Three months later the mill finally makes it off a slow boat from China to my doorstep. Over 300lbs, getting this thing into the backyard with my shed might have to wait a bit. It’s been raining so much that it might get bogged down in mud. That ought to give me time to figure out how to lift it onto its stand…

UPDATED 6/25/2010:

I finally found the time to uncrate the mill and clean it up.  As with other machinery shipped overseas from China, a protecting coat of wax was applied to the unpainted metal.  I used Purple Power, an engine grease solvent, undiluted, and scrubbed away the red wax.  This included the table, handles, dovetails, and other places that were accessible.  I didn’t do a tear-down because I didn’t want to risk the chance of not getting it back together perfectly.  The stand comes pre-assembled, with the exception of the chip tray that sits between the mill and the stand.  The mill, tray, and stand all have 4 mounting holes to hold everything together.  There are also areas at the feet for mounting the stand to the floor.  I haven’t made it to this point yet.  Maybe in the next week or two when I get an extra hand it will finally be together.  Since the cost of the milling machine is about half of the overall cost of ownership (cutters, tool-holding, etc.), I can’t use it just yet.

I have several change gears on eBay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150423332041#ht_500wt_1182).  Here are the pics of each individual gear for sale.  I cleaned each gear and reapplied a thin coat of oil, so they are ready to go.

Atlas 12x54 Lathe

After several months of reading, waiting, and watching, I finally have my first metal lathe.  I found an Atlas 12×54 Series F (circa 1950) from a nice guy in NE Tennessee.  There’s quite a bit of reading to still be done, as well as parts to be ordered, before I turn anything, but it’s in working condition!  Now to resist the urge to spend the same amount on tooling…

I thought it would be interesting to see what the internets thinks Christmas is all about.  Here’s a breakdown of the first 200 webpages that pop up in Google with a response to “the meaning of Christmas is “…

Wondering about the “vengeance”?  Hint:  it comes from a movie.  Me?  In a word, it’s Jesus!

I recently needed to synchronize a Windows XP machine with GPS time.  One of the requirements was sub-millisecond accuracy, which is no small thing for non-RTOS computers.  David Hart to the rescue!  He has written an driver for the NTP (network time protocol) service to incorporate a PPS (pulse per second) signal.  The PPS signal, coming from a GPS, is highly accurate after sufficient time has elapsed for the GPS to sync with the satellites.  I’ve received a lot of help from David Taylor; thanks again, David!  So, without further ado, here’s an example of how to proceed with the installation:

[UPDATE:  from David Hart – “I’ve posted a new serialpps-20091228.zip which should correct that [install.bat bug]. The (huge) debug build of serialpps-ppsapi-provider.dll is also added, along with a tiny bit of instructions in install.bat regarding PPSAPI_DLLS.”]

1.  Configure hardware.
Connect the PPS signal to the DCD pin on the RS232 connector.

2.  Install Meinberg NTP software.
Keep all defaults.
Create and use a special NTP account. (I always had problems using anything else)
Account name:  ntp (use whatever you want)
Account pass:  ntpntp

3.  Stop NTP.
Run “C:\Program Files\NTP\bin\stopntp.bat”.   There are alot of useful utils in the \bin directory.

4.  Replace ntpd.exe with altered version.
Extract “ntpd.exe” from “ntp-4.2.4p6-DLH-QPC-20090315-bin.zip”
Copy to “C:\Program Files\NTP\bin”, replacing previous ntpd.exe.

5.  Install SerialPPS.
Extract all from “serialpps-20090606.zip“.
Edit “install.bat”
On line 6, remove ‘if “x86″==”%PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE” ‘
Remove line 7 and 8 (you can just put “REM ” in front and they will be ignored, almost like a comment)
Run “install.bat”
Ensure that “serialpps.sys” was copied to “C:\Windows\system32\drivers”
Copy “serialpps-ppsapi-provider\x86\serialpps-ppsapi-provider.dll” to “C:\”
Right-click “My Computer”, go to properties.
Click “Advanced” tab
Click “Environment Variables” button
Under “System variables”, Click “New” button
Name:  PPSAPI_DLLS
Value: C:\serialpps-ppsapi-provider.dll

6.  Configure GPS (for Garmin)
Run “SNSRCFG.exe”
Connect to GPS
Configure
Set baud rate to 4800
Enable “Pulse Per Second”
Press F7
Enable GPRMC, disable others
Send config to GPS

7.  Configure NTP
Edit “C:\Program Files\NTP\etc\ntp.conf”
Remove all entries, add the following
driftfile “C:\Program Files\NTP\etc\ntp.drift”
enable stats
statsdir “C:\Program Files\NTP\etc\”
statistics loopstats
server 127.127.22.1 minpoll 4 #PPS
server 127.127.20.1 iburst prefer minpoll 4 maxpoll 7 #GPS
#fudge 127.127.20.1 time1 0.4 refid GPS #uncomment and change time1 as needed

8.  Ensure GPS is connected to serial port 1

9.  Restart computer

10. Unplug GPS and disable Microsoft Ball-mouse (if listed)
Go to device manager: My Computer->Properties->Hardware->Device Manager
Under “Mice and other pointing devices”, right-click and disable “Microsoft Serial BallPoint”

11. Reconnect GPS Restart computer

12. Start NTP server
Run “C:\Program Files\NTP\bin\startntp.bat”

13. Monitor NTP server
Run “C:\Program Files\NTP\bin\ntpstatus.bat”
Both GPS and PPS should show up.  After the GPS gets a lock, NTP should sync to the servers.
Refer to online documentation for help.
Alternatively, use “NTP Time Server Monitor” from Meinberg

To Uninstall PPS driver, run “uninstall.bat”.