Incorporating the Pocket NC into your shop to keep the big machines making $$$

In this blog post Penta Machine Company intern, Hudson Bassett, explains how he cut a part on the Pocket NC to help him with a job. Having the Pocket NC in the shop allowed him to solve his problem without taking one of our big machines out of production. This kept our machine shop running at full capacity while giving Hudson the opportunity to create his part.

V2-50 Spindle Motor Wrench

In the shop we occasionally have parts and components that don’t reach the standards we desire.  One of those components is the V2-50 spindle motor, and instead of having to scrap them we wanted a way to be able to service them, however, there is a brass nut that secures the small board in the motor in place. 

We didn’t have a tool to remove it and we couldn’t find where to get one so we decided to machine one ourselves.  We designed a tool in Onshape so it would fit inside the slots and made sure to leave a space for the pins. 

We initially machined the tool out of aluminum on a Pocket NC V2-50, but it wasn’t strong enough and bent the pins that fit inside the slots.

We made a few adjustments and machined another one out of aluminum with a similar result.  After that we decided to use a piece of brass stock we had left over from other projects. 

The brass tool ended up working to remove the brass nut. With the ability to remove the brass nut we could then desolder the board and remove it easily, giving us access to service the motor.  

It was great to be able to make a tool that we really needed in the shop and it was a perfect use of the Pocket NC because all of our larger production machines were needed to continue producing parts to make our machines.  It was also a good training exercise for one of our newer employees who doesn’t have much experience with using the Pocket NC.