Tech Stuff by Johan

I have not been very active updating my blog lately...summer you know :P much other things going on. I have also started a business with my friend Simon, check out our website here: Protoparts. The site is still under construction so be patient :). We offer Mechanical and automation solutions and prototypes. We offer custom made tube bending dies. contact me for more info. We also sell Megasquirt fuel injection systems and wiring harnesses. We are also planning to open a webshop soon.

I have also began to reassemble the Mazak lathe. I have changed the ballscrew balls, and the ballscrew bearings.

A few picks:

I have had great use of the engine lift I made a couple of weeks ago, when disassembling and removing the turret of the Mazak Slant turn lathe. The turret is being removed because the ballscrew balls are going to be replaced, and all the turret parts are going to be checked and cleaned at the same time.

This is a old pic of the turret with the toolholders and tools installed...

















I was not fast enough to take a picture before my dad had removed all the tools. :)
















Tools and toolholders.















Turret indexer on the right hand side. If you look closer it seems like there is a missing part on the PCB! Need to confirm that...

















Left hand side. Removing the center part.



















Bearing visible.



















Worm gear inside turret. The worm screw is driven by a hydraulic motor on top of the turret.

















Removed the worm gear. In my opinion Mazak is really quality stuff, these parts are almost 25 years old and in perfect condition.

















Turret housing removed.



















Turret removed.



















To be continued...

Lately me and my friends have been working on our endurance bimmer, in order to get it in shape before the season begins. We have replaced the rear wheelbearings and brakepads. We also installed some gauges. About a month ago I was to a MC exhibition, there was a formula renault that was interesting. Take a look!

Lately i´ve been making a engine lift, that will be useful when working with cars. I also have several other projects that it can be useful in. It will be handy to have when removing the turret from the Mazak lathe. I am also going to install a new door to the car lift side. Here are some pics!

Great conditions for some ice racing last weekend! I have also been working on the indexing table design.

...I almost lived in the workshop :P. Me and some of my friends was working on our endurance car, we have had some problems with megasquirt. The main problem was that the VR conditioner circuit was sensitive to noise, so the ignition did not work as supposed. That problem is now solved. I had also soldered one wire wrong, the cranc VR signal from the conditioner circuit was not ment to be connected to the input of the 4N25 optocoupler, which I had assumed. All problems are now solved and the engine runs! Here are some pictures of basic settings that we are using with our m42 engine with megasquirt MS1 extra 029y4 firmware. Use at own risk!

The past days I have spent some time machining different parts, both own and for friends. We have also been working with our endurance car. Currently we are modifying the megasquirt so we can control the ignition timing with it. We are going to use 4 ignitioncoils, one for each cylinder. We are using transistors and schmitt triggers to convert the VR sensor signal to a decent digital signal. We simulated the VR signal with a gear hooked up in the lathe :) The circuit seems to work, at least the rpm figures of the lathe and megasquirt match!

Today I have been drawing parts for the indexing table that I plan to build. I have also had the opportunity to work with it at school as a project with two friends, Joni and Sebastian. Joni has drawn the electrical diagrams and Sebastian has drawn some of the mechanical drawings. When I have built and tested the indexing table, that will be a two-axis cnc controlled one, I might add the plans to my blog if someone is interested to have a look ;) or perhaps build one? As I previously wrote I am going to use BL70-300 servomotors and VSD-E servo drives. Here are some pics:

This weekend I had the mill running for about 24h :P due to a very long gcode and slow feedrate. What i machined is a model of a garrett t3 turbocharger in scale 1:1. I am quite satisfied with the result. The surface finish is very good considering that I used a drill bit as tool! The main problem was that I had not set up the plunge settings correct, so the part got some unwanted hits. My friend Simon lightened the flywheel of our endurance bimmers m42 engine. He also welded the oilpan, that was leaking. I also did some small progress with the crosscart. Here are some pics: