just another plasma build and then some :)

same thoughts here for a set up. i think i might put a tank outside to save space. i was thinking about winter and some kind of anti-freeze? not sure if it's been done or not since i have not looked into it? i know you can get stuff to inhibit rust to add to the water but i have not seen anything about anti-freeze for cold weather?

maybe a tank heater and small heater under the table would be a better idea. this is probably why i have not seen much on the subject just a bad idea. actually i will have to look at a old water softener tank i have already might be better than a 200 gallon tank and it's free that is small enough to go inside but i still don't heat the shop unless i am working there.

islander261 wrote:

+1 on this. I use a 100gal stock tank under my table for water storage. The water table is filled using a cheap HF sump pump. Gravity drain. Simple and quick.

John

John,

What size piping do you use on your table?

'03

I use 3/4" pipe and 1" hose on both my fill and drain plumbing. Fills in about 3 minutes and drains in about 10. When I replace the water table in a few years I will use at least a sink drain/strainer combo and 1 1/2" plumbing minimum to speed up the draining.

John

this has been a bad week period. wanted to use the lathe to make some timing pulleys fit my build but the cheap board i had driving it finally decided to check out for good. so on to plan B had some gecko drives i planned on using for this plasma build so i borrowed them for the lathe to fix that. got the lathe going and it screams compared to the cheap drives i had on it before. i went from around a 100 IMP to 750 IPM no probables or at least i thought. i had to bump the processing speed to get there started to bore my first pulley and on the second pass the computer started to flake out and locked up.so to fix that i need a new computer and a motion controller and some new drives at some point soon. it's probably over due it's been going for 15 or 20 years so i got my use out of it but the situation still sucks was a nice simple bare bones set up off a printer port so not much to it but those days are long gone and today was a reminder of why i hate Mach3 so much these days..

I say pics of the lathe or it did not happen...

nothing huge just a grizzly 9 3/4 " x 21" and right now nothing is happening with the lathe. i know what i seen and it made me giggle quite a bit, to bad it was short lived

So you converted it yourself? I was quite young 20 years ago so I dont remember what it was like back then in the CNC world. How does what you can do today compare to back then?

What control software did you use back then?

well back then there was nothing as far as information and choices and back then Mach3 was really good compared to everything else.

back then i was about the cheapest solution. so looking at what i had then and what i was working with now i had a under powered DC supply and the board choice i made back then was the reason for that. the stepper motors i picked back then we actually pretty good as far as torque speed curves go but matched with the drives and power supply they were a poor match. i always thought i picked to small of a stepper and never looked at it since it worked ok at a slow setting.speed is not so much an issue on a small machine so it worked so i used it as is.

now what i had today was was i high torque nema 23 276 oz/in matched with a 201x gecko with the max rated DC 70 V power supply those motors shined getting the full potential from them, the acceleration was over .3 G and i was getting 750 IMP on a ,2 lead ball screw scary fast on a lathe that small to be honest. i am not sure what the max speed is on those motors but the chart went up around 2300 rpm those are one of the fastest steppers iv'e used there could very well be faster ones out there but usually you don't get into the 3000rpm range until you go to a true servo. i have some 750 watt DMM servo's that are rated for 5000 rpm they will actually do around 6000 rpm with DYN4 drive running at 240 AC.

what Mach had listed in the motor tuning seems high after sitting here doing some math. 500 IPM is pretty solid with the rpm and lead of the screw, im sure those motors might have some extra speed but i doubt enough to get to 750 IMP

5 times faster at least from 20 years ago would say i learned something along the way i think that little lathe was doing a bunny hop every time it changed direction it was fun while it lasted