A thread for new owners of these machines to post in.
Nicola Casali | 22/05/2021 15:59:09 |
33 forum posts 6 photos | Sorry, I was referring to https://youtu.be/HWVk5nqtSXc I just realised I used F360 for the flanges. I may have attempted Aspire first. The stock is 6.35mm. I was using a 1mm stepdown with a 4 flute endmill. I'll try your suggestions, as I need to make 3 more. Great!
Edited By Nicola Casali on 22/05/2021 16:00:45 |
JasonB | 22/05/2021 16:08:20 |
![]() Moderator 22602 forum posts 2643 photos 1 articles | Ah that was one of the first things that I did when I got the KX3 and was still learning. This one from from a couple of months ago has a 4mm cutter moving at 300mm/min twice the speed of that 6mm one. |
Nicola Casali | 22/05/2021 16:16:44 |
33 forum posts 6 photos | I've tried tabs, but got some nasty vibrations with my non-centre cutting endmills. I don't think it's ramping into those tabs, for some reason. I tried triangular ones. Edited By Nicola Casali on 22/05/2021 16:17:48 |
JasonB | 22/05/2021 16:22:50 |
![]() Moderator 22602 forum posts 2643 photos 1 articles | Thats another reason for doing it the way I tend to as the tabs can cause a bit of chatter and are the limiting factor when it come sto feed though the triangular ones are better and ramp speed can be set to less than cutting speed. You should be able to do your parts the full 1/4" depth with 0.75 to 1mm stepover on the 2D adaptive, say 4500rpm and 300mm/min if 3-flute, 400mm/min if 4 flute. You can always over ride the speed if it sounds happy and try a bit faster |
JasonB | 23/05/2021 17:16:33 |
![]() Moderator 22602 forum posts 2643 photos 1 articles | With another member making tentative steps towards CNC cutting a conrod and recent talk of adaptive and contour cuts I made this video of this mornings efforts. It's the conrod for the 11cc Wall engine I have been working on, some manual work had already been done machining up the two halves bolting together which also entailed reducing the rod width so that counterbored could be drilled for the cap head screws which have to go in from the small end and the two holes had also been drilled and reamed. When doing the CAM I also picked up on the two diameters and used them to locate some holes to drill the scrap used to hold the part at the correct spacing and subsequently tapped these by hand with a 3mm spiral flute tap. Using some top hat bushes the blank was secured ready for machining. First an adaptive to remove the majority of the waste then a contour to do the outer shape. Followed this with a radius corner cutter to form the two bosses and then a 3mm ball nose for the recess in the side of the rod. at 6.08 in you can hear the sound of the cut change as a bit of ali welded onto the tool as it took a full width cut so a quick reduction in feed and a dab more paraffin just managed to save the day, the other side cut fine using the slower rate from the start. Full details of cutters/feeds/DOC etc in video description. |
JasonB | 16/10/2021 19:01:23 |
![]() Moderator 22602 forum posts 2643 photos 1 articles | One of the members of MEM forum has just upgraded his machine to a 1.1Kw teknomotor HFspindle and posted some test cuts with it, I queried the 18,000rpm that he was running the HSS cutter at and an interesting discussion about HSS/Carbide and various feeds and cuts followed. You will need to register to see most of the images which are posted as attachments if you are not already a member This lead me to sacrifice a bit of 6082 to see how quickly I could convert it into a pile of chips. |
Ron Laden | 17/10/2021 10:11:44 |
![]() 2297 forum posts 452 photos | Wow Jason those feed rates are impressive, at the 1000mm/min blink and you would miss it plus the surface finish looked very good to me. Ron |
Martin Connelly | 17/10/2021 12:02:08 |
![]() 2125 forum posts 222 photos | I was trying to cut a simple step with a Little Hogger in some aluminium at 500mm/min and Mach3 detected a fault and stopped. Reset it and tried 400 then 300 then 200 and it kept stopping. Thought something was overloading the machine but finally traced it to a dodgy wire on a limit switch being upset with the vibrations. I fixed it and finally cut the step. The first time you set up something at these high rates makes you a bit twitchy but is satisfying when it works. I have not tried 1000mm/min as I am not sure my top speed is set to go that high. Martin C |
JasonB | 17/10/2021 13:05:33 |
![]() Moderator 22602 forum posts 2643 photos 1 articles | I can understand the vibrations with a little hogger being 2-insert and negative rake, there will be a lot more of an interrupted cut than a 3-flute cutter with the 55deg helix angle as that is engaged in the work for a lot longer per rotation. I've even noticed it of the 2 insert APKT holder. |
JasonB | 27/10/2021 18:23:15 |
![]() Moderator 22602 forum posts 2643 photos 1 articles | I had a pressing little job for another forum member that needed cutting from some 20mm thick EN3 steel so thought I would have a play with the feed rates. The cutter is once again a 6mm 3-flute carbide one this time made by New Century which is YG-!'s Chinese factory and it has had quite a lot of previous use on steel and iron. I have attached their speed and feed chart but as the first set of figures is for carbon and alloyed steels upto 1000Nm and I was only cutting a low carbon steel I upped the spindle speed to 5000rpm and also increased Ae (sideways feed) to 0.1D or 0.6mm. Ap (height of cut) was 5.5mm which suited the 20mm thick workpiece giving 4 passes with the tool finishing below the bottom of the work piece.
Can you tell what it is yet? |
JasonB | 27/11/2021 19:14:23 |
![]() Moderator 22602 forum posts 2643 photos 1 articles | A bit more peeling steel this week.
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Ian Johnson 1 | 27/11/2021 23:48:30 |
370 forum posts 102 photos | The cylinder is impressive Jason, it's a big ask of a small diameter cutter to get a good finish that deep, especially on steel. I might try out my KX1 and see what it can do, it's a sturdy little machine but not quite up to the KX3. IanJ |
JasonB | 29/11/2021 10:07:48 |
![]() Moderator 22602 forum posts 2643 photos 1 articles | Yes I was quite pleased with how it turned out but looking back I should have taken the oppertunity to try a couple of full depth finishing passes which could easily have been done if I had left a bit more stock from the initial adaptive clearing, maybe next time. It's smoother than it looks and as it is going to get something else silver soldered to it and the sqbsequent cleaning up from that then painted more than adequate. The last major bit for that engine was the conrod which I did yesterday morning and had it running by the end of the day. |
JasonB | 21/12/2021 16:17:31 |
![]() Moderator 22602 forum posts 2643 photos 1 articles | I finally had reason to use the engraving cutters I bought almost 18months back from Sorotec in Germany |
mick | 26/01/2022 17:17:38 |
419 forum posts 49 photos | I posted a few days ago about my problem with the control of my KX1 stalling and loosing its reference position. One suggestion was that the slide ways could be sticking, which after some 2800 running hours was a distinct possibility. After removing the X axis gib, a complete clean and applying copious amounts of ptfe slide way spray I put it all back together and after several hours of fine adjustment achieved about 50mm of smooth jog in both the + & - directions when the cross slide is centrally positioned after which the slides jammed, this is quite possibly due to thirteen years of wear, however the slide moves smoothly to the limits when rotating the ball screw via the square on the end. I can only think the main problem might be the stepper motor not being man enough to drive the slide after the re-assembly. Another stepper motor would not be that expensive but I can't find anything on the cross slide stepper that tells me its torque as I would want to get a slightly more powerful one as a replacement, so I'm sure someone out there will be able tell me what the torque of the current motor is and maybe be able to suggest what sort of torque I should be thinking about as a replacement. Thanks. |
John Haine | 26/01/2022 17:32:07 |
4638 forum posts 273 photos | Mick, I think you should try to make sure that you don't have an electronics problem before diving in to replace the motor. For example the PSU may have started to produce a lower voltage, or the stepper drive is starting to fail. I can't think why a stepper would degrade provided it hadn't been dismantled (which would reduce the magnetism). I would check the supply voltage to the drivers (when moving), check all the current settings on the drives etc. By the way, it's quite likely that the motor is being driven d=below it's max rated current so provided the PSU has the capacity you could try tweaking the current setting switches on the drive to increase the current - a quick was to see if more torque would help. |
mick | 28/01/2022 16:52:51 |
419 forum posts 49 photos | Hi. John. Thanks for your input, electronics is a bit of a closed book to me, if I can't solve a problem mechanically I'm lost, so with this in mind how would you suggest I go about tweaking the current settings? Thanks. |
John Haine | 28/01/2022 17:26:56 |
4638 forum posts 273 photos | Can you get into the control box that houses the stepper drives and take some close-up photos of the top of them (or can someone who has a KX1 do this) please? The drives are usually black boxes about 100 x 40 x 80 high. On the top they will have a row of terminal blocks with cable connected, and a set of little switches that are used to set the microstep ratio and current. There may also be a type number on the drive that could well be something like 2M542 which were quite common when the KX1 was on sale. By comparing the switch settings with the data sheet one can see what the current is set to and what headroom there is to increase it. I must emphasise that increasing the current would only be to determine if there is a possible torque problem, I wouldn't recommend just fitting a new motor in the hope it will improve matters, you need to find out what the underlying issue is. Where are you located? |
JasonB | 28/01/2022 18:30:15 |
![]() Moderator 22602 forum posts 2643 photos 1 articles | may be silver boxes with heat sinks if the KX3 is anything to go by,Yako make Edited By JasonB on 28/01/2022 18:30:25 |
Adam Stevenson | 28/01/2022 23:13:37 |
35 forum posts 1 photos | The amount is set for the drivers so please don't try to get more for them as it will likely damage the driver or motors. First thing to check is that the force you are applying to turn the screw is constant. Use a torque ratch to check the jigs are not binding. Also check all screws are nipped but not too tight. Jason has posted a KX3 layout so here is a KX1 with longshine drivers. No image because I can't upload it but it is a real picture from a real KX1 that we ran at Arcuro trade shows. Edited By Adam Stevenson on 28/01/2022 23:15:59 |
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