Axminster SIEG Super X1 Micro-Mill Dremel Addon

More updates for the Axminster SIEG Super X1 Micro-Mill. In order to drill PCB's and work on some small engraving jobs we found that we needed a much faster spindle speed than the standard motor will allow. We purchased a Dremel 300 series drill kit which has a rotation speed up to 30,000 rpm.

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Our original milling machine has undergone several modifications since we purchased it.

First was a new longer bed and then a diy CNC conversion with the control box being relocated, and in December 2009 we purchased a belt drive kit to make it quieter to use. This was followed by a RPM monitor a couple of weeks ago using a optical sensor.

The one thing the mill has always needed was to be made more precise for CNC milling and the original lead screws had too much play in the threads to enable us to work with small tolerances. We had planned to get ballscrews and ballnuts when we first did the CNC upgrade but they are very expensive to buy and had difficultly obtaining the sizes we needed.

Last week a pair of 8mm shaft ballscrews with 18mm ballnuts appeared on ebay for under £100 so we purchased them to upgrade the X and Y axis on the mill. We will upgrade the Z axis later but we are looking into alternatives for the current cast iron column and runners.

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When we purchased the milling machine which was later converted to be CNC we also purchased a Axminster SIEG C1 Micro Lathe, the lathe was ok for working with larger materials (over 3mm) but due to excessive vibration from the machine when it was running it wasn't possible to work smaller materials and get a consistent finish.

Recently we needed to make some small parts on the lathe and found that it wasn't possible so we decided to see if we can improve it!

Removal of the covers and replacement of various parts narrowed the source of the vibration to the standard pulleys which had over .5mm offset which caused a lot of issues and the motor mount which flexed a lot when under load.

The original machine before starting work.

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Yesterday my old G5 Apple iMac started to crash and have screen corruption with windows appearing to freeze and then leave parts behind when moving around. After a hour the computer was crashing as soon as it booted and the startup logo developed distortion and lines across the screen and ended up with the display being completely unusable.

After removing the cover on the iMac I found that 4 of the capacitors on the main logic board had expanded and blown which were located in the areas circled below.

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DIY CNC Mill Controller for Stepper Motor Milling Machine

This addon to our CNC mill was made to allow manual control of the mills cnc stepper motors using a pair of 2 axis joysticks obtained from a broken radio control plane radio transmitter.

The circuit uses a 12 series PIC processor to sample the joystick position and determine a center point. This then sends one output to the mills motor controller for the direction which switches between 0V and 5V via a optical isolator and the second output from the PIC Processor gives a voltage which corresponds to the joysticks position between 0-5V which goes into a voltage to frequency chip which sends a pulsed output to the mills motor controller for the speed. This is also isolated using a a optical isolator to protect this new circuit when the PC is controlling the mill.

The finished hand controller with the 2 joysticks which came from a old RC plane controller.

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Aluminium iMac Hard Drive upgrade guide

Upgrading the internal hard drive in a 2007-2008 Apple iMac to 1.5TB

The following guide provides step by step instructions on how to disassemble and upgrade your Apple iMac 20" or 24" models.

Tools required:
T6 Torx Driver and T9 Torx Driver
Suction Cups for removing the glass front panel - These can be obtained from many DIY shops or online for less than £10
Philips Screwdriver for removing the memory cover.

New Hard Drive. I used a Segate 1.5TB SATA 7200 rpm model which was £140

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2252036

Below is a link to a HD video of the work involved in the upgrade:

Apple iMac hard drive upgrade from Brian Dorey on Vimeo.

Please note this is not an official Apple guide so proceed at your own risk!

1. Remove the memory slot cover from the base of the machine.
2. Using the suction cups carefully place on the glass screen cover and remove the glass panel. Place somewhere safe and clean.
3. Remove the torx screws from the front panel surround on the edge of the LCD screen (some of the screws are different sizes)
4. Lift the screen away from the main chassis and life up and over above the computer
5. Remove the screws holding the LCD panel to the chassis
6. Remove 2 screws from the LCD connector and remove the connector from the graphics card
7. Carefully life the LCD panel from the bottom to expose the 4 small connectors for the backlight. Mark the connectors with a marker to aid reassembly and disconnect the connectors
8. Lift the panel clear of the chassis
9. Remove the hard drive temperate sensor and place to one side
10. Unclip the hard drive from the chassis. This plastic bracket can be a tight fit so some force is required to remove it
11. Remove the power and SATA connectors from the hard drive and remove from the chassis
12. Remove the screws holding the plastic clip from the hard drive and the 2 mounting pins from the other side of the hard drive
13. Fit the clip and pins to the new hard drive
14. Reconnect the power and SATA connectors and clip the new hard drive back into the computer chassis
15. Refit the LCD screen and reconnect the 4 small backlight connectors
16. Place the LCD panel flat on the chassis and reconnect the screen connector and refit the two small screws
17. Refit all the screws from the edge of the LCD screen
18. Refit front panel and take care not to trap the small cable at the top of the screen
19. Refit all the front panel screws in the same order as they where removed (some of the screws are different sizes)
20. Clean any dust from the LCD panel and the front glass panel using a soft screen cleaning cloth (don't use compressed air as this often leaves propellant on the screen which is very hard to remove)
21. Remove the suction cups from the screen and clean the glass.
22. Refit the memory slot cover on the base of the machine.

Next you need to reinstall OS X from your operating system disks and then your upgraded iMac is ready to use!