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New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Hi, welcome to my first cnc milling machine build (Although not my last I hope) I have a little experience with cnc as I built and use a reprap, I'm just upgrading it from a mendal to a I3 graber when the frame ever arrives from the Ukraine but if you have a cnc machine you can make your own for a lot cheaper. I've been able to score quite a few bits over the last 6 months for nothing except my time and a lot of hard work lol.
I set myself some ambitious goals for my first build.
1. 120cm*60cm work area (Or close as I can get) ***plan has changed 120cm*80cm***
2. Capable of milling aluminium, ply and mdf
3. Be better than if I bought an Xcarve
4. Build it for almost no money although I will if I have to I hope to build this for under £300, I think the spindle will be the most expensive thing as I can't reclaim one of them.
5. Work on Arduino or Raspberry Pi electronics, Arduino is better as I have a spare one and have been using it with cheapo stepper drivers to test the nema motors I recover.
I haven't cad the machine just winging it but will cad the mounting plates for the bearings and the z axis.
Attachment 21467 Supported rail 25mm I've now cut it down to 2*1.4m lengths for the Y and 1*70cm length for the X so will only have one support on the x which does worry me but the supported rail was free so it's being used, price for 8 bearings from china was £42 delivered through ebay.com (Was more expensive on ebay.co.uk).
Attachment 21468 Aluminium extrusion 9cm*4.5cm heavy duty profile I have another 2 lengths this long with different profile they are even more chunky and wider) all the lengths are 3.5-3.6m. I also have the t nuts, bolts, angles etc. Price £0 but 1 days very very hard work removing them from the machine. I was allowed to keep em for free as I saved them 1 days work doing it themselves. There was a lot of toolsteel, tool aluminium on that machine.
Attachment 21469 I have 2 of these one with stepper will grab a pic later. The motor is crazy small for this thing, far too heavy for a z axis as is but did consider selling them on ebay or converting one to a z axis by stripping it down, weld a frame out of steel box section and remount everything in a smaller profile scrapping the 4cm solid aluminium lol. They weigh over 20kg at moment. Would be excellent start to a mini milling machine on it's own as a moving bed but if I do rebuild one as a z axis put a proper nema 23 on it. These cost me a day's pay I flipped a coin with the gaffer over these heads I got them free tails he docked me a day's pay to keep them and I lost lol. Not including this in build cost though yet as I might not use them.
I have 2 nema 23's that work at the moment have powered them up with a ramps 1.4, steppers and ardunio combo one of them makes a whining noise (It's the bigger one) but I think this might be related to 12v from the ramps board at moment. I intend to convert the ramps board to 24v (Lots on reprap forums about this). I bought the cheapest combo of ramps, steppers and arduino on ebay, just over a £10 all in. I expect to have to change some of the capacitors but the mosfets don't matter. So will be using the x carve software at start but will look into the alternatives, I like the arduino though because it's cheap ;)
I've sent the aluminium for cutting today so tomorrow I can pick it up and assemble the frame and fit both the y axis supported rails and the single x axis one but my bearings were only shipped from China this morning so can't do much more on the frame until it comes will be looking for more nema motors as I want a matched pair on the y axis. Always looking for stuff of course so plans might change if I come across bigger sildes, ballscrews, etc. I can start on the Z axis as well and I should probably get a spindle sorted if going to order from China.
My intention over the next 6 months is to collect enough to build a proper 8*4 one which I'll spend a lot more money on a decent spindle.
I intend to belt drive the X&Y I think it's called belt an pinion that I want to use but not sure how I do it yet. I expect this build to take me 4-6 weeks to complete to me carving but who knows.
Total cost so far is £62 including cutting the aluminium, a few days of hard work and swearing and a lot of spanners, alan keys and torx have been snapped along the way.
Wish me luck
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1 Attachment(s)
Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Attachment 21471 I made last minute design change it's now going to have a working area (Hopefully) of 1.2m*0.8m also trying to sort 2 slides for the other axis. The frame you see the long bits are 150cm and the short lengths are 100cm, width of extrusion is 4.5cm*9cm (It's the heavy duty profile).
Not for the first time I'm waiting on China post lol but at moment seems really good got arduino mega in 11 days, capacitive sensor took 14 days and my heated bed for the 3d printer was 16 days so seems a good time to order.
I am going to reinforce with steel angles before I put it together properly so the corners are more for alignment than anything else, I have considered having the frame welded I can get it done free ;)]
Just can't afford it at moment but eyeing up ballscrews in case I can sell a kidney ;) so we're still looking at belt drive at moment which works well as all my nema 23's have cogs permanently mounted on them.
I will buy a new nema 23 for the z axis (Unless I find one with a shaft) so I can mount it easily to the ballscrew.
I realise I can recover proper stepper drivers 4amp+ from the machines so will upgrade the drivers as and when but (If I can) will still use an Arduino to drive them.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Already budget is out the window ha ha ha.
I bought a pair of 1.5m of linear rails with 4 blocks and a 1.4m ballscrew with couplings, mounts, etc.
Spend is ~£250 now but will need to buy 2 900mm ballscrews for the x axis and need to sort z axis but I think I can do that cheap.
That will then leave a router/milling spindle but lol lets get the X,Y & Z working.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Bought 2 1m ballscrews now so I have
A strong aluminium frame 1.6m*1m made with heavy duty profile
2 supported rail 25mm slides (With new bearings) will cut to 100cm
2 linear rails with sliding blocks (HWin) 1500mm long with 4 blocks
1 Ballscrew 1400mm long RM1605
2 ballscrews 1000mm RM1604
The fittings for the ballscrews, motor couplings, etc.
Most of a z axis (25mm smooth rod & bearings, 20mm ground ballscrew travel 20cm) I will need to decide how much travel I need and cut down and machine to fit.
2 nema 23 motors (I have these working)
Arduino Uno, CNC shield
Nema 23 mounting plates
Probably more stuff
The budget has been taken outside like old yellow and a bullet has gone in it's head. I am now working on a budget that I bought an xcarve (Which I was seriously considering but in the end decided I could build something a lot better for a lot less and also the satisfaction of building your own and of course I have a lot more wiggle room for upgrading.
Now is the waiting game as I ordered cheap ballscrews from China to get it working (C7) this will be fine I'm sure for my first cnc. When I get some cash in (I already have some jobs for the cnc I outsource at moment.) I will upgrade the ballscrews, cover the frame in 5mm steel (The Y axis will get only 3mm to keep weight down). I also will swap the 2nd hand supported rail for new from zapp.
I now need a spindle but totally wiped myself out financially.
I have some work for this machine so when it does work I will use the money made to upgrade the machine (Looking at slides, ballscrews and electronics also encase frame in steel) and I need to build an 8*4 which will be for wood based products only.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Looking like you're powering forward with the parts. She'll be cutting in no time ��
1605 &1604 ballscrews might be problematic though.
You're going to have to gear them to spin very quickly to get any reasonable feeds for cutting mdf/wood.
You may experience problems with whip:
On the 1605 1400mm the calculated critical speed is about 1000rpm which equates to 5m /minute.
On the 1604 1000mm the calculated critical speed is about 2000rpm which equates to 8m /minute.
You may be happy with those feeds or may able to exceed the critical speeds, but just wanted to highlight it.
Cheers
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Hi Greeny thanks for the reply,
This is my first CNC so making it up as I go along. I have a job to do with this machine (At moment I sub contract but am tied into a contract so have 3 months to finish this if I choose to fullfill it myself.) when it's done I intend to build an 8*4 rack and pinion machine for ply and beef this up to do harder materials. Mostly aluminium but occasionally a steel bracket (Mostly building more machines for me personally). I'm somewhere between home user and pro but I get a real kick out building it and am interested in the automation ;)
Like everyone on here I want at least 6 machines in the end 5 of them I will build ;)
3d printer (Already have)
cnc miller/router
cnc router 8*4
laser cutter
vacuum former (Have vacuum pump and air tank)
decent vertical wall saw
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Hi Desertboy,
Sounds good.
All the best with your build, will be watching with interest.
Cheers
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Greeny out of interest how would you have drive this?
Also for 8*4 how would you drive it? I was thinking R&P for 8*4.
Originally I was going to try and drive this belt and pinion but I knew I was building something special so ballscrews seemed the only choice I want a very capable machine and I'll build the 8*4 for speed and production as 90% will be ply/mdf style products or real wood.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Although i have a lot of experience using big cnc machines, I don't really have the building experience to offer good advice,
but as long as you bear that in mind here's what i would be looking into if i was thinking about a machine that size.
A ballscrew for the 4ft axis , either a 2010 or 2020. Nema 23 3nm.
The 8ft axis probably 2510 or 2520 fixed ballscrew with 2x rotating ballnuts and 2x nema23.
I would personally only consider R&P if budget can't stretch to rotating ballnuts as they are pricey.
Here's a few relevant threads you might like to peruse.
http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/3340-...n-ideas/page14
http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/10219...tart-8x4-build
http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/10865...concept-review
Hopefully someone with more building experience will chip in.
Cheers
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3 Attachment(s)
Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
China post is working efficiently at the moment the bearings came! 11 days from ordering! And we had no post since Friday so might have been quicker!
Attachment 21491
They slide super smooth after adjustment very happy with them making me rethink the supported rail for a larger machine as it's a lot cheaper than hiwin style rail and the accuracy will be fine for my purpose.
Hopefully the ballscrews which only went out today will be as quick ;) They will get import tax I'm sure. I've ordered a lot from china recently and a few things were over the limit but just but these screws are over £250 so bastards will screw me.
My 1.5m Hiwin rails came as well today ;) (Like xmas but better because it's stuff I actually want) I think the Hiwin rails are too small 15mm for the purpose but they were cheap and a decent length 1500mm with 4 carriages so I've gone with them to get it working and will get something more suitable in the near future. Will work exclusive wood based products until I change these and if I really need to do aluminium just doing it very slowly with a low cut height.
Attachment 21490
I'm already thinking though I should have spent another £150 on top and got 2 1.5m supported rails as I have 8 bearing blocks and the supported rail is stupid strong. (The printer I took it off have a sliding carriage that was over 400kg's and powered by a puny nema 23 lol.)
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
I did some basic cad so I can work out the mounting plates so I can either manufacture them myself or get them manufactured but unfortunately my decent computer is at work at moment so had to use the old laptop which doesn't support decent quality renders so this is the basic rendering made everything different colours to make it easy to see what's going on.
Need to add the ballscrews in of course and motor mounts but this laptop is so slow, will worry about z axis when I've actually build it ;)
Glad I started to cad out as I already see a few things I should tweak winging it was a stupid idea lol.
Attachment 21495
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Eyeing up cheap ass T6600 drivers and breakout board for control instead of the arduino but maybe I should slum it with the arduino for now and get a better controller. Certainly Arduino, cnc shield and Polou drivers will be enough to test the machine.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
I think I will make custom T nuts so I can offset the hole to align with the Supported rail mounts to ease mounting.
Attachment 21527
I think me and my friend can make them with his router table but I will probably have them cnc milled to make my life easy to get everything straight.
The other choice is have the extrusion drilled through accurately and then bolt through the extrusion. This might be cheaper BUT I intend to swap the supported rail for new rail at some point and the rail I have now has a different (Wider) mount to standard supported rail. So I end up with holes where I don't want them.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
I mixed up my understanding of milling and router machines so this is in the wrong place but hey hoe ;)
Starting work on my z axis ;)
Attachment 21550
Which means I'm is stripping so I can sort rebuilding this. Getting the bearings out will be fun ;) I do want to reuse these as they be far better quality than anything I would buy.
I need to get a proper plan for rebuilding this sorted as it's obviously very important lol.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Should I use 3 bearing blocks instead of 2? For the supported rail, I had a lucky find on the aluminium extrusion side which means I can build it with 1.2m supported rails but only 1m ballscrew (actual travel ~85cm) so I can easily put 3 bearings per slide without affecting travel.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Attachment 21620
Ballscrews are in Standstead ;) so hopefully Monday they will arrive although we shall see how much import tax we get.
Tracking shows they did nothing for a week and then in 2 days it's here I wonder in future if I can pay a little extra for Fedex not to sit on it for a week lol.
I ordered them on the 28th took a week for the Chinese to organise fedex then a week for fedex to collect lol and then air mail in 2 days without the 14 days of mucking about they would have been super quick.
I ordered other stuff from china since that came quicker in the normal ems post lol.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Ballscrews came ;) So Saturday will be play day and then Sunday cad day and Monday start getting the plates made for mounting everything.
Ballscrews were packed extremely well with plywood to keep them straight very happy with purchase and NO IMPORT TAX!!! So very happy.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Ordered 2 nema 23 1.9nm motors, got m4 tee nuts for the 15mm Hiwin's (This was annoying as I have a couple of hundred M5's) and ordered A2 M4 machine screws to mount the Hiwin's as screwfix and toolstation don't have the right size I hope I got it right lol but £2 I can afford to order more if not.
Next make mounting plate, then back down KJN to cut my axis with the Z on it then make the z axis/mount I'm going to make the mount for the z axis directly into the z axis.
Still need that spindle but hopefully next week I can afford to order.
At moment I've got a lot of bits for a cnc machine so I need to turn it from bits into the base of an actual machine lol.
I'm predicting the cost with spindle for everything to be ~£800 so still well under my "X carve" budget but well over my lets make it for free lol.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
I suppose I should buy some microswitches eyeing up the Sanwa's (These are proper arcade microswitchs) figure it's worth spending a bit more for repeatability I found cheap microswithces on my 3d printer to be less than perfect lol.
https://www.arcadeworlduk.com/produc...terminals.html
I might use Inductive sensors instead though but that takes some thinking about orientation so I can use the aluminium frame to home the cnc.
I find the Carlsberg export is essential to any machine build lol especially on a Friday night ;)Attachment 21737
Attachment 21734
Attachment 21735
The ballscrews were packaged properly
Attachment 21736
I love how tight the hiwin rails are (I paid £100 for 4 blocks, 1500mm long 2 rails) they're lovely to slide but I do worry 15mm is too flimsy.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Desertboy
I did some basic cad so I can work out the mounting plates so I can either manufacture them myself or get them manufactured but unfortunately my decent computer is at work at moment so had to use the old laptop which doesn't support decent quality renders so this is the basic rendering made everything different colours to make it easy to see what's going on.
Need to add the ballscrews in of course and motor mounts but this laptop is so slow, will worry about z axis when I've actually build it ;)
Glad I started to cad out as I already see a few things I should tweak winging it was a stupid idea lol.
Attachment 21495
Seems it would be better to built the gantry spanning the shorter width of the machine? Any particular reason you are building it that way around?
Gantry tends to be the weak point in terms of allowing flex, the shorter the span the more rigid it will be for any given thickness/extrusion type.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zeeflyboy
Seems it would be better to built the gantry spanning the shorter width of the machine? Any particular reason you are building it that way around?
Gantry tends to be the weak point in terms of allowing flex, the shorter the span the more rigid it will be for any given thickness/extrusion type.
Morning,
There's some logic in my madness lol I have 2 1.3m long supported rails 25mm and 2 1.5m 15mm hiwin with 4 carriages. The 25mm supported rail can handle very high load I know this because I recovered the rail from a commercial printer (I've bought new bearings all round) and it was originally carrying a very heavy gantry in the 100's of kg's and was lovely and smooth to move. The 15mm hiwin are probably nowhere near as strong so I decided that the 25mm supported rail should carry the most weight (Gantry and Z axis) and the Hiwin only carry the z axis.
I'm committed to making the long axis the gantry as I only have 1 1.4m ballscrew and 2 1m ballscrews.
The Gantry will be made from Heavy duty 100mm*50mm profile which I may or may not enclose in angle steel to strengthen it up.
I want to be able to process wood at a decent speed and occasionally aluminium reduced feed rate is fine and I have compressed air on tap in almost unlimited quantities during work hours.
I've had a score of more chunkier aluminium for the frame (I won't use for gantry it would eat too much travel) so the frame will be different and bit more square. I was going to cut down the supported rails to 1m but not going to do that now. Will update the model when I get the extrusion (Tomorrow hopefully I need to go cut it out a machine). By eye it looks like it's 9*13.5cm (2*3)
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Fair enough, just curious.
I don't think a 100x50 will be sufficient for really good results in alu at 1.5m span, I would personally definitely consider what options you have for beefing it up.
Just out of interest, for science n'all, try clamping each end of the profile and with a dial gauge measure the deflection in the middle when you press against it. I'm betting you can get a fairly significant deflection with moderate force.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zeeflyboy
Fair enough, just curious.
I don't think a 100x50 will be sufficient for really good results in alu at 1.5m span, I would personally definitely consider what options you have for beefing it up.
Just out of interest, for science n'all, try clamping each end of the profile and with a dial gauge measure the deflection in the middle when you press against it. I'm betting you can get a fairly significant deflection with moderate force.
I was thinking something like this
http://www.steelexpress.co.uk/struct...el/angles.html
100*65 7mm
fitted like this
Attachment 21748
Would add 14.2kg's + nuts & bolts to the gantry weight.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
That would no doubt help... maybe flip it around so you can still use your extrusion slots for mounting the rails (assuming that was your plan?).
Best option I think would probably be to use the steel as the mounting face and look into the self levelling epoxy method of getting a flat surface, but that may or may not fit in with your budget option. If not going that route, the question becomes which is the more precise mounting surface in terms of flatness - the steel or the aluminium.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zeeflyboy
That would no doubt help... maybe flip it around so you can still use your extrusion slots for mounting the rails (assuming that was your plan?).
Best option I think would probably be to use the steel as the mounting face and look into the self levelling epoxy method of getting a flat surface, but that may or may not fit in with your budget option. If not going that route, the question becomes which is the more precise mounting surface in terms of flatness - the steel or the aluminium.
It would be convenient to use the slots to mount the rails so maybe I should spin it round for now. I intend to upgrade or rebuild the machine what's most important is to get it working reasonable now and I will work out if it's better to start again or upgrade.
I really want 8*4 but I don't need it I actually need 4*2 (1/4 sheet) but I will get 1/3 sheet so happy with that.
Interesting with the self levelling epoxy will investigate but my supported rail and ballscrews on the bottom axis will be bolted into the extrusion directly.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Since I want to do aluminium would this be suitable
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-2-Inch-A...0AAOSwzqFZAIzb
paired with a compressed air solenoid to clear the chips?
Was having issues getting my motor shaft to align with my ballscrew I'm around 0.5mm out. My friend checked my couplings out and they're flexible couplings but still going to try and get the motor shaft aligned. but they do seem to work fine.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Bit confused about what you are asking, what you linked to is literally just an inert container designed to hold oil and add it to a compressed air system to lubricate air tools.
You need a compressor, regulator (most compressors will have the regulator), an on/off switch (whether electronic solenoid or manual), and a nozzle. If you want mist, then really the best way to do it you will need two lines, one supplying coolant and one supplying air, ideally at different pressures (the coolant line only needs a very low pressure in my experience) and a mist coolant unit on the machine.
What you linked to wouldn't really be much use imo, the tank capacity is tiny - I use a 1 litre swimming pool filter container.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zeeflyboy
Bit confused about what you are asking, what you linked to is literally just an inert container designed to hold oil and add it to a compressed air system to lubricate air tools.
You need a compressor, regulator (most compressors will have the regulator), an on/off switch (whether electronic solenoid or manual), and a nozzle. If you want mist, then really the best way to do it you will need two lines, one supplying coolant and one supplying air, ideally at different pressures (the coolant line only needs a very low pressure in my experience) and a mist coolant unit on the machine.
What you linked to wouldn't really be much use imo, the tank capacity is tiny - I use a 1 litre swimming pool filter container.
Yes I want mist! I will want to mill aluminium to the best quality I can do given the limitations of my machine. I will have the machine in an industrial unit which has a compressor airline point next to the machine which for my purposes can be considered always on with more capacity than I could ever need.
Do you have a pic of how you linked yours up?
I'm stalled until my mate at the scrap yard moves a printer (It's on top of a heap) for me so I can get the aluminium extrusion out AND 20-25mm twin hiwin style rail with carriages only short travel but I'm thinking for my Z axis.
The extrusion is T slot (Compatible with what I have now) It's 18cm*9cm (4 slots*2 slots) 6ft lengths which I'm going to use for mounting the supported rail and ballscrews on.
I'm going to cad it out in a minute but will make it a lot easier for me to build.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Actually as luck would have it I did recently post some pics here:
http://www.mycncuk.com/threads/10658...1180#post91180
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zeeflyboy
Lovely setup ;)
How thick are you mounting plates Attachment 21780
Once I get the extrusion together and mount the SBR and ballscrews I need to make mine which I'm so not looking forward to lol.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
A fairly skinny 15mm if i remember correctly.... the new machine I'm building has 25mm.
I would go with 20mm as a minimum personally.
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4 Attachment(s)
Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
20mm I will heed that advice ;)
Attachment 21797
I will use 2 of these for my z axis slides and a 20mm ground ballscrew. I have another 2 of these coming as well not sure what I will do with them but maybe make a spare z axis as one of my first projects ;)
just playing with the gantry at moment but I do wonder if I can fit the gantry like this?
Attachment 21798
I would worry that the ballscrew is balanced properly I would think the ballscrew needs to go dead centre of the slides? I have come up with 3 choices for the gantry
1. Mount it like pictured with ballscrew at top, hiwin sideways on
2. Double up the extrusion so I use 2 pieces one on top of the other then the ballscrew can go in the middle with hiwin either side.
3. Put the Hiwin on the top and bottom of the gantry and have the ballscrew sideways on. This is my favorite choice but added complexity in the z axis mount. I would think this would also keep the slides cleaner orientated this way.
Or I do have this
Attachment 21799
But would rather not cut it if I can as it's 3.5m length and I have 2 5 ft lenghts so I only need 1 more and I can build a frame with working area just over 8*4.
Was worried as the bearing was not sitting straight on the supported rail but tried a different bearing and all is good then realised someone has been playing with my bearing (Joys of sharing workshop space with my dad's monkeys as I call them) and tightened the grubscrew.
Attachment 21800
Something I considered was filling the cavities inside the gantry aluminium extrusion with epoxy resin something that's stronger than steel but lighter have a friend who knows a lot more about epoxy's and has access to stuff I couldn't get easily so will have to have a chat with him.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Hopefully I can recover my extra extrusion today as I would like to start moving the project into the build phase ;)
Attachment 21811
Need to get the ballscrew fitted so I can take measurements for the plates, couldn't find a decent cad model.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Wanker guy had sold the machine so I can't get the extrusion :(
As it happened the Hiwin style slides were siezed and the ballscrews looked worse for wear to so I was only interested in the extrusion but gutted.
At least I know now so I will continue with original plan and bolt the SBR25 on sideways, no excuse not to start assembly now (Well need to wait for the A2 bolts to arrive but tomorrow) so I can measure up and start to think about the mounting plates.
Attachment 21816
Lesson learnt though next time strip the machine the day it arrives lol.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Attachment 21821
one dodgy bearing so far not checked them all yet but buy the cheapest chinese bearings you can and you're going to get a lemon occasionally lol. I am going to complain see if I can get replacements sent over but I have 5 that are perfect (I haven't checked 2 of them yet) and I only need 4, glad I bought 8 ;) £4.50 delivered for each one I can't complain too much.
If you try to straighten the wonky bearing it binds so it's basically scrap.
I was was very annoyed about losing the aluminium extrusion but today I had a score so you win some you lose some ;)
Attachment 21822
So got the stop button sorted & some flexible pipe (I think is for compressed air), I also got 2 very strong steel bases (2 legs per base with adjustable nylon feet) from a conveyor belt style machine to mount my machine one, price was free ;)
And lastly my box of freebie t nuts, bolts, corners
Attachment 21823
Got another box full to the top somewhere but it's buried.
Ironically I haven't got enough bolts and T nuts as I need M4 and M5 T nuts (Everything I have is M6 or M8) and my M6 bolts are too long to fit the track but perfect for the ballscrew mounts.
I did manage to bolt one of the SBR tracks on today so took a step in right direction and it was a real bastard lol was king of glad I ran out of bolts for the other side but unfortunately I managed to buy some today lol so no excuse.
I have no energy chain or plans on how to fit energy chain, I can recover it for free but it's far too large for my purposes but unsure what size I will need. I was thinking that the water in/out feeds and air feed won't go through the energy chain the air I'll use a black air line from a truck (It feeds a cylinder on the fifth wheel) as I can get them for free and they should be more than up to the job. I will probably just suspend the water and airline feeds roughly in the middle above the cnc with enough slack to move to all extremes comfortably for now.
When this is working need to save up some cash so I can buy my own commercial printers to scrap next time ;) I have a good contact but it's very sporadic then all of a sudden manic a lot like buses lol.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Attachment 21825 This was a real bastard lol bolting the SBR25 into the aluminium extrusion with T nuts but now both rails are bolted on finally. They are both bolted very tight against the extrusion I'm hoping the extrusion is straight ;)
Also spent a few hours today ripping apart a machine and recovered
A working compressed air solenoid,
One of these http://www.solenoid-valve.world/coil...FXAA0wodbK8FfQ
Quite of a bit of aluminium plate 10 to 20mm thickto play with when the machine works and maybe make motor mounts.
Loads of A2's (I like recovering A2's as it gives me a large range of sizes to try and then I can buy the correct length in new if I don't have enough A2's for the project.)
Loads of push fit air fittings
The best things in life are free lol.
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3 Attachment(s)
Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Going to need 2 plates to mount to bearings and ballscrew mount for each side of the gantry.
Attachment 21838 I had to use some M6 standard bolts for now just to get an idea of how it will work, will be missing one bolt from the mount. The bolts go through the extrusion T slot corners with a washer to space everything out properly.
The angle bracket is only there so I can mark the centre point of the coupling to have nema mounts made properly.
Attachment 21839Attachment 21840
I'm thinking of buying some cheap ass T6600 stepper drivers so I can deliver the full 3 amps to my motors (Only at 24v) but I will still use Gbrl and Arduino for now with some creative wiring to the cnc shield.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
been taking measurements with some scrap ali I will use the thicker of these piece to make the 2 ballscrew (It's wide enough to cut in 2 and still cover the ballscrew mount) to supported rail mounts like pictured for the bottom axis.
Attachment 21864
If the triangular bit had been twice as thick and I had 2 of them then that would have been my gantry mount but I guess I need to spend £90 on ecocast instead ;)
The scrap plate, bolts and ballscrew mount lined up perfectly (Pure fluke) which makes taking measurements a lot easier.
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
Finally worked out how to print to 1:1 scale ;)
When I pumped out to printer it's the correct dimensions, a friend is going to make these parts for me from recovered 6082 aluminium (We like free in case you didn't notice) so I will only need to have the gantry mounts and Z axis mounts CNC'd.
Attachment 21873
From Left to right
BF12 mounting bracket (4 bigger holes bolt into the t slot extrusion)
Nema 23 mounts to line up with the BF12 mounting brackets for the 2 lower axis (This bolts into 2 rows of extrusion with T nuts)
The last 2 connect the DSG16 ballnut mounts to the gantry mounting plate for drive of the lower axis.
I ordered the Spindle today, so next thing is the Ecocast ;) Toying with going with 25mm thick for the gantry and embedding the extrusion 7mm into the frame.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181806514041?
Think I will get 4 TB6600, use the cnc shield/arduino and a 480w 24v power supply so I can get the full 3 amps out the stepper motors.
Attachment 21884
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Re: New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area
I suppose I should start to think about power for the machine, I realise a 13 amp socket is not going to cut it lol.
2.2kw for the spindle
350w for the 24v power supply
100w's for misc
20% leeway
I thought sound this will be ok from a 13amp socket until I realised I need to power a vacuum cleaner at the same time. Also of course I need 1kw to boil the kettle for Tea ;)
So I have 2 choices
1. Run a 2nd 13 amp socket to the machine from the board.
2. Run a dedicated 32amp 5 wire 3 phase socket from the board (This is what I will do) and then tap 1 of the phases with a junction box to power the machine.