finish the carbon fiber clutch brake pedal soon, I needed a lathe to machine some parts and now I have a mini lathe so I can finish that project.

Anodizing setup I am only just learning about this process but really pleased with the results so far, the setup I have is basically this.
) Regulated power supply, http://www.circuitspecialists.eu/power-supplies/bench-power-supplies/fixed-dual-output-bench-power-supply-csi-3005x5/
) Anodising dyes Blue/Black/Red from http://gaterosplating.co.uk/Anodising-Dyes.php
) Etching powdered that I have not used yet ...
) Aluminum Welding wire to connected the part to the power supply in the acid.
) Battery acid from http://www.amazon.co.uk/BATTERY-Electrolyte-Batteries-motorbike-SULPHURIC/dp/B00NMKSZGG
I am just acid etching the parts at the moment in a 50/50 acid bath and then placing in the dyes for about half an hour after that sealing the part in boiling solution for about an hour. I am going to be testing the new etching solution I have from gaterosplating, I think this will give me a much darker colours ...

[davro]

Small project on the CNC Mini Mill, directly milling a mould into some plywood offcuts painting with a gelcoat re milling using Fusion360, then making carbon fibre products using resin infusion ...

[Brass_Machine]

David,

The videos are pretty cool. Very interesting... I see there are a few more videos from the last time I looked. Please, post some more here with them.

Eric

[daGrouch]

I am jealous. 
I tried to setup LinuxCNC but when I get to setting up HAL I have to go lay down for awhile.  I am so NOT Linux-centric.

Maybe I should post and beg for some hand holding.

[davro]

daGrouch, I have quite a bit of Linux server experience, but all of my configuration was done with the Stepper Configuration Wizard http://linuxcnc.org/docs/html/config/stepconf.html including the Parallel Port Setup configuration the hardest part was selecting the right dropdown box to setup the limit switches as limits switches and homing switches and setting up the x,y,z travel limits.

My milling machine is quite basic at the moment, just X,Y,Z axis with limits and homing, no spindle control yet!
have not done any fancy hal stuff yet ...

[PK]

Linux CNC isn't too bad. But it does help if you have an IT background.
Here's one I prepared earlier.