ELS for BOXFORD AUD

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Has anyone fitted an ELS to the BOXFORD AUD lathe and have photos of how to attach the stepper to the leadscrew. The AUD has the “Norton” gearbox for gear selection for screw cutting.  I am looking at the ELS from CNCTronic .

For a 100 euros plus cost of the stepper and controller, it takes a lot of the pain away and allows switching from metric / imperial / BA besides quite a lot more.

Presentation

https://electronicleadscrew.eu

Bob

[Micky TParticipant @mickyt]

Hi Bob

I have fitted an ELS system to my Boxford AUD based on the Clough42 system

I’ll take some photos later after work

MickyT

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Bob,

While you wait for MickyT to post his photos, I offer this information:

I have purchased and fitted both the Clough42 version to an Asian clone 9 x 20 lathe and also the ELS to which your link applies to a new Mini lathe (Amadeal AMA714B). Both installations are available to watch on YouTube should you want to while away a couple of hours.

If the Clough42 kit was still available to UK customers through eBay when I bought the mini lathe, I would probably have gone that route, mainly because I was familiar with it from my earlier project.  However, its lack of availability led me to the electronileadscrew.eu site, too.  Impressed by the videos, I ordered the single-axis version and successfully fitted it.  I must say that, since I fitted it, the two-axis version has become available, and I’d happily stump up the extra €40 for one of those, even if I never got around to fitting a stepper motor to the cross slide.  Again, his videos I find impressive.  I don’t recognise his lathe, but it’s certainly “old iron” so you might be able to glimpse a view from the YouTube videos and get some ideas from them.  From a brief trawl of the internet for photos of Boxford AUDs, it looks to me like the easiest way to connect a stepper will be at the tailstock end with a toothed pulley set-up.  Plenty of others have done this with success (not necessarily with Boxfords, though) and published their results online.  I 3D printed the mounting brackets for my mini lathe installation to use the existing tapped holes in the headstock which were previously used by the change gears, so that reversion to “standard” could be easily achieved if necessary.  I found that PLA-CF was perfectly adequate for this application, and it has shown no sign of flex or distortion during use.

Good luck with the conversion – you won’t regret it!

John

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

The great thing about a Norton box is that it is still set on whatever fine feed or thread you last used when you turn it on. No fiddling with tiny buttons and screens. I have often thought it would be better to have say 3 rotary switches to select the options.
Makes more sense on a far eastern lathe where they have a few odd threads on the knobs not a clean sweep.

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Bazyle,

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds from your post that you have never used an ELS?

John

 

[Andy StopfordParticipant @andystopford50521]

John, what size stepper motor did you use for the mini lathe (I’ve been thinking of fitting one of the electronileadscrew.eu setups to my Warco WM180)?

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Andy,

I used the same stepper motor/driver/power supply package for the mini lathe as I had used for the previous installation on the larger lathe for the simple reason that I knew that it worked OK, with plenty of torque available, and it was available at what I considered to be an acceptable price.  I went for a package from Stepper online, as shown in this eBay advert but is showing as out of stock at the moment.  It would be perfectly suitable for installation on your Warco machine, which looks similar to my mini lathe.

This is a still taken from one of the YouTube videos showing the stepper motor mounted in front of the lathe:

The video is at This place. Other videos show the complete installation and testing.  If they were useful to you, the STL files for the stepper and encoder mounts, as well as the spindle encoder gear are available on Thngiverse, here.

John

 

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

MickyT

I look forward to seeing the photos.

Bob

[Andy StopfordParticipant @andystopford50521]

Thanks John, that’s really helpful

[John Hinkley]

On John Hinkley Said:

Bazyle,

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds from your post that you have never used an ELS?

John

 

I was thinking exactly the same.

Tony

[Bazyle]

On Bazyle Said:

The great thing about a Norton box is that it is still set on whatever fine feed or thread you last used when you turn it on. No fiddling with tiny buttons and screens. I have often thought it would be better to have say 3 rotary switches to select the options.
Makes more sense on a far eastern lathe where they have a few odd threads on the knobs not a clean sweep.

But what a faff if you were last cutting imperial threads and have a rush job that needs a metric thread. No problem just press a couple of buttons on your ELS equiped lathe. Far easier than having to muck about with different imput gears to the old gearbox and then you will only be getting an approximation of what you want. Then you have to convert it back to the feed rates you are used to.

[Micky TParticipant @mickyt]

Hi Bob please see the photos below

 

 

I bought an additional leadscrew bracket and modified it so i could always put it back to original

 

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

MickyT – how delightfully simple – I can see how it can be fitted without too much “damage” to the basic lathe.  I seem to remember that I even have a spare lead screw support bracket in the cupboard somewhere!  Another plus is that the  carriage can move just a little bit nearer the tailstock with the Dial Thread indicator removed.

Do/DID you ever have a problem with timing belt slip?

Do you ever need / use the original geared drive to the lead/feed screw (Stepper motor disconnect).

I assume that you can still use the cross feed feature – just a matter of selecting an appropriate pitch (by experiment) – I can see a request going to the software developer to allow a variable feed rate as diameter changes on the cross feed (could be useful for parting off ??).

Thanks for the photos

Bob

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

You would do better with variable speed to the spindle for facing and parting, keeps the cutting speed constant and depth of cut will also be constant. A change of feed could end up with a large depth of cut.

That is how the CNC machiens do it just altering spindle speed to suit diameter, you are only a fe wsteps away from going full CNC.

That is one of the good things with the far eastern machines you can just wind up the wick as the cut progresses towards the ctr.

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

Thanks Jason, I did reply, but the submission got lost (at my end ?).

Bob

[Micky TParticipant @mickyt]

Hi Bob

          Do/DID you ever have a problem with timing belt slip?

No the belt has never slipped

          Do you ever need / use the original geared drive to the lead/feed screw (Stepper motor disconnect).

No the gears are in a box and the stepper motor remains connected all the time

          I assume that you can still use the cross feed feature 

Yes the cross feed performs perfectly and the pitch can be adjusted on the fly if the finish needs to be improved. I have used it when parting off as well.

I originally fitted it in early 2021 and it has performed without any issues since

Regards

MickyT

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Can I just add something that I omitted in my earlier posting?  In my albeit limited experience, I found it worthwhile fitting closed-loop stepper motors to eliminate a lot of problems with “lost steps”, etc. and fitting all the electronic gubbins in an enclosure.

John

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I did not it seems make it clear in my first post that I was suggesting the ELS should have rotary switches. One with say 10 rates as per Norton like 8,9,10 etc then a second 10-way switch with 4 powers of two for imperial, then centre selects feeds (with 10 rates from the other switch) then 4 ranges of metric and final 10th position selects BA.

I have enough electronic devices like my blasted digital radio with a little screen and multifunction buttons that takes a special magic to get to go from one listenable channel to another.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

As several of these ELS systems seem to come as kits I suppose the budding builder could quite easily substitute a larger screen and buttons, something along the size of a DRO display would make it easy enough to punch in the numbers if that is the main problem

Probably even possible to modify a complete one by changing components and 3D printing a larger box.

[Bazyle]

On Bazyle Said:

I did not it seems make it clear in my first post that I was suggesting the ELS should have rotary switches. One with say 10 rates as per Norton like 8,9,10 etc then a second 10-way switch with 4 powers of two for imperial, then centre selects feeds (with 10 rates from the other switch) then 4 ranges of metric and final 10th position selects BA.

I have enough electronic devices like my blasted digital radio with a little screen and multifunction buttons that takes a special magic to get to go from one listenable channel to another.

Anything that depends on inputting numbers should have a keypad. I can’t see what rotary switches add in this case?

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

They add ease for anyone with sausage fingers

I suppose a rotary switch saves entering the numbers, more useful for things like BA where most of us would need to go and look at a chart to check the pitch so we can then enter the numbers hopefully without mistake. But how often do people screw cut BA sizes from 1 downwards? (OBA is just a number)

You would probably still want to have numeric input for the rarely used pitches and odballs, just like you have to do the maths and come up with a gear train with a geared or changewheel machine.

It would also be quicker to have an actual 0-9 numeric pad for that input rather than buttons where you have to keep scrolling up in increments you get the pitch you want

Where a knob might come in handy is for the cuting feed rates as you could set to whatever suits the job, either preset or constantly variable over a range. After all Hardinge thought it was a good idea for their electric feed.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Rotary switches = familiarity with (some) mechanical lathes.

Keypad = what most people are familiar with since rotary dials disappeared from phones.

Personally I would favour circular plugs with encoded connections in them which drop into say 4 sockets.  Each would be marked with a “tooth count” and the circuitry would interpret the encoding to work out the required ratio.  You could call them “change wheels” perhaps?

To be more serious, since ELS devices will incorporate a microprocessor, then linking them to the likes of Alexa might provide voice control.

[mgnbukParticipant @mgnbuk]

Do/DID you ever have a problem with timing belt slip?

Strange question ?

Why would a transmission system designed for positive drive slip when correctly installed – they also go by the name of syncronous or timing belts and are a popular transmission choice for CNC machine tool servo drives.

Nigel B.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Not to mention camshafts!

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I expect the belt will jump or the motor stall first but if driving from the tailstock end you will bypass any shear pin or slipper clutch in the usual leadscrew drive. May be worth thinking off adding a safety feature should the carriage get driven into something solid.

[Author]

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