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21
CNC / Re: It's new to me
« Last post by AdeV on January 22, 2026, 11:43:52 AM »
QQ - I've often wondered about a linear rail/bearing upgrade to my CNC3018 (although, quite honestly, probably the only thing that would stay original is the motherboard, and maybe the steppers); the rails I was looking at are rectangular in section (e.g. the MGN12 range), whereas you've used the circular version (SBR12?). Was there any particular reason you went with the round rail, vs. the flat rail?
22
How do I?? / Re: How do I insert a UK Sterling sign in a post?
« Last post by AdeV on January 22, 2026, 11:29:24 AM »
  Strange it changes to  :????    :doh:

Standard practice on 7-bit charsets: Any unexpected character (i.e. in the decimal range 128-255) is converted to a (7-bit) "?".

In fact, it's probably not the server that's at fault, as "preview" shows the pound symbol (which involves a round-trip to the server); but the database. The DB will likely be set to the ASCII codepage (which only accepts characters 0-127/0x00-0x7F). Changing it to latin1 would help, but utf16 would be better...
23
New from Old / Re: The Sequel - Oh Blimey I bought a CNC Lathe (Beaver TC 20)
« Last post by John Rudd on January 22, 2026, 10:41:50 AM »
Video unavailable....not set to public view... :Doh:
24
New from Old / Re: The Sequel - Oh Blimey I bought a CNC Lathe (Beaver TC 20)
« Last post by awemawson on January 22, 2026, 09:13:02 AM »
Just to remind me how I've uploaded a short video to YouTube of the tool turret rotating to select different tools and spinning the powered tooling (that isn't fitted yet)

Somehow Youtube have rotated it 90 degrees - any ideas how it sit it the right way up?

https://youtube.com/shorts/JY9bBcAkoLk

OK I've rotated it 90 degrees with CLIDEO.COM on line

https://youtu.be/yWAxxcBkeYQ
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New from Old / Re: The Sequel - Oh Blimey I bought a CNC Lathe (Beaver TC 20)
« Last post by awemawson on January 22, 2026, 05:36:50 AM »
Todays job. Recommission the coolant system - now this sprays coolant everywhere in the enclosure when things are spinning, so the first job was to replace the cast aluminium cover for the tool disk and Z axis motor connections. Hylomar sealant scraped off the mating faces - but where are the screws ? Cover removed a couple of years ago but normally I'm pretty good at keeping things together. It's only half a dozen M6 x 20 mm socket caps - no where to be found. I guarantee they are safely in a marked up poly bag somewhere - no sign of them and surprisingly nothing in stock - Amazon order placed for tomorrow  :bang:

So having been foiled in that task I thought that I'd play with a bit of simple programming - set up a diddy ( test loop  ) to exercise the tool disk - could I remember the commands - no! OK lets see if Chat-GPT knows this controller. Please generate code to select Tool#1, pause 5 seconds then select Tool #6 on a lathe controlled by a Siemens 820T controller:

%
O1000

LBL 1

T1 M6          ; Select tool 1
G04 F5         ; Dwell 5 seconds

T6 M6          ; Select tool 6
G04 F5         ; Dwell 5 seconds

GOTO LBL 1     ; Repeat loop

M30
%

And there you go ! Now it would have taken seconds to look up the codes but that was just a bit of fun.

26
CNC / Re: It's new to me
« Last post by ddmckee54 on January 21, 2026, 08:08:20 PM »
I got a little more done today, I got spindle mount and clamp designed. I got the anti-backlash nut yesterday, so I was able to get that part of the spindle slide design corrected/finalized. I sectioned the spindle clamp so you could see how I'm bolting the back half of the spindle mount to the slide.

The mounting holes bolt circle for the nut IS 16mm in diameter, and the major diameter of the part of the nut inside the slide IS 14mm. At least 0.5mm of the 3mm diameter of each M3 screw would protrude into the bore of the spindle slide. There's no way I can use a heat-set insert on these, and I don't trust just threading an M3 screw into plastic - especially when part of those threads don't even exist.

But fear not M'Lords, I have a clever plan. I'm going to change the diameter of the mounting bolt circle to 18mm by slotting the existing holes. Unfortunately I still can't use heat-set inserts though. The only part of the nut inside the slide that's 14mm is the rear flange of the spring-loaded part. And I don't why it's that big, the OD of the spring is 12mm, so you'd think that 13mm would be good enough. Maybe they started with 14mm stock? I'm not going to use M3 machine screws to mount the nut to the slide, I'm going to use long-ish M3 sheet metal screws.

Now I've got a question that I need a little feedback on. Right now I've got the leadscrew nut on the top of the slide, do I need to put it on the bottom? I want the tool forces to be transmitted to the leadscrew by the slide pushing on the flange of the leadscrew nut, not by the slide pulling on the M3 mounting screws.

Don
27
I've just fired up win11 for the first time in months . It feels so slow compared to the Kubuntu I normally use on the same machine.  I just wanted to print a booklet usng acrobat ,but it had just started an update . after many many minutes , I was able to open acrobat only to be faced with pop-ups for AI slop and automated crap. It's unuseable!

I rebooted to linux.

Yes, Win11 is about everything that Windows should not be. Youtubers who show how to strip out the AI crap and other bloat, to make it more usable, get strikes to their channels.

These are strange times; large companies like Microsoft - they seem to be doing their best to force-feed features that are restrictive and whatnot, perhaps to show that they still have final say, of what the consumers 'want'.

Such a powerful entity - one doesn't have to be a fortune-teller to see that it continues using same tactics over and over. By blindly doing that, it has managed to create resistance against itself.
That's probably the most positive thing it has successfully achieved.

For Windows users looking for alternatives, be it downgrading to Win10 to support their not so latest hardware, which Win11 makes obsolete anyway - or looking out to test Linux - it's such a jungle out there.

What comes to Linux, there isn't such thing as "best Linux distro for new users", as many Linux users seem to presume. If this or that distro works for them, that's fine, but why assume that new users see it like they do.

Besides that, there are Linux users (some pretty advanced), who have made tutorials in more understandable, plain language.  I wish I could put out some examples with links, but it's so vast subject to cover every aspect.
28
I've just fired up win11 for the first time in months . It feels so slow compared to the Kubuntu I normally use on the same machine.  I just wanted to print a booklet usng acrobat ,but it had just started an update . after many many minutes , I was able to open acrobat only to be faced with pop-ups for AI slop and automated crap. It's unuseable!

I rebooted to linux.
29
How do I?? / Re: How do I insert a UK Sterling sign in a post?
« Last post by timby on January 21, 2026, 02:04:19 PM »


  Strange it changes to  :????    :doh:


































































































































?????
30
New from Old / Re: The Sequel - Oh Blimey I bought a CNC Lathe (Beaver TC 20)
« Last post by awemawson on January 21, 2026, 06:16:42 AM »
Not been able to continue this push until this morning (yesterday - standby generator failed it's regular 'test start' I fire it up every few weeks and it's a good starter - should be it's brand new. I start it, then turn the fuel off and run until the carb is empty to stop it gumming up. Well it's gummed up and needs a carb strip  :bang: too much grovelling at floor level so woke unable to move - 600 mg of Ibruprophen and I can now move so off to the workshop.

Lathe fires up correctly, I can traverse over the reference points, initialise the tool turret, select tools at will, drive the main spindle clockwise and anti-clockwise - in fact EVERYTHING IS WORKING  :ddb:

Now the big caveat is that currently the tool disk is currently empty - no tool holders fitted so minimal weight for the servo system to fight. (There is approximately 45 kG of tools when all twelve positions are fully populated)

It was while diagnosing erratic positioning of the tool disk that I managed to blow up the Siemens Simodrive AC servo system so I'm tredding ever so carefully at the moment and only taking small steps.
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