The Home Machinist!

I recently aquired a Ganesh 10x54 knee mill with Mitutoyo Millstar III Retrofit. Here are some pictures of the move and the mill.
http://picasaweb.google.com/marty.escarcega/CNCMillMove#

Thanks for the pics, Marty.
I'm amazed at the amount of stuff you have in such a confined area. Great planning!

Harold

Glad I read this -- filed away more than a few ideas in the engineering notebook from move pics.

I'm normally not a big fan of Bridgeport-type CNC conversions, but man, that one is really really nice. The elegant simplicity of the implementation, clean wiring, and all of the conversion-parts fitments all scream of top-quality work. It's also nice to see a shiny modern CNC controller on a small-shop machine that's not an arcane, CRT-display monstrosity with yellowed plastic and no manual.

-AG

Marty,
One caption mentions "I do not have full travel of the mill. But I don't think I will really ever need 35" of travel.".
I think you may have a problem, some CNC go thru a full travel on every axis when resetting, exercising or initializing. I hope nothing is in the way.
I have no knowledge of your machine's software, so this may not be of concern.

Dave J.

mechanicalmagic wrote:Marty,
One caption mentions "I do not have full travel of the mill. But I don't think I will really ever need 35" of travel.".
I think you may have a problem, some CNC go thru a full travel on every axis when resetting, exercising or initializing. I hope nothing is in the way.
I have no knowledge of your machine's software, so this may not be of concern.

Dave J.

Dave, the Mitutoyo Millstar homes differently. It won't be an issue for me.

You might check the tool change position, as some go to a corner for that.

Glen, the Millstar control has you home the machine this way.
Take the machine to what would be X0,Y0 manually. Press the XY home function. The Mitutoyo glass scales have marks every 50mm on the scale it begins to hunt for the nearest mark. That becomes home. I can artificially call any point X0,Y0, the machine will slowly hunt for the next closes mark. Its odd but it works in my favor. A friend tells me you should have just set it up to have full travel. As you can see from my photos, space is at a premium. IF it be comes an issue, I'll raise the machine and do the Egyption roll.....

AlphaGeek wrote:Glad I read this -- filed away more than a few ideas in the engineering notebook from move pics.

I'm normally not a big fan of Bridgeport-type CNC conversions, but man, that one is really really nice. The elegant simplicity of the implementation, clean wiring, and all of the conversion-parts fitments all scream of top-quality work. It's also nice to see a shiny modern CNC controller on a small-shop machine that's not an arcane, CRT-display monstrosity with yellowed plastic and no manual.

-AG

Thanks AG. I feel very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to own this machine. A good friend worked with me on it. It is a 10x54" knee mill, about 1/3 as much the size of a Bridgeport. Mitutoyo did a wonderful job on this control. The only thing proprietary is the console. It houses a standard industrial PC. The keys on the display seem to correspond to keys on a standard PC Keyboard. Display is a flat panel LCD. Machine was born in 2002, the control installed shortly thereafter. Unfortunately Mitutoyo Japan cancelled the program. This was the product of Mitutoyo USA. All parts are still available through Galil and Glentek.

Marty

Hello Marty,

I was not referring to homing the machine in my previous post.

On my machine, which is not the same as yours, when you call for a M06 tool change, the table rapids all the way to the right and toward you to allow clearance from the part to access the spindle.

You might want to keep a hand on the e-stop the first time you call up an M06 if you are not sure where the tool change position is!

Glenn Wegman wrote:Hello Marty,

I was not referring to homing the machine in my previous post.

On my machine, which is not the same as yours, when you call for a M06 tool change, the table rapids all the way to the right and toward you to allow clearance from the part to access the spindle.

You might want to keep a hand on the e-stop the first time you call up an M06 if you are not sure where the tool change position is!

Good morning Glenn, point well taken, I believe it is the same place as yours.X0,Y0, but if I manage to put a hole in the wall, I'll be sure to take a picture and say I was forewarned!

What kind of machine do you have Glenn?

Good Morning Marty,

You're up early!

I have a Tree with a Dynapath control. Great old dinosaur!

What I was trying to say is that the tool change position is different than the home position on mine so it could fool you into a hole in the wall

I flew over you twice last week, had to spend a day in the San Diego, CA area, a bit too high to see the machines though

Glenn Wegman wrote:I was not referring to homing the machine in my previous post.

On my machine, which is not the same as yours, when you call for a M06 tool change, the table rapids all the way to the right and toward you to allow clearance from the part to access the spindle.

Mark taught me to remove the X0-Y0 commands for tool changes---but I also have a huge amount of Z travel, so I don't have any clearance issues. May not work for machines with limited travel on the spindle.

Harold