where to start

[Musht]

ok, after a bit more poking about on that web site, my suspicions were confirmed in the spares section. The chip on the driver is the 6560, which is generally known to have issues.

The 6560`s can be a bit fragile, as I`ve learned, but easy to change out, once you`ve done it once....

More limiting , as Jazz continually points out ;-), is the maximum voltage is lower than any other drive, so changing motors will only happen with the drives as well.

542 drives can stay around with bigger motors and are less fragile to start with, in this case cheaper.

MDF frame gets you a working test bed to learn a bit about software and probably get the cash back in for MKII ;-)

[motoxy]

The guy that did the signage on my van is putting up professional large scale lettering that is ally faced board. Looks brilliant. He has built the mdf book router. He admits its a bit slow but he has time and it makes him money. Interestingly he also gets plaudits from signage forums. Of course metal construction is better but the mdf builds work and some of them work just dandy.

[martin54]

[QUOTE=motoxy;35987]The guy that did the signage on my van is putting up professional large scale lettering that is ally faced board. Looks brilliant. He has built the mdf book router. He admits its a bit slow but he has time and it makes him money. Interestingly he also gets plaudits from signage forums. Of course metal construction is better but the mdf builds work and some of them work just dandy.[/QUOTE


That will be Phill Fenton from "The Right Signs" then, know Phill well & it was because of Phills build blog on the sign forum that I bought the book & started to build one myself. I've been to see Phill & have a look at his machine & I also know what work he has done with it BUT having read quite a bit on forums about these machines in general I had doubts placed in my mind on a number of issues mainly referring to the maintenance & upkeep of these machines & the fact that it was difficult to leave them running & walk away to do something else while it got on with it's job. Phill has not had his machine for very long & it has not really done that much work but already he has had to replace a threaded bar on the z axis, also I noticed when I visited there was a bit of wear on the ally runners used for the linear rails that I paid little attention to at the time. These are 2 areas that I have read concerns about on the forums so that made me take more notice.

I have already said that I was going to finish the build which I will, as has been pointed out it is still a way to get started & as the machine is just about complete as long as I make sure I buy electronics that I can migrate to a new machine then it won't cost me much extra money to finish. Already spoke to Jazz about it plus some posts on the forum that have been helpful so have a good idea what to look for now.
As with most things new I am sure it will be a steep learning curve, this will at least start me out & get me use to using software like cam & gcode software that I have never used before.

Thanks for the input so far guys, it's been a big help & much appreciated.

[TrickyCNC]

The ally runners will wear, with steel bearings rolling on them, depending on how hard you use the machine. They will also harden a bit when they settle in.
If I was committed to using angle, I'd go for steel angle and spend a bit of time getting it straight.
Personally though, I'd go for steel pipe in replacement of ally angle, like on the early solsylva designs (Bearing Trials~Solsylva CNC Plans )

This is one of the reasons I suggested you post photo's, so we can see how far you have got with your build already.

Richard

[martin54]

Richard I was going to take some pictures & post them but then wasn't sure if it was really worth it, most of it had already been done, all the parts were cut & it was really a case of just putting it all together. Probably wrong (usually am lol) but I didn't think it would be worth changing a lot at this stage on this build, you mentioned pipe rather than angle ally for the rails but that would have been a major change & probably a lot of reworking/cutting of parts.

[TrickyCNC]

if it's that far along, then I can't see what you have to loose ?

Get some decent drivers and motors with a view to the future, and put it all together.

You can use it to build an enclosure for the elctronics, and use it to make the MkII if you decide you need to.

Richard

[martin54]

if it's that far along, then I can't see what you have to loose ?

Get some decent drivers and motors with a view to the future, and put it all together.

You can use it to build an enclosure for the elctronics, and use it to make the MkII if you decide you need to.

Richard

That's what I am doing now Richard but having had the doubts put in my mind & being completely new to all this I wasn't sure at the time of posting if it was worth the time it would take to finish it. If I hadn't made the post & just soldiered on with it I would already have made the mistake of buying electronics that would probably not have migrated well so at least saved myself a fair bit on that side.
Not actually sure what I will be able to use it for as far as constructing a MKII is concerned as the new machine would need to be a better & stronger design but I will look at that again when the time comes. By then I would expect to have learnt a lot more about design & construction from places like this.