Datsun B310 turbo coupe, A15 project

[Atomic]

Got the forklift delivered already on Friday, billing will be for Monday. I was first looking for a forklift from another company at first, but the transportation fees for forklift hauling was 400 euros different than I got the quotation at first. Called another place and they were happy to deliver it at the same day I created an account for ordering it, plus it was 400 euros cheaper in transportation costs than the first company I ordered it from, great work Pekkaniska! 

 

 

I should be covered with this, it can lift up to 3000 kg, has hydraulically adjustable tilt, sideways and forks. Everything should go smoothly tomorrow.

 

The next thing was to tinker around the cradle again, I ended up sawing a bit off from the cradle so I could fit the original oil pickup tube. I had to bang it to the left side a bit so it will clear out the longer studs and nuts too

 

1 mm is enough clearance for me 😄 

 

Pan sits flush now:

 

I'm planning to thicken the cradle to the side around the "bottom" of the pickup tube since the oil pan has more clearance there too:

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by Atomic

[Atomic]

Sorry it took some time around with the CNC machine! Photo mayhem of the forklift action I did:

 

Had my friend helping out with the directions and watching so that I wouldn't hit anything

 

Then the tool cabinet goodies:

 

The machine had internal ROM/RAM battery which ran out during the transportation, so the whole machine had bunch of errors, which I then resolved by reseting the whole thing and applying 900 lines of code into it. I'm glad everything was documented pretty well by the guys who did the conversion:

 

I got the machine jogging and homing today. I will see what I can come up with it later on. So glad I got everything working even tho the programming and everything else was new to me and now the machine feels more like it belongs to the family as I have seen the parameters through and can probably troubleshoot things better later on if something happens!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[slowlearner]

1 word = jealous. 😞

 

Like I don't already have enough junk in my garage... 😄

[Atomic]

Spent some time with the machine after work again. I had to work around the fact that the spindle would only turn into one direction, and that was counter clock vise, doh! So I went and decoded it was one of the M-codes that needed fixing (long after fiddling and looking into if one of the relays were shut or didn't receive a signal.

 

 

In the end, managed to drill couple of holes and test out the face miller, everything pretty exciting if you ask me!

 

Next I would really much want to clean the rest of the garage around the machine, unload it from the pallet and find its final resting place. Then I should dwell into the world of feed rates to achieve nice surface finishes. And try to learn some pre-programmable automatic cycles that the machine can do for me!

 

[BrothersGarage]

Super sick, congratulations! 

[Atomic]

I did some feedrate testing with the face mill I bought. It looks like it can do somewhere around Ra 3.2 range. I would have to buy a sweeper bit to make the surface better. Ramping up the spindle speed certainly helped a lot:

 

Then I downloaded the Fagor DNC program which allows me to communicate with the machine via RS232 link and from there I can access the storage of the machine. I can run infinite programs directly from computer or then just store them into the machines memory, pretty cool! 

 

I haven't tested the real deal yet, but I'm going to find the RS 232 link somewhere on the machine. I saw one cut cable at the back of the machine and I suspect it might be it. So I probably need to find a DB9 connector and then a RS to USB converter. 

 

Also looked into programming the machine, looks pretty nice and they have made nesting and automatic pocket milling really easy, takes just couple of lines of code. I might do a programming video in the future and post it to youtube with uploading the G-code to the machine and stuff like that. 

 

Then I'm looking into buying the tap set, also with horizontal rotating bed with slots. So in the future I could make gears and toothed wheels If I wanted to, pretty nice! (thinking about custom waterpulley wheels and integration to supercharger, mmmm....)

[Atomic]

Bought an indexing setup so I can make custom belt drives and gears:

[Atomic]

Spent yesterday over 6 hours figuring out the communication between the Fagor 8025 and the PC:

I had some connection problems at first, mainly due to fact that the Fagor DNC doesn't accept printer port as input (only COM ports available). Well then I called to the local computer shop and asked for an adapter from DB25 -> DB09. As a miracle, the shopkeeper had one adapter in his old hardware box and I got it for free, superb! Next problem was to get a female-female DB9 cable. I had to travel 45 km to get one of those. Well it turned out that the cable I bought mixes RX/TX pairs as default, so I had to use one of the custom DB9 connectors to rewire the new cable:

Still after that there was no way I could get into contact with the machine:

 

I tried multiple different parity settings, baud-rates, stop bits etc. No avail. 

 

Until I checked the cable configuration where pins 4-6-8 had to be connected by default. And then I selected default machine mode to 8025 also from the software, and bam, we're in:

 

I wrote a dummy program with name P11111 with G74 on line N50:

 

And sure enough, it transferred to the machine just fine:

 

I was also able to download the whole parameter tables from the machine as for backup. And also the tool bit parameters:

 

Now I just need to check couple of things so I get the post processor working for the Fagor 8025, and then we're ready to do some test runs! Exciting!

 

I wish I had a probe to zero out the tools and the workpiece. I might want to create a zero coordinate starting from the workpiece, or I need to see if I can set a reference plane as offset from the machine "World" coordinates.

[slowlearner]

So, for anyone reading this thread for the first time I thought it would be helpful to have a summary...

 

Step 1. Decide to fix up your Datsun 310. 

Step 2. Buy CNC to build NASA spec engine parts. 

 

🤓

 

Love your work @Atomic 😁

[Atomic]

Spent another 6 hours with figuring out machine parameters for XYZ axis configurations as the cartesian coordinates were upside down, which made the post processing little too tricky with fusion 360. But after a while I got everything figured out and decided to do first air guitar demo:

 

I might start uploading videos every time I machine something with this setup. Now I just need those damn taps to start penetrating some materials 😄 

 

And yes, I need to check the squeaky belt on X-axis, it has been bothering me a bit. Hopefully nothing serious

[Mattndew76]

Sounds like a ball screw whine. 

[Atomic]

5 hours ago, Mattndew76 said:

Sounds like a ball screw whine. 

Haven't heard ball screws to whine, only to crunch and rattle. And this whine is cyclic not constant

[Mattndew76]

Every Fadal or HAAS had the distinct ball screw whine in rapid. The servos made a whirring sound in rapid too.

 

I just now noticed your servos aren't direct coupled to the ball screws.

Edited May 31, 2020 by Mattndew76

[Atomic]

26 minutes ago, Mattndew76 said:

Every Fadal or HAAS had the distinct ball screw whine in rapid. The servos made a whirring sound in rapid too.

 

I just now noticed your servos aren't direct coupled to the ball screws.

Yeah, mine have belt drive to save some space with overall assembly as they are retrofitted some time ago

[Atomic]

Bought a cheap chinese parallel block kit, seems to be within 0.01-0.02 mm or so. I say It's quite bang for the buck as for starters. The end taps should be here this week also. I'll try to do some machining with aluminum first. I also bought a big blank of AISI 304 for the girdle, I'll be saving 70 euros by doing it myself with the CNC.

 

[Atomic]

Got the indexing setup:

 

Time to make some own gears and pulleys 😛 

[Atomic]

Someone stole 6 set of tyres from us, feels bad man. (they were in a hidden shed deep in our yard, so someone must have browsed through the land and search for them) We have one suspect on our mind who came and bought a car trailer from us and said that they're going to take it outside from Finland 

 

I will start to machine some parts during next week as I have holiday for 2 weeks o/ wop wop

[Draker]

Sorry to hear that.. damn thieves!!!

[Mattndew76]

On 6/21/2020 at 8:03 AM, Atomic said:

Someone stole 6 set of tyres from us, feels bad man. (they were in a hidden shed deep in our yard, so someone must have browsed through the land and search for them) We have one suspect on our mind who came and bought a car trailer from us and said that they're going to take it outside from Finland 

 

I will start to machine some parts during next week as I have holiday for 2 weeks o/ wop wop

 

Polish migrant?

 

[Atomic]

3 hours ago, Mattndew76 said:

 

Polish migrant?

 

No. He's European but I will keep his identity away from the forums as I don't want this thread to turn into some hate post. Doesn't matter for me where the person is from or what's his/hers background, zero tolerance for stealing. 

Edited June 23, 2020 by Atomic

[Mattndew76]

Was only curious. I had a Norwegian customer talk about crime in his region was from poor polish migrant workers no longer having work. 
 

wasn’t an implicit indictment. 

[datzenmike]

19 hours ago, Mattndew76 said:

 

Polish migrant?

 

 

That's racist. John's right, where do you complain about this?

[Atomic]

Took me long enough to realize that my oil pickup tube was bent like crazy, that's why all the clearance issues with the girdle, D'oh!

 

I made a smaller print section to confirm that the hole will clear out the stock oil pickup tube. Now the girdle should support stock oil pan + oil pickup tube:

 

[Atomic]

Today is the day, I'm quite nervous. I bought cutting liquid for the pump, cleaned the work area, made the G-code for cutting the girdle.

 

Lets see how it went at the end of the day, yikes! (fingers crossed)

[Atomic]

The girdle is quite troublesome in size, so I had to cut the stock 750 mm long piece from the middle:

 

And I have to rethink the final positioning of the stock piece as the holders I have at the moment couldn't reach that well into the workpiece if it was inserted way back in the machine (thats why there is one broken edge I just snapped in the end by twisting and pulling the other half apart, cleaned later with a file).

 

Overall this operation went pretty well, the use of cutting fluid was definitely improved also surface finish. The carbide tool has a small wear section 1 mm higher than the cutting edges. Not sure if there was a chip stuck or something. Otherwise the end mill bit is super sharp still.

 

I will use more planning before doing the "final" machining and taking the stock into final shape. So the girdle postpones to tomorrow