Re: Colored pins for EMC map-- reply with city, state, country

[Jon Elson <jmelson-at-artsci.wustl.edu>]

Fred Proctor wrote:

> EMC folks,
>
> I'd like to put up a map with colored pins on it marking the location of
> an EMC. If you are working with one, can you reply with your city,
> state/region, and country, and a brief description of your machine and
> application?

I have an ancient Bridgeport mill, originally with round ram and M head.
I replaced the M head with its small spindle with the larger and stiffer J
head.  I think the machine was made in 1938.  I installed the ballscrews
and axis drive mechanisms from a 1960's Excellon circuit board drilling
machine, and built my own Z axis drive, with a precision ballscrew.
I made my own servo amps, and they are driven by a Servo-to-Go
card.  I'm using a 100 MHz Pentium classic with 32 MB of memory
to run EMC with a servo update rate of 1 KHz.  It runs quite well,
and I've been using this configuration since September, 1998.

I am in Kirkwood, MO (suburb SW of St. Louis).

I make various electronic instruments, mostly for basic nuclear research,
as a second job.  Front panels and other cabinetry need to be machined.
I have done a number of things using EMC that would be hard to do
otherwise.  Such as a round cover plate that needs a large round hole
in it, and 9 small holes.  I made fixtures for it, and drill the small holes

first.  then, I clamp through those holes, and mill the OD and the ID
holes as arcs.  I stack about 6 of these covers at a time.

I have also drilled the holes in prototype circuit boards and engraved
some legend plates for equipment with a Westwind high speed air bearing
spindle from a circuit board drilling machine, mounted to the side of the
Bridgeport's main spindle.

> A graphic of this would be nice to have on the web site. I'll put what I
> get onto this list or the dropbox.

It will be fun to see the growing community!

Jon