MadModder
Gallery, Projects and General => Project Logs => Topic started by: RotarySMP on January 26, 2020, 10:48:37 AM
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I got a mini-lathe from Artec (a German brand), about 10-15 years ago. It is the generic lathe made by SIEG, but branded and sold by every man and his dog. it was the only machine tool I had as we had an inner city apartment, and the lathe in the corner of the balcony was the machine shop.
http://wrathall.com/Interests/machining/My_shed.htm (http://wrathall.com/Interests/machining/My_shed.htm)
I did a lot of modding on it. Starting with the typical little stuff like swarf guard on the apron gears, and adding a carriage lock.
http://wrathall.com/Interests/machining/Carriage_lock.htm (http://wrathall.com/Interests/machining/Carriage_lock.htm)
Then on to some more extensive mods like the T-Slotted cross slide, which was very handy.
http://wrathall.com/Interests/machining/Carriage_lock.htm (http://wrathall.com/Interests/machining/Carriage_lock.htm)
It was quite quickly converted it to TurboCNC, which worked quite well. The canned cycles were really quite handy.
Since moving into a house with a basement machine shop, the 7x Minilathe has just lurked in the corner, except for being abused into turning wood on a couple of occasions.
I was never that happy with some of the harlf-arsed mods I did, and also got interested in doing a scraping project, so figured the little mini-lathe would be the perfect practice piece as it is nice and small and shouldnt take for ever.
Here is the first installment of the video log of re-modding it...
Mark
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I have made a fair bit of progress on the Minilathe.
Episode 2 - Still scraping
&t=1s
Episode 3 - Finishing the bed
Episode 4 -
&feature=youtu.be
Mark
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Great series of videos, I particularly like the 3D printed lathe dog, look forward to seeing how that works out for you.
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Thanks Joules. My first thoughts were machining a steel lathe dog on the MAHO, but the 3D printer provides a way faster solution, for a one off problem. On another forum someone was wondering whether that Lap would work 3D printed as well.
Mark
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Mmmm, many times I have used wooden internal laps, not sure I would trust the printed plastic direct, especially if it warmed up a bit. I have small bending rolls and would consider rolling a thin wall tube for cutting up, then epoxy the pieces to a 3D printed lap carrier. Get the best of both worlds, must give it a try. I recently started laser cutting fine emory paper and adding that to 3D printed profiles for polishing.
Regardless of all that, very much enjoying your journey with the Mini lathe.
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Thanks fo the encouragement. The whole video thing is much harder than I thought. Especially once you record yourself you find out how scatterbrained your thoughts are, and that rather than sounding like a TV announcer, you sound like a stoner :)
I need to make another lap for that test bar, and think it'll be a 3d print one and see if it is a complete or partial failure. Good point on the heat effects.
Mark
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My major worry on a printed lap is not getting the scraper action a metal lap will have to clear slurry. Find out in a few hours when the first test lap comes off the printer.
Well being stoned explains how you can keep scraping for so long :ddb:
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Scraping is kind of addictive. When is enough? when do you stop? it is all subjective, so you do "just one more pass" and then "just one more". Soon enough you arms and back are aching.
Mark
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Just tried out the plastic lathe dog. Worked very well.
Mark
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:thumbup:
Good news, another accessory added to the list of prints here.
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The fifth episode of this series is now up.
Mostly it covers making the #3 Morse test bar. Hope you enjoy it.
Mark
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I was out on a business trip and missed a week, but here is the 6th episode. Scraping in the head casting to align it to the bed. Went better than I expected, with one hiccup.
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Since the lathe bed was only as stiff as a wet noodle, I did a quick and dirty reinforcement.
Mark
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Interesting video Mark, do you plan to add a cover where the gap in the carriage exposes the ways. I see a path way for fine swarf getting under the saddle, but don't know how much clearance you have with the modified nut.
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I'm late to the show... Now I have videos to binge watch!
Eric
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Thanks Joules. My first thoughts were machining a steel lathe dog on the MAHO, but the 3D printer provides a way faster solution, for a one off problem.
Mark
Can you share the stl for the late dog, or post a picture, please?
Chuck
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Glad you are enjoying the series. I have attached the STL of the 20mm dog. The forum does not accept the extension .stl, so I renamed it to .txt, just save it and rename it back. The extra drive tab broke off when I used it.
Mark
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Why don't you add a third leg between the base plate and the lathe bed to improve stiffness?
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Thanks for watching the video. It would still need a stiff base plate. Making and fitting a third leg would be a lot of work. If I was going to do a lot more work on bed stiffness I would be more likely to bury it in a big block of epoxy granite.
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I was thinking on the lines of a simple block of steel or cast iron of suitable height bolted to the base plate and the gap between the bottom of the bed and the new leg filled with JB-weld or similar. A bit crude, but there will be some additional support to that thin span of bed without increasing the weight of the bed itself.
Epoxy granite would be good but you might be venturing into the zone where the minilathe is compromising your design rather than being a convenient skeleton for re-fleshing.
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Epoxy granite will get you in trouble with mis-matched thermal expansion!
Adding structure underneath and tying in with jb weld floated pads is a much better plan.
Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk
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I am not going to do anything more than bolt it down to that slab of steel. E/G was just theory for this one. Looking at the theory, differential expansion is not really an issue in my basement. The temp range is very limited.
I just uploaded episode 8.
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Here is episode 9...
I am trying to up the frequency and the quality at the same time. Hope you enjoy it.
Mark
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Here is episode 10 of this continuing saga... enjoy.
Mark
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Continuing to polish this turd, episode 11 covers the close fitting gib I made for it.
Mark
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In Episode 12, I'm using the LinuxCNC converted MAHO 400E to convert to tapered gibs on the saddle.
Mark
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Just uploaded episode 13...
Mark
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Now that the geometry of the main components has been corrected, we can move on to the motion hardware...
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Epispde 15 is now up, which covers the spindle motor, and has a bit of Maho slotting head action.
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I was too embarrassed by last weeks screw up to post a link to Episode 17...
but Episode 18 is back to normal.
Mark
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Hi guys. Episode 19 is up...
Happy fathers day in Austria,
Mark
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Hi All,
I just uploaded episode 20.
Mark
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Episode 21 is in Youtube,
Mark
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Episode 22 is now up.
Enjoy,
Mark
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Episode 23 is my challenge getting this old Gigabyte brix PC to load linux..
Mark
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Episode 24 deal with configuring the Mesa 7i96 ...
Mark
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Since my camera can do 4K video, I thought it would be good to celebrate the 25th episode in UHD. Bad mistake with a Gen 1 Zbook, and pretty slow DSL line. I took 8 hours to render the video, and another three to upload it. Back to HD 1080P for me.
Enjoy,
Mark
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Hi Guys, Here is episode 26. First motion is a nice milestone...
Mark
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Episode 27 is up...
Enjoy,
Mark
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Episode 28 is not up:
Enjoy,
Mark
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This week it is again more playing around with the Maho Mill...
Mark
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E30 is up. The first time I used tool offsets, including a crash due to my lack of uderstanding.
Enjoy,
Mark
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Episode 31 is up.
Mark
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I just noticed I forgot to link Episode 32:
&
I also just uploaded E33.
Mark
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This weeks effort contains more MAHO CNC work...
Mark
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Episode 35 again has a little Maho action...
Ark
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Episode 36 is now up...
Enjoy,
Mark
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The end in coming into sight...
Mark
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Hi Mark, love the build, I have in the past been able to do temporary repairs on older ribbon cables using the cores from solid conductor cat 5 cable . Soften the cable with a warm air gun, use a pin to create a hole above the conductor, and push the wire in with tweezers, however, this does not work on the newer super thin ribbon cables, but could you buy a ribbon cable connector, cut the cable right through, install it on the cut ends, and plug it back together?
Phil
UK
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Thanks Phil. It is a really tiny skinny cable. I have contacted Sunfounder about replacing the touch overlay, ribbin cable and all. They responded to ask for my order number, so I am awaiting a further response.
This weeks video is now up....
Mark
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Another super video Mark - showing that it's not only me who can cock things up!
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Hi Phil, I was pretty disappointed with my performance on that part for sure. Oh well, gives everyone a good laugh, and me something to learn from.
Mark
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I couldn't leave it as
Humanity 0 : Robot 1
Enjoy!