I converted 4 Enco mills to CNC when we started PL. It was
a lot of fun, hooking stepper motors on Berg gears and belts up
to the lead screws of the tables, making amplifiers to drive the
steppers, and writing software to get PC digital outputs to drive
them. I learned to implement software stacks and macros and
stuff, and we used them for the first few years of production.
The biggest problem is that these machines suffer a lot of
backlash in the lead screw assemblies, as they did not use the
recirculating ball screws found on real CNC machines. As a
result, I had to program a backlash calibration into the software.
It was worth doing once, but I wouldn't do it again, and after a
few years we sent out of house for machining.
a lot of fun, hooking stepper motors on Berg gears and belts up
to the lead screws of the tables, making amplifiers to drive the
steppers, and writing software to get PC digital outputs to drive
them. I learned to implement software stacks and macros and
stuff, and we used them for the first few years of production.
The biggest problem is that these machines suffer a lot of
backlash in the lead screw assemblies, as they did not use the
recirculating ball screws found on real CNC machines. As a
result, I had to program a backlash calibration into the software.
It was worth doing once, but I wouldn't do it again, and after a
few years we sent out of house for machining.
It's amazing how many of the Worlds Finest Products are manufactured on the cheapest quality China imported machine tools.
I actually think it's great!
The worst machine I was ever forced to make medical quality parts with was a Smithy 3 in one machine that you see in the back of Popular Mechanics. If you can make great parts on anything sold by Enco you would be a god on a Matsura.
MJ
I actually think it's great!
The worst machine I was ever forced to make medical quality parts with was a Smithy 3 in one machine that you see in the back of Popular Mechanics. If you can make great parts on anything sold by Enco you would be a god on a Matsura.
MJ
Thats exactly what I was trying to say. If you are able to machine a perfect part on an Enco level machine you have to be quite a skilled machinist and very patient.
The less rigid and more sloop in the machine tool the more of an artist you need to be to make a beautiful part.
This is just my take from 18 years of being in the trade.
Think of the 600 building Frank Llyod Wright designed without any CAD software. Just proves that technology sure hasn't improved esthetics in the last 50 years.
The less rigid and more sloop in the machine tool the more of an artist you need to be to make a beautiful part.
This is just my take from 18 years of being in the trade.
Think of the 600 building Frank Llyod Wright designed without any CAD software. Just proves that technology sure hasn't improved esthetics in the last 50 years.
Gentlemen,
Now you know why I am patiently waiting for the old Bridgeport. I must admit though, for what I use the Enco for, it has functioned flawlessly. I use it to square my front panels, drill holes for mounting XLR connectors etc. The DRO is an Accurite (cost more than the Enco Milling Machine) and has accuracy at least to a couple of thousanths so it's all good. For my purposes it's a cheap and dirty way to make a nice chassis without bothering anyone. Now if anyone has a Haas that they want to donate to the Kilowattski DIY audio addiction center, I am sure I can find some room in the garage for it.
Now you know why I am patiently waiting for the old Bridgeport. I must admit though, for what I use the Enco for, it has functioned flawlessly. I use it to square my front panels, drill holes for mounting XLR connectors etc. The DRO is an Accurite (cost more than the Enco Milling Machine) and has accuracy at least to a couple of thousanths so it's all good. For my purposes it's a cheap and dirty way to make a nice chassis without bothering anyone. Now if anyone has a Haas that they want to donate to the Kilowattski DIY audio addiction center, I am sure I can find some room in the garage for it.
Okay guys sorry i have been out of commision for a while. Had some health issues arise and now financial issues dealing with all the health issues and so on, but i am back in the game.
At last go rounf Casey had taken over some of the PSU design and i have been workign with a company on the custom inductors. We got off on the wrong track someplace in search for a better inductor design and came up with a iron core design that offered better performance then an air core. but in the end the cost was just way too high, so we went back to an Air core and here are the results!
At last go rounf Casey had taken over some of the PSU design and i have been workign with a company on the custom inductors. We got off on the wrong track someplace in search for a better inductor design and came up with a iron core design that offered better performance then an air core. but in the end the cost was just way too high, so we went back to an Air core and here are the results!
Attachments
And another pic, sorry the quality is so bad. I was rushing to get these to press.
This is one BIG FAT Inductor and yes that is solid wire your looking at. these are the 2mh 20 amp inductors. even with this large of wire, we will still be losing about 35watts per inductor in loss. this was the largest inductor the company ever wound to date. they were afraid the core would break during winding but found it came out ok.
We are still in need of some suitable heatsinks. I have managed to obtain 36 9"x7" sinks but i dont think there enough.
If someone wanted to donate some machine shop time to mill us some custom heatsinks, now that would be something special!
More to come
Zc
This is one BIG FAT Inductor and yes that is solid wire your looking at. these are the 2mh 20 amp inductors. even with this large of wire, we will still be losing about 35watts per inductor in loss. this was the largest inductor the company ever wound to date. they were afraid the core would break during winding but found it came out ok.
We are still in need of some suitable heatsinks. I have managed to obtain 36 9"x7" sinks but i dont think there enough.
If someone wanted to donate some machine shop time to mill us some custom heatsinks, now that would be something special!
More to come
Zc
Attachments
As I said in another thread, I've put the line stage to bed for the time being. I spent a large hunk of this afternoon cleaning up and reconfiguring my bench for tubes (i.e. higher voltages). I managed to sneak in a little math-time this evening towards the output stage and hope to try a few things over the next few days.
This is usually about the point at which the sky caves in on my head. I'm thinking lucky thoughts that I'll get some clear time.
Grey
This is usually about the point at which the sky caves in on my head. I'm thinking lucky thoughts that I'll get some clear time.
Grey
One thing for sure is that Enco is not nearly the company it once was. I had a whole shop full of Enco stuff back in Chicago, Full size mill and two lathes,surface grinder, all equipped with DRO's and many other Enco doo dads. They were a really good company to deal with and parts were not a problem, I could go to the huge Chicago warehouse that had all the machines on dosplay in the showroom. Any of them could be inspected under power right on their premises. These machines also all had Chineese built motors on them. The machines I owned at the time did not get really heavy use and they stayed very accurate. When they were new all the machines also performed better than advertised. Now move foreword about 10 years.......
Enco is now owned by MSC. About a year ago the company I work for bought a 13 X 40 Enco lathe as we needed to make up some custom made lens bushings for a certain cinema projector we specialize in rebuilding. The lathe arrived and we carefully assembled the stand and mounted the lathe on it... only to find the stand was not nearly rigid enough to properly support it. I didn't have this problem with mu older 13 X 40. The lathe came back off and our welder spent the rest of the day bracing and modifying the stand and then painted it, that was a ALOT better now. The next day we set it back up on the stand and leveled it with a precision machinists level that I have. All was well until we powered it up..... There was so much vibration that the vibration actually came through as a pattern in the surface finish of the part being machined! I didn't have any problem like this with my old identical 13 X40 Enco that I owned back in Chicago.
The vibration was tracked down to the nice U.S. made Baldor motor that Enco is now using on all their lathes. Apparently in some areas the lack of any UL sticker precludes the Chineese motors from being hooked up. Anyway we took the Baldor motor at Enco's insistance(it wasn't their problem they claimed!) to the local Baldor warranty station where they hooked it up and watched it vibrate across their bench...... They finally figures we could power it up fomr 120 volts but leave it wored for 220 and it didn't vobrate then. So I made the batch of lens bushings and had to turn the motor on and off via a jimmy rigged switching system. To keep this short two replacement motors later the problem was still there, and it was obvious that this was a garbage motor. According to a second party we took the motor to it was not spec'd out properly by Enco in the first place. It would be just fine to run a large blower but not a lathe we were told.
Our solution was to convert the lathe to three phase power and re-wire the control box for same. The mods to the control box for three phase were fortunately simple and the new Leeson three phase metric frame motor is completely vibration free. The lathe is now finally usable....after nearly a year of arguing with both Enco who claimed it was Baldors problem and with Baldor who claimed that Enco did not spec the right motor!! Neither really seemed to care at all. I have run into a couple of others on the net that have the same lathe with the same problem. As a result of all this I can say for sure that none of my machinery purchases in the future will ever go to Enco!!
BTW: Enco's machinery warranty is only 30 days, and Baldor motors are one year. If you buy anything Enco be sure it works correctly right away! If we had realized right away that the motor was the problrem we'd have sent the lathe back to them the next day, but Baldor took 6 weeks to get us a replacement motor the forst time, by then the lathe was out of warranty.
Mark
Enco is now owned by MSC. About a year ago the company I work for bought a 13 X 40 Enco lathe as we needed to make up some custom made lens bushings for a certain cinema projector we specialize in rebuilding. The lathe arrived and we carefully assembled the stand and mounted the lathe on it... only to find the stand was not nearly rigid enough to properly support it. I didn't have this problem with mu older 13 X 40. The lathe came back off and our welder spent the rest of the day bracing and modifying the stand and then painted it, that was a ALOT better now. The next day we set it back up on the stand and leveled it with a precision machinists level that I have. All was well until we powered it up..... There was so much vibration that the vibration actually came through as a pattern in the surface finish of the part being machined! I didn't have any problem like this with my old identical 13 X40 Enco that I owned back in Chicago.
The vibration was tracked down to the nice U.S. made Baldor motor that Enco is now using on all their lathes. Apparently in some areas the lack of any UL sticker precludes the Chineese motors from being hooked up. Anyway we took the Baldor motor at Enco's insistance(it wasn't their problem they claimed!) to the local Baldor warranty station where they hooked it up and watched it vibrate across their bench...... They finally figures we could power it up fomr 120 volts but leave it wored for 220 and it didn't vobrate then. So I made the batch of lens bushings and had to turn the motor on and off via a jimmy rigged switching system. To keep this short two replacement motors later the problem was still there, and it was obvious that this was a garbage motor. According to a second party we took the motor to it was not spec'd out properly by Enco in the first place. It would be just fine to run a large blower but not a lathe we were told.
Our solution was to convert the lathe to three phase power and re-wire the control box for same. The mods to the control box for three phase were fortunately simple and the new Leeson three phase metric frame motor is completely vibration free. The lathe is now finally usable....after nearly a year of arguing with both Enco who claimed it was Baldors problem and with Baldor who claimed that Enco did not spec the right motor!! Neither really seemed to care at all. I have run into a couple of others on the net that have the same lathe with the same problem. As a result of all this I can say for sure that none of my machinery purchases in the future will ever go to Enco!!
BTW: Enco's machinery warranty is only 30 days, and Baldor motors are one year. If you buy anything Enco be sure it works correctly right away! If we had realized right away that the motor was the problrem we'd have sent the lathe back to them the next day, but Baldor took 6 weeks to get us a replacement motor the forst time, by then the lathe was out of warranty.
Mark
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