Spent today milling a new motor mount for the ABB motor we are planning on putting on the Opti.
Here's the raw material, a 120x20 mm aluminium bar. The 6-flute 6 mm endmill we used is visible in the left upper corner.
First the mounting holes were drilled. Here the rough milling phase and the finish phase for the sides is done.
Here the ends of the block are milled. Some holes in the block for mounting the motor and a round hole for the drawbar were cut before this.
The complete motor-mount block. It's not perfect but OK when you consider the simple DIY-cnc machine it was made with...
Here we see the motor block in action: The new ABB induction motor is mounted on the standard OptiBF20 spindle gearbox. We are now driving the gearbox with a belt drive which has cut down on noise a little bit.
I have been looking at a BF20 mill for some time now and was wondering if this mill is capable of milling steel and stainless steel or is it limited to Aluminium only
Brian, I think I replied to you on cnczone already, but here are my thoughts again:
It's a small mill, so don't expect too much from it. We have milled a little bit of steel with small cutters (6mm) and fairly slow feeds (200mm/min). This has been mild steel and operations that don't remove very much material per pass.
Have not tried stainless or anything harder.
The axis motors and the spindle could probably handle more, but the rigidity of the machine is such that you will have problems with chatter etc. when taking heavier cuts.
AW
Hi Anders,
I want to replace my bf20 spindle. Can you give the specs of your own ABB induction motor?
Thanks.
I don't have the model for the ABB motor at hand now.
It's a standard low-cost 1.5kW motor. Note that we replaced the motor-bracket on the original spindle - so you will have to design and engineer a bracket(as well as pulleys+belt) that fits your motor anyway.
AW
Hi Anders,
Do you have some drawings on the motor mount? I'm about to do the same operation on my BF20, and have made a drawing. But it would really help to have some reference drawing on a mount that has already been tested.
Regards
Mats
Hi Mats, sorry we don't have plans for this part anymore - it was made over 10 years ago! 😉
Good luck with your BF20 modifications!
Anders
Oh, I wasn't looking for a motor-mount part, just if you still have the drawings of it to use as reference to get the interface towards the BF20 correct.
Kind regards
Mats