MadModder

It occurred to me that if I were to loose the X=0 Y=0 setting on the machine that determine the centre of the circle for those bolt holes it wouldn't be easy to re-establish it - unlikely as the machine control maintains them, but better safe than sorry so I need a feature that I can get the probe at (as the plate edges are too close to limits for the probe to work)

So this mornings fill in job while waiting for the postman was a nice and simple task - bore a 25 mm hole 20 mm deep accurately on the centre as previously established

Apart from checking that the loaded 22 mm slot drill WAS centre cutting, and that it's Z offset was correct - dead easy. So now if we have a power glitch etc I can get back to where we are now. Probably always sensible to incorporate some such feature in a part - even a spoil board !

At long last I've been able to get a bit of time to return to this project. Life (or rather death) had got in the way. Sadly one of my long term flat tenants died suddenly leaving rather a mess to sort out, shame as he was a nice chap and very reliable (but his next of kin is in Panama!) and another problem tenant left again leaving a horrible mess. It all takes time, and not an inconsiderable amount of dosh to sort out.

However today I did actually manage to knock up a little G code program to surface the 'spoil board' and then sort out the CNC mill to mount it and machine it. The material is some very gummy aluminium alloy that I can't seem to get a good surface on, but that's OK it isn't particularly critical so long as it is flat.

The spoil board at 300 x 330 mm is pretty much the largest object that I can mount and work on with a 50 mm face mill without running into the limits set on the machine. In deed to find the centre I would normally use the Heidenhain probe, picking up each edge, lie to it to say that it was circular, and use the centre as X=0 Y=0, but the probe can't go far enough past the edge to work, so it was an eyeball job!

I used my Mitee-Bit clamps to edge hold it as the machining had to run off all edges, but first I hand filed the 'nasties' that have accumulated over the years, removed the heavy Kurt vice, and had a detour / diversion mining in the swarf to rescue the Allen Key and Tee nut that I managed to drop in there This plate was a test sample I was given literally decades ago and it has at times had to live outside

No more  playtime as it's guest check out / check in time

Yes Dave, it does beat the alternative!!!! good luck with the operation.

john

Hi Stew!
 Still around. Not very productive, at the moment.
Waiting for the weather to sort itself out. And, allow me to, "get out there", again....

Hope all is well, with you and your's.

Thanks Andrew....