Students continued working on making a Turner’s Cube today in class. They learned some milling basics in the classroom, and then got their hands dirty with our Trax manual milling machine. The chips were flying, and although we made a few mistakes, the principles and methodology for milling were learned. A few photos below of freshmen working the milling machine.
As the school year winds down, I wanted to get my Freshmen students some time working in the machine shop. To that end, we began learning about milling – parts of a mill, types of cutting bits, cutting processes, and materials. Students then created a 3D model of a Turner’s cube in Fusion 360 in order to create a drawing sheet, which shows the dimensions required to make the cube. I went ahead and made sure I had all the procedures correct and fabricated a cube today. I think it turned out ok, a few minor changes I might make regarding the chamfer procedures. Will be interesting to see how the student cubes turn on in the next 2 days. Below are some photos of my completed cube.
I completely forgot to post about the Robotics Club, which Mr. Christy and myself are the moderators. To be fair, Mr. Christy spends much more time with the students, often staying until 8 or 9pm with them during the buildup to a recent contest. This year, the team participated in the MATE ROV competition, which is an underwater rover robot event. The event was at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy on the Cape, and we were there early in the morning. The contest was a little disorganized, and the start time was quite delayed. But that gave our team plenty of time to prepare and organize, since this was our first time at the event. We had two stints in the water with the robot, and the team learned a great deal from the day. Fortunately, we won! Out of the 4 scoring categories, we took 3 of them. We were completely surprised, but very happy for our students.
This means the team will now compete in the international event held in Long Beach, California. Mr. Christy has spent a lot of energy working on corporate sponsorship, and at this time we have raised nearly $20,000 to get the team to California, as well as created ongoing sponsorships for years to come. It’s been a great success, and no matter what happens in Long Beach, the team is going to get better and better each year. Unfortunately, neither myself or Mr. Christy will be able to attend the event in California, so a couple of parent chaperones will go with our team. I’ve posted a few photos below of the team and the rover. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get any good video of the rover underwater!
I believe it was Tuesday when I reported having some issue with my Tormach. You can read about the initial symptoms here. Fortunately, Tormach has very good support, at least in my opinion. I had also let Tormach know the automatic draw bar was not functioning, the lock and release buttons were not doing anything despite having good air pressure, and other air pressure related functions working properly. This led them to believe that the draw bar control board may not be receiving power, which would then affect the ATC, as both are used together during tool changes.
I put a multimeter on the draw bar control board and was not reading any voltage. I traced the wires back to their source at the electrical cabinet and also received not voltage at that point, which suggested perhaps a fuse had blown. However, while looking at the fuse board in the electrical cabinet I did notice a few small chips of aluminum on the board, which might be shorting out the board and causing the issue. I brushed those chips away and retested the wires numbered 501 and 502. 11.92 V showing on the multimeter, problem solved.
Looks like some chips somehow made it into the electrical cabinet and shorted out the fuse board, specifically the 501 and 502 wires to the draw bar control board. It took a day or so to track down the issue, but luckily it was an easy and cheap fix. Some photos below.
Today I was going to perform some test taps on the Tormach mill to make sure I had my speeds and feeds correct. Unfortunately, when I turned on the machine this morning, the computer screen said No Signal and I could hear rapid beeping coming from the computer underneath the mill. I contacted Tormach and they suggested reseating the memory card in the computer. Seemed strange, but they had a pdf guide on how to do it, which suggested its not an uncommon problem. These machines do vibrate a lot, it is certainly a possibility. After reseating the memory card the computer started up without issue. Problem solved.
Unfortunately, when trying to use the ATC (Automatic Tool Changer), I received a communication error between the ATC and Draw Bar. They error message said to check the ATC to Drawbar cabling and fuses – but I am not really sure where to start for that. I’ve contacted Tormach again and awaiting their response. They have always been good about getting back to me for support issues, so hopefully we can resolve this quickly. I’ll post some photos of the errors I was receiving.
