MadModder
The Shop => Tools => Topic started by: John Hill on March 17, 2009, 04:17:48 AM
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My lathe has the usual table of feed rates and thread pitches but it by no means covers the whole range of available combinations, not that that is a real issue as there are more than enough listed to meet my needs. My problem is the way they are listed as it seems to take ages for me to scan all over the tables to find what I am looking for.
My Chinese lathe has two three-position levers for changing the spindle speed and a single speed belt drive from the motor, thats easy enough, 9 speeds and the associated table is not too difficult to handle.
The lower gear box that drives the feed screw and another drive rod has four levers (big knobs actually), one of these levers has just two positions 'M' and 'S' which as far as I can tell select drive to the feed screw or the drive rod.
One other lever has just two positions 'I' and 'II' which I think is only effective when the drive rod is selected.
The feed screw cuts metric threads (as far as I know) and the drive rod (when the feed screw is not being driven) provides power to the saddle for both 'X' and 'Y' feeds.
That leaves just two levers which each have five positions '1'..'5' and 'A'..'E'.
By my reckoning thats 25 combinations on those last two which means 25 metric threads and considering that the 'I','II' lever is effective when using power feeds thats 50 'X' and 50 'Y' feed rates and of course 50 thread pitches in addition to the 'native' metric threads.
All this is before changing gears (cogs).
Has anyone ever tried to write software that would list all these combinations and sort them into some convenient order? If they havent I might just give it a go...
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Good grief, with that lot I'd be confused too.
Didn't it come with a :lol: "manual" :bugeye:
Sounds like it needs a hardback..... :bang:
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Darren,
The manual that came with mine is perfect bum fodder for the outside khazi.
John's lathe is basically the same as mine, but I have 18 spindle speeds instead of 9, so is a little more complicated, but not all that beneficial, as the range that I use only uses half of them.
(http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa102/bogstandard_photos/workshop99.jpg)
(http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa102/bogstandard_photos/workshop98.jpg)
(http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa102/bogstandard_photos/workshop97.jpg)
I personally, once I had the code broken, have not found any problem getting what I want. But if someone could make it a little easier to find the correct combination, there would be no complaints from me.
Bogs
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John, did you notice any errors in your lathe tables?
For instance, when I compared the 24 to 48 tooth feed rates with the 48 to 24 rates I expected one would be exactly four times the other but on the table they dont always seem to be. They are mostly very close and can be explained by decimal rounding but some seem to be more than that.
Of course these tiny rounding errors are of no practical consequence but they will somewhat complicate the calculation of intermediate speeds and ratios.
We have a little project going in Saudi Arabia but once I bat the ball back over the net to their side, which will not take much out of the day, I expect there will be time to think about how to do this.
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David,
To me, the feeds rates don't need to be that exact as all they are used for is for finish. As long as they are near enough, that is close enough for me.
It is the accuracy of the threading charts that worry me, and I have yet to start to cut any. But when I do, I will do a sample of every thread that can be done, and go over them with a microscope to see just how far out they really are.
I still have the suppliers in my sights if anything is too far from what they state.
John
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Hi John
My first pass at the tables:-
Longitudinal feed rates in MM with cog ratio 48:24
0.162 D2 SI
0.188 D4 SI
0.211 B5 SI
0.219 B1 SI
0.226 A4 SI
0.264 D5 SI
0.264 C1 SI
0.273 D1 SI
0.306 B3 SI
0.317 A5 SI
0.323 D2 SII
0.329 A1 SI
0.332 C4 SI
0.345 B2 SI
0.369 C3 SI
0.374 B4 SI
0.376 D4 SII
0.382 D3 SI
0.396 E5 SI
0.411 E1 SI
0.415 C2 SI
0.422 B5 SII
0.438 B1 SII
0.451 C5 SI
0.452 A4 SII
0.459 A3 SI
0.461 E4 SI
0.517 A2 SI
0.527 D5 SII
0.528 C1 SII
0.546 D1 SII
0.574 E3 SI
0.612 B3 SII
0.633 A5 SII
0.646 E2 SI
0.657 A1 SII
0.664 C4 SII
0.689 B2 SII
0.738 C3 SII
0.747 B4 SII
0.764 D3 SII
0.791 E5 SII
0.821 E1 SII
0.830 C2 SII
0.902 C5 SII
0.918 A3 SII
0.922 E4 SII
1.033 A2 SII
1.147 E3 SII
1.291 E2 SII
I assume a practical thing would be to choose a dozen or so and put them on a reference card, please note I had to do a bit of interpolation and with rounding errors etc I expect some of these that appear very close are actually the same.
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Now I am in a very grumpy mood as due to some error Excel changed all my calculated values to "#REF" when I saved the workshet... :(
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John, re accuracy of the thread charts. I assume that is something that can only be determined by measuring the finished work?
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Thats right John.
Cut 'em to 'by the book' size, then, if possible, try to find a commercial nut, or tap one myself (if I have a tap that size) and see if it fits ok. If it won't fit, that means you will have to make both the nut and bolt by single point threading, which defeats the object, as normally I do single point cutting to make a bolt to match say an old tapped hole. If you can get within a small part of a % on final pitch or TPI, you stand a good chance of it fitting anyway.
But usually some of these cutting charts give such a large percentage error when the thread is cut, they will never fit the correct sized internal thread. That is when you need to start looking for non standard change gear sizes to get to where you need to be.
John
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Well John I suppose we can at least accept the screw cutting thread is accurate? I can think of ways of measuring the ratio between spindle and feed screw and if I get really interested I could fit a couple of micro switches or Hall effect sensors, one on the spindle and one on the feed screw and with a bit of software I could count the ratios and Excel could do the rest for us.
If we think the feed screw is unreliable I could measure carriage travel against turns of the feed screw but that would require accurately measuring carriage travel over, say, 30cm.
It wouldnt really be such a big job as once I have the first 25 ratios (A1..B5) the rest are software tasks including all the change gears you would care to imagine.
Regarding the usefullness of the feed ratios, I agree with what you say but what annoyed me last evening was setting the parting tool going with the power feed then scratching my head and squinting at the chart trying to find which is the next fastert, combination. I think my initial table is worth it just for that especially if the close ratios are culled.
Meanwhile, I am looking for a nice little brazing torch as everything I have is really too old and they wont fill that type of cylinder anymore. I need a bit of brazing for my gyroscope project.
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John, I did some more research today and much to my suprise I learned that inch is exactly 25.4mm, for some reason I always assumed that was an approximation.
Anyway, as we have a 127 tooth gear and 127 is the lowest integer mulitple of 25.4 I believe the imperial threads should be as accurate as the metric threads. Of course the issue may be that instead of, say, 20 TPI the nearest is something else, but at least I should be able to calculate them!
Tonight is Coronation Street so thats only one hour in the play shed this evening, heck! It is Coro St tomorrow night too, at this rate I will never get anything done! :doh:
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John, Mr Bagstandand Sir! What size change gears do you have for your lathe? I am ready to plug those into the program.
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Hi John,
These are my bits.
Paired gear - 127/120
Other gears - 22, 24, 26, 44, 48, 52
Leadscrew - 3mm pitch
It will be very interesting to see how things turn out.
I have also attached scans of my gear layouts for the lathe, to see if they match up with yours.
John
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Bogstandard, this is the image you get when you run that program I sent you..(hopefully).
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3611/3385168925_81801e5a8a.jpg?v=0)
The first time you run it the list boxes will be empty so you need to load in all the values, your ever reliable Artful Bodger has already done that but you still need to click on the 'Load' bar, then wait, and wait, and wait, you will have enough time for a cuppa while it calculates all the combinations possible with your lathe if you had all the change gears you have, plus all the change gears I have, plus all the change gears that are issued with the same lathe in the imperial version. There a about 2.71 squillion combinations! So just wait, OK? :coffee:
It will make a file on your PC so it does not have to calculate them again and when you press the Load button after that you will have only time to blow your nose while it loads them.
You can do two things with Thread Finder, you can put in a desired thread pitch in the top left boxes, only one at a time of course, click the 'Find' button and it will find that thread in the big list which you will be able to scroll up and down. There are quite a few possibles for most pitches and my idea is that you choose the one that matches the change gears you have on hand, clever eh?
The other thing you can do is calculate the pitches available from a particular setup of change gears, just enter the values in and click the 'Calculate' button, you will get 50 lines in the smaller list which is the 50 pitches available from the combinations of the three change levers.
Notes:
D is the driving gear close to the spindle
X1 is the intermediate gear that D meshes with.
X2 is the gear paired with X1, or the same gear which is usual when doing metric threads.
(So if using just one intermediate gear, or just one of a paired gear, enter X1 and X2 as the same)
Z is the gear which X2 meshes with, i.e. the gear on the change box.
Note that metric 1.25 is shown on the lathe table but we cant get it with our gears, the closest is 1.24 but if you really, really wanted 1.25 you could see from Thread Finder that there are a few ways you could get it, for example:
20.3200" 1.2500mm A1 D=60 Z=48 X1=120 X2=120 M=1
..so cut yourself a 60 tooth gear (or hit the supplier up for one) and you are there!
1.25 is just one I decided to check on, there could be others like this.
Have fun, I have not attempted to make the program dork proof so if you ask it dumb questions by putting in daft values it may well spit the dummy.
John
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Hi John H, that looks like you've worked hard :thumbup:
If one could change the leadscrew pitch, could it work for any lathe and gear set?
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That was quick John.
Now I have the destructions, I will give it a dose of looking at in the morning.
At the moment it definitely looks promising.
I have already :poke: the suppliers, and they don't do any extra change gears for this lathe. So it looks like I need to purchase a few gear cutters.
Bogs
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John, looks like a great little prog, very complex to program I would imagine... :smart:
:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:
nice work
David
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John,
Just thought I would let it do a few intitial setup calcs.
After about 10 seconds it comes up with an 'out of memory' error.
I actually have 4gb in this old steam powered jobbie.
Bogs
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Hi John H, that looks like you've worked hard :thumbup:
If one could change the leadscrew pitch, could it work for any lathe and gear set?
Hi Darren, well I would have to know quite a few details, fortunately The Bogster and I have the same (near as dammit) lathe so it was easy for his.
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John,
Just thought I would let it do a few intitial setup calcs.
After about 10 seconds it comes up with an 'out of memory' error.
I actually have 4gb in this old steam powered jobbie.
Bogs
Aw well, theres the problem, the calculated table is about 8mb, did you mean 4megs or 4gigs? Are you talking about memory or disk size?
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That was quick John.
Now I have the destructions, I will give it a dose of looking at in the morning.
At the moment it definitely looks promising.
I have already :poke: the suppliers, and they don't do any extra change gears for this lathe. So it looks like I need to purchase a few gear cutters.
Bogs
The imperial version gets a whole 'nother set of change gears, can you lean on them for a set of those? Maybe a US supplier?
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4 gigs memory, 700 gig hard drive (spread across 4, size of drive C, 120 gig), so I don't see that as being a problem.
It would most probably be a lot cheaper knocking up extra gears myself. Is yours an Imp machine?
Bogs
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Yep, should be no problem with that configuration, what stage were you at when it karked? Did it load the values into the big window? What was the very last thing you did?
No, I have the same change gears as you but I added in the ones listed in the American Grizzly manual for the same machine.
If that program works for you at least you should be able to decide just what gears to make.
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One more thing, did it make a file called 'All Ratios.dat'?
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I have the program on my desktop.
Run it.
Click 'load'
About 10 secs later it comes up with the memory error.
No folder is generated.
John
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Hmmmmm..... it looks like it has a problem doing the calculations, so I am sending you the data file which should load in a couple of seconds.
But if everything fails you can ditch the program (throw it under the bench with some of those other projects) and just look at the data file in your favourite word processor. You wont be able to calculate for new gears but you can look through the possible combinations of what you have, in a 2217 PAGE document. :doh:
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Now you have sent me the data file John, it is cooking with gas.
Some of the results are very interesting.
All I need now is to get my retractable toolpost made, and I will be able to put it thru it's paces.
Many thanks indeed.
John
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Ya know... this is one of those threads (No pun intended) that I am soo happy I read through.
I found that when I set my lathe to cut a specific thread.. and I quadruple check the thread... it cuts a thread real nice....
But its not exact.
Over about 2 inches or so it gets off by about 1/4 thread. Granted... if the nut, or thread biting area is 1/2 inch it isnt an issue. But I imagine If I had a 2 Inch long threaded hole.. the cut threads wouldnt match. Hence all the talk here or errors in the gearing... which all makes sense.
And since my lathe is a chinese one without an overly large slew of change gears, I can see how they would be off slightly over larger distances. :doh:
Thanks again all LOL
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OK guys! Just a couple of cautions!
I obviously did not turn all those threads and measure them!
What I did was count spindle revolutions (to a resolution of 24 degrees) while the feed screw revolved 10 times, I did this three times and if they were not the same results I did it once more and in every case I got at least 3 out of 4 counts the same. I used electrical contacts and a laptop to do the counting.
However, I did not do this for all 50 combinations of the change levers! I did it for A1 to E1 and for A1 to A5 then I used these to interpolate the other 40 speeds, I did this with a spread sheet.
Accuracy depends on my having done all those steps without error, which is possible but I have no way of really checking them all, and on the accuracy of the feed screw.
John, if you find any errors please let me know. If you have some way of counting spindle revolutions you might like to try setting up for a thread and running for a bit recording carriage movement on your DRO?
I agree SPiNner that the errors are not significant for something like a nut but you would want to know about them if you were trying to turn a feed screw or something. Which lathe do you have? Is the manual online? I might take a look and think about the prospects of a table for you.
John
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Actually.... Im not sure if any other companies make a version of this lathe.
http://www.wttool.com/product-exec/product_id/14795/nm/11_x_26_Lathe_With_Stand_WT_Import_ (http://www.wttool.com/product-exec/product_id/14795/nm/11_x_26_Lathe_With_Stand_WT_Import_)
Its labeled the brand of the store I got it from, and its not really a clone of a JET or anything. Its the 11x26 store brand.
THe tolerences were a tad better at the time than the others, as well as the size was a tad larger.
I like it. Dont get me wrong. Love her.
I wish she had one of the selector style gearboxes though.. so I didnt have to spend 30 minutes getting covered in grease changing gears.
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John,
I know it will be a suck it and see to begin with. So don't worry, I won't run away with it. I am super methodical when I try something new.
I will have to see if someone has a slow count rev counter, or I could lash up a finger counter and a cam.
As I said, I have yet to make my screwcutting tooling. So when I get that done, I can resurrect this post.
Thanks again
John
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John, I tried a lot of ideas for counting the revolutions and finally settled on a rotary switch, but I did have to butcher it so it could go around and around! I used a laptop to do the actual counting but if you have an old calculator you can make it into a counter!
Just open the calculator and connect up two wires across the '=' key, then close the calculator with the wires connected to your switch. Just press "1 + 1= =" and everytime you close the switch it will increment the count.
Cheers.
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I see you've been playing with electronics for a while Mr Hill....what a neat idea :ddb:
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Just open the calculator and connect up two wires across the '=' key, then close the calculator with the wires connected to your switch. Just press "1 + 1= =" and everytime you close the switch it will increment the count.
Love it! seems to sum up the spirit of this site!!
David
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Just open the calculator and connect up two wires across the '=' key, then close the calculator with the wires connected to your switch. Just press "1 + 1= =" and everytime you close the switch it will increment the count.
Love it! seems to sum up the spirit of this site!!
David
It is even better than that David, say you were cutting a 0.75mm pitch thread and you enter "0++0.75" it will show you how much thread you have cut!
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Now that is very enlightening !!
Somewhere, not that I have a cats chance in finding it, I have a small reed switch....ummm,
You started something now John.... :clap:
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OK Chaps
Whats a read switch look like then :scratch:
Stew
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Stew,
A reed switch is two little strips of contact that are pulled together when a magnet is brought near to them. Usually encapsulated, mine is in a glass tube.
Very cheap and very versatile little switches.
Last time I was using one, some many years ago now, I was winding some transformer cores on a Myford 7 lathe. I used a reed switch to count the turns and a magnet simply stuck on the chuck to activate it with each turn. It was done slowly so no fear of the magnet flying off.
I used a simple 12V counter to do the, erm,,,,counting... :lol:
A couple of thousand turns is way beyond the 10 I learnt at school. So was really quite helpful. :ddb: :ddb: :ddb:
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Reed switches are available for home security systems, they are the little plastic switches that come in two pieces, one bit to fix to the moving window or door and the other piece that has two wires connected to it. The one with the wires is the switch and the other has a little magnet in it, of course they work with other magnets too.
I am thinking of putting a permanent switch on my spindle, maybe at the 'far end'.
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Darren/John
Thanks for that, I used a reed (correct spelling this time) when I wired the alarm in my shop just didn't know what it was called.
Cheers
:beer:
Stew