10 Foot Axial Mill From Flat Plate Part 1

[brianc4]

Here is the machine that makes most of my wrought iron & artwork possible. It is a great time saver & I dont know how I lived for 40 years without one!!

That being said lets get on topic. I really appreciate all of the engineering information posted about the 10' axial flux machines on this site & have seen some wonderfull creations constructed from tubing. However I wanted to take advantage of of the speed & accuracy of my plasma cutter. So using all of the great information presented on this site I converted the construction of the mill to a flat plate design.

Here is the first piece, the yaw baseplate that will hold the only tube part on the mill the main spindle.The spindle is offset 5" from centerline of yaw axis & skewed 10 deg. off of perpendicular of yaw axis to give more blade clearance to the tower. Which duplicates what I have seen done with the tube construction design.

Here is the stub axle with spacer washers installed slipped into spindle tube & ready to be fillet welded & plug welded.

Here is my Dad, Larry welding up the spindle assembly.FYI its a real pain trying to take a picture with a digital camera thru a welding helment!

Here is a good shot of the magnet rotors being cut. Once again hard to take a good picture of such a bright light especially with dark glasses on!

Here is a good shot of the control booth of the pattern room. Its it is heated & air conditioned and has a big soft office chair (Dad's Side) My side is the one with all the heat sparks flame and smoke, not sure how that happened something about Dad having already paid his dues.

Here is a screenshot of the CNC Control Software. It carries the Torchmate Logo but it is actually Fashcut CNC program & very easy to use.

Here are the Rotor blanks cut out of 3/8" mild steel and ready for finish machining.

Here I am putting all the holes on size. There is always some plasma lean to the cut so I always leave the holes an 1/8 undersize when possible, a 1/6" would be more than adequate to get rid of the plasma lean but that puts you out on the very edge of the drill bit, drilling thru a tapered hole in glass hard slag, drill bits don't like that at all!

Here I am getting ready to tap the holes for the jacking bolts. I bought that trick tapping handle that fits in the drill press a few years ago and havn't broke a tap since unless it was dull. I got it from Wholesale Tool if anyone is interested in one.

Here I have the front magnet rotor on the spindle hub to put some nice divits in the front of the hub for the ends of the jacking bolts to ride in during assembly. This is actually out of sequence I put the divits in before I tapped the holes.

Here is the completed spindle ready to be welded to the yaw baseplate.

Here the spindle is bolted to the yaw baseplate. Again I dulpicated what I have seen on this site putting the spindle axis up 5 deg. to gain more blade clearance.

Here is a picture of the backside of the spindle hub after a quick trip thu the lathe to true it up.

Here is the spindle assembled with the magnet Rotors & the Blade Hub. Belive it or not all work to this point was done in a 9 hour period during the memorial day weekend. Amazing what I can get done when I don't have customers under foot!

[jonas302]

awesome post I love all the detail can't wait to see that beauty in the wind

[TomW]

Awesome Post. Great photos. This is the stuff that makes this forum work. Glad you took time to pass it on and document it. Sure looks to be a stout machine. Very professional.

Thanks for the share.

Off to bump this up front where it belongs.

Tom

[electronbaby]

Yes, very nice indeed. Curious about how it performs, and the way the tail pivot connects. This design seems to have a bigger blade/tower offset. Thats not a bad thing. the tail balancing will need to be worked out.

Will you weld in two pins to hold the tail?...one for the pivot, and one maybe for a stop? (just a guess)

great post!  :-)

[domwild]

Very professional! Great thing to have a CNC machine to play with. Keep up the good work. I hope your magnets will stay glued on.

Regards,

[Janne]

Hi!

Excellent workmanship. I like the way you have done the frame, that should give you more than a plentiful tower clearance.. too many nice machines have been lost because a blade hit the tower.

Are you going to use a similar spindle for the yaw bearing too?

Keep us posted on your progress.

Janne

[walsdos]

Excellent work and heat resistance of Larry's shirt. I did not see a seal on the spindle bearing. Is that a final addition?

Walsdos

[ghurd]

Wow!  That covers it.

G-

[brianc4]

Janne,

You are exactly right, I bought a half dozen of the spindles & hubs from the surplus center in Iowa, I used one for the yaw bearing on the PMG test mill & plan on using one for the yaw bearing on the axial machine as well.

Brian

[brianc4]

I hope they stay glued on as well! I have worked with rare earth magnets in the past building magnetic drums for scrap conveyors but the magnets were bolted on. I have worked with several different epoxies in the past as well but this is my first experience combining the two.

Brian

[blueyonder]

 

 great posts here brian.  i would call the three posts you done the butt movers posts.

  i for one will be moving my butt.

  ive been getting a bit tied up with other things. so now im motivated again.

  the saying is that theres more than one way to skin a cat.

   and i just love to see how others use there mind in doing the same thing

  different .

  but all with the same end result.

  two things im not sure about. why did you make the rotors so big.

  and the other is what dos it mean about larrys shirt.

  maybe its a American thing.

  its also possible you could have used a non magnetic vane.

  sumthing like stainless . or evan plastic glued .

 that way no problem with flux.

  just what i needed . a great wake up post.

   sorry but i must go and build my wind turbine now. bye.

[brianc4]

Electronbaby,

I just brought the tail pivot to the shop with me this morning. Ive got a piece of 1" 4140 chrome moly shaft I had left over from a job and a piece of heavy wall DOM tube bored with bronze bushings fitted in the ends. I will use another piece of shaft or tube with some rubber bumpers on them for the stops in both directions. As for the offset I hope I didn't mess up but I used a 5 inch offset like I have seen done on other 10' mills. I will be working on the tail & pivot today & any input on the setup would be appreciated. I have planned a 5' long tail boom with 5 sq. ft. of tail area does this sound about proper?

Brian

[brianc4]

Walsdos,

Good eye on spotting the missing seal! I figured I would have the unit assembled & dissasembled a dozen times before final assembly so I left the seal out for now so I did'nt mangle it.

Brian

[luv2weld]

Nine hours!!!!!

I'm excited if I get one rotor plate done in 9 hours.

I just filled up my Christmas wish list!!!!! I gotta have

one of those machines.

Thanks for sharing with us. Fantastic work!!!!

Ralph

[brianc4]

Blueyonder,

I should have thought of the stainless fins! If I have any flux problems I will fall back on that idea.

I made the rotors 1" bigger diameter and brought the fins out to the edge of them in hopes of grabbing more air for cooling.Ill post a Cad drawing that shows what I am trying to accomplish.

As for the shirt Im not to sure myself but I guess you may be right about the american thing seems We have withstood alot of "Heat" Latley.

Brian

[blueyonder]

 

 maybe 12 hours later.  lol. i get it.

 larry your dad is welding with just a shirt on. must be a good shirt.

[jmk]

 Things always come better with better tools. Looks great! Are you guys planning on mass producing these?

[brianc4]

Jmk,

I am planning on building 3 to 4 mills for myself as I have plans to move my shop at some time out to the cabin where I live.

I will also be making one for my Parents to go with the PMG model I have already built for them.

As for making them to sell I do not know at this time however alot of customers that come in to buy wrought iron have expressed a great interest in the windmills.

Brian