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StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Hey guys,
After buying shite from Strike CNC, I've spent the last year fixing it along with a bit of upgrading to cheer myself up too! Starting this thread to just give myself a bit of motivation and something to look forward to as its nearly complete and should be cutting very soon.
Here's the original turd I got from the anus at Strike. And yep I know, millions of problems and only just up to the task of cutting air (bit of an exaggeration but its not far off the truth)
Attachment 7686 Attachment 7687 Attachment 7688 Attachment 7689
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Re: CNC Retrofit
After the first disaster the main area of concern was the gantry and Z axis. So back off to Strike and flushed some more money down the toilet to have them 'upgraded'. Threw out the Kress spindle and got one of the 2.2kw chinese WC ones whilst I was at it.
Here's the new gantry. Much better than the last with 200x40 extrusion. Happy with that.
Attachment 7693 Attachment 7692
It wasn't all good news though because Strike, true to form, botched the new Z axis. Might look fine on these shots but you couldn't correctly tighten the supported rails due to mickey mouse engineering - result = play at the cutter.
Attachment 7695 Attachment 7694
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Re: CNC Retrofit
So off comes the Z axis and I have a new front plate made to try solve the problem of not being able to tighten the supported rail. This works fine but then I realise despite ordering a machine with 200mm of Z travel I only really have about 175mm. Making it very tight for some of the jobs I have in mind. Thanks for that Strike. So I think sod it, I'll design my own. Can't be that hard can it.
Here's the result...
Attachment 7696 Attachment 7697 Attachment 7698
Bit over engineered for the machine with 25mm linear rails and a 25mm thick ecocast front plate but overkill never hurts. It does slow you down though so will no doubt have to dial the speeds/acceleration back a tad after this but I'd rather do that and have accuracy with a good finish.
And on the machine:
Attachment 7699 Attachment 7700 Attachment 7701
Looks good so far, happy with that. You can also spot the X and Y ballscrews in those shots. These now have the correct ballscrews mounts with angular contact bearings instead of the Strike's cheap substitute - round rail supports with captured regular chinese ballrace bearings. Those will slop about like crazy with a bit of wear on them. Strike may now be out of business but Merchant Dice use the same method in some of their machines so watch out for that.
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Re: CNC Retrofit
The electronics, whilst functional in the original Strike machine, weren't giving me the speeds I'd have liked. These were upgraded for better Leadshine AM882 drives along with higher volts (75v). What wasn't acceptable was the dangerous wiring job by Strike. Things like the 240v wired through the e-stop, bare wire hanging out of screw contacts, broken wire insulation exposing dangerous DC voltages, no cabinet ground and incorrect colour coding on wiring. It was a death trap basically and would never have passed any sort of safety test.
So I ripped the lot out and started from scratch with standard and sound safety practices such as e-stop on relays, home/limit switches, star grounding, cable management etc.
Strike's attempt:
Attachment 7703
After the upgrade:
Attachment 7702
I upgraded all the stepper wiring to shielded whilst I was at it too. Nothing more annoying than RF and EMI noise problems and the WC spindle can give off a fair bit of that.
Attachment 7704
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Couple of simple convenience mods. LCD on an swivel arm so I can see Mach wherever I am.
Attachment 7707 Attachment 7706
And to the rear of the dust enclosure Strike supplied the machine incomplet! The doors were missing at the back. The whole idea of a dust enclosure is to keep dust out the workshop... missing doors isn't going to help that. I came up with something anyway but space was tight so went with folding doors.
Attachment 7705
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Re: CNC Retrofit
Not quite done yet though. I'm having a complete strip down of the bed, gantry and z axis done.
Once finished the bed will have a lot more support, bit more bracing on the gantry and everything will be square and true. I'll be cutting after that. Woop at last!
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Re: CNC Retrofit
Still, a bit of tweaking is to be expected. At least the steppers were ok. ;)
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Looking at the quality of work you have done its a shame you did not build it all in the first place. Congrats on actually producing that silk purse from a strikes ear. Nice work.
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
One thing I would recommend is to add another beam across the front of the machine like this:
Attachment 7732
My build is similar to yours and I found that the machine was twisting slightly and this solved the problem. Its much more rigid now.
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Thanks guys.
Regarding the bed. There's plenty more support going in there along with a 10mm thick alu plate covering the 1480 x 1410 area.
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Did fairly complete model of the machine and knocked out a render.
Attachment 7959
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
All done!
Attachment 8050 Attachment 8045 Attachment 8044 Attachment 8043
Stiffening up the Y axis rails. 25mm Alu plate bolted into the extruded alu that the hiwin profile rails mount into. Also some 100x50x6mm L section to help keep the rubbish off the rails. Loads more rigidity after this.
Attachment 8042
Its got a decently braced bed on there now. The original was pathetic.
Attachment 8041
Touch probe for setting work piece height.
Attachment 8055
Fixed probe plate for semi auto tool changes(using Mach 2010 screenset and macros)
Attachment 8056
Inductive proximity home/limit switches including dual ones to auto square the gantry each time you home.
Attachment 8049
The base of the cabinet was a big waste of space so a couple of doors have gone on there along with a floor and it now stores 4x4ft sheet materials along with the pump and reservoir for the spindle.
Attachment 8053 Attachment 8054
Dust extraction has been plumbed in too. Need to make a dust shoe of course but that'll be the first useful part I'll cut.
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Shuttle Jog pad. Lots of fine control and all the buttons are fully programmable from within Mach. You can even assign macro's to buttons which pretty much means unless your doing something out of the ordinary then you can control mach completely from the shuttle.
Attachment 8052
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
A big thank you to everyone here that answered my often dumb questions and helped me out. Special thanks to Dean and John. Dean in particular has been a huge help and thoroughly nice guy to boot.
Now to get crackin with the cutting!
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
About fucking time......................
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Rome wasn't built in a day and all that shit!
Still need those spacers though John. Haven't forgot. Glad you work faster than I do! lol
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
John S
About fucking time......................
Thats exactly why it's took so long.? Too much time on Job.!!
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Delay? One word for you...
Women!
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Nice work guys the machine looks really good, you can see the care and attention that has now gone into it and it really looks 100x better.
Cant wait to see the first cuts!
.Me
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Now thats what it should have been like right at the start. Well done, very nice machine.
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Test cut of some code for parts.
The machine is crippled at the moment since there's only one motor connected out of the two on the dual axis. Still does fine though but I wouldn't cut with it like that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=471THoUq8co
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
First part!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3xJKnBffUM
Attachment 8121
Went fairly conservative on speeds as this was my first part. Around 3m/min and 5mm DOC
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Levelling the bed. Profile is done at 6.5m/min with 5mm DOC and the pocket for the bed levelling was 9m/min at around 1-2mm DOC. Took longer to hover the mess than it did to run the job!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcTQuHsWNcg
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Whats that big fooookin clear tube thing hanging down the side for then.?????. . . Strap the bugger to spindle and turn it on.!!
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
It was clean for months. It needs to get dirty lol
A dust shoe is on the to do list but just like you said, now its done I can't be arsed and want to get stuck in cutting some of the things I've got designed and waiting. Glad I did all the tidying, probes and prettiness before plugging it in!
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Shinobiwan
A dust shoe is on the to do list but just like you said, now its done I can't be arsed and want to get stuck in cutting some of the things I've got designed and waiting.
Yep happens every time.!! . . . Soon has them steppers turn and spindle fires up all the plans turn to shit.!
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For once someone surfacing the bed at a respectable feedrate :)
What stepover did you use? When surfacing MDF, if I require an especially good finish, for instance when machining a PCB, I surface the bed with a 40% stepover parallel to Y (since Y is the fastest axis) and if not I use around 70%
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Shinobiwan
now its done I can't be arsed and want to get stuck in cutting some of the things I've got designed and waiting
I know the feeling. I did make something to collect the dust initially, but it didn't work very well and I never got round to improving it...
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jonathan
For once someone surfacing the bed at a respectable feedrate :)
What stepover did you use? When surfacing MDF, if I require an especially good finish, for instance when machining a PCB, I surface the bed with a 40% stepover parallel to Y (since Y is the fastest axis) and if not I use around 70%
90% there as its not critical. I'm only laying 4x4ft sheets over the bed.
Still got an ok finish even with the haste.
Attachment 8174
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JAZZCNC
Yep happens every time.!! . . . Soon has them steppers turn and spindle fires up all the plans turn to shit.!
lol, cant wait for that day to come myself :toot:
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
What is the grey material?
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Its a resin and fibre mix called Valchromat. Like a cross between solid surface and MDF.
Machines brilliantly, is moisture resistant, easier on tooling since the resin acts as a lubricant and is 30% more dense than MDF. Takes paint finishes exceptionally well and drastically cuts down the amount of prep and finishing needed. I've attached a shot showing a machined edge with no finish pass. You can't see a hint of step down and there's no furring up like MDF.
Its replaced MDF for me on critical parts such cabinet walls. Sadly its around 4 times the price and you can only get it from specialist wood yards so unless your luckily and have one on your doorstep then that will likely mean shipping it which isn't cheap unless you make it worth your while and buy a large quantity.
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Nice job, what is it you're building?
Edit: A Google search found some interesting projects you have planned. I'm a audio geek too.
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Great job, nothing better than cutting parts for yourself, especially with all the hard work involved to get the Strike going.
It also makes me want to get a CNC machine rather pronto, if I only had the time...
Regards,
dsc.
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Shinobiwan
More fun today.
Ye thats about right.??? . . . Bloody kids having Dad do the shit job of cleaning up. . :hysterical:
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JAZZCNC
Ye thats about right.??? . . . Bloody kids having Dad do the shit job of cleaning up. . :hysterical:
That's bro training to be a bin man. I might let him push cycle start next time lol
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Quote:
Originally Posted by
IanS1
Nice job, what is it you're building?
Edit: A Google search found some interesting projects you have planned. I'm a audio geek too.
Yep speakers.
Lots more done today. Unreal how quick it is to make things with one of these.
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
So are you doing a custom speaker build business now Ant, or is this for yourself?
What software are you running for CAD / CAM?
I'll be bringing out a speaker with traditional plywood cabinet soon, but a modern take on the damping and drivers.
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
These are for an enthusiast based in Hong Kong and yes and no. I've been doing design work for others for some time now but not specifically building anything. What they'll do is go take the part files and have them machined or build themselves. The CNC will change that though and I've got 3 solid designs I've been perfecting for the last year. Once this project is done I'll be focussing on those again.
Going back to the designing for others, I've done some quite interesting one's. Probably the coolest was an impressive OB line array based around 4x 21" Precision Devices subs in a Ripole, 8" Dayton Fullranges and BG Neo 10's with Mundorf AMT's held in a suspension system that had virtually no baffle. Attached is an image of this design.
For software I use Solidworks and SolidCAM.
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Re: StrikeCNC Machine - My Retrofit
Very impressive indeed. One of the reasons for my eventual machine build is the future potential for building speakers but for now it's mostly for machining Aluminium to build cases for CD Players, Amps, DAC's etc.