My Build - I blame you lot for this....!

[HiltonSteve]

Today I finally got machine cutting after 2 months of design and building something that ended up nothing like what I was originally going to build, but that seems the norm! Don't know how much I have spent and don't really want to add it up otherwise it may put me off building another machine.

Totally enjoyed it from beginning to end (not that its complete yet), I got up this morning at 7.45am and was in the workshop at 7.50am with a cup of coffee adding the finishing touch's, at 9.30am I started it up and milled some writing on a piece of MDF with a big smile on my face. Something really rewarding about building a machine and seeing it work for the first time.

Spec -

All aluminium frame - tooling plate which I got at the right price!
80 x 40 Aluminium extrusion for bed length
THK 20mm linear slide all round - 4 bearings per axis
16mm Rolled ballscrews and nuts all round - courtesy of ZAPP.
3.1Nm stepper motors all round - Roy - DIYCNC
5A driver cards (Driver 50's) - Roy - DIYCNC
Uniport BOB - Roy - DIYCNC
36V power supply - Roy - DIYCNC
XLR connectors, stepper cable - Arc Eurotrade
Kress 1050 240v Spindle
Sideplate profiling - John S (nice job John)
Ballscrew machining - Me - On Leinen lathe I bought!
Motor and ball nut mounts - Me - again on lathe
Idea's and advice - you lot...


So I have attached some build pics which I have been taking while putting it together for you all to take the piss, point out the faults, tell me how nice it looks, etc etc.

There are 2 issue's I have with the machine at the moment and I am hoping for some sensible solutions please......

1 - The steppers run a bit notchy when at low speed, this may be normal but I am pretty new to all this, still seems to mill nice. Tried them on various microsteeping settings which did not make a difference and also Roy's advice from DIYCNC which made a slight improvement but I am still not 100% happy with them.

2 - Vibration on ballnuts when running between 1500 and 2700 mm per min, especially the 1m x axis. The nuts are lined up spot on with the screws to the point were I have been shimming them with shim steel to fine tune them. I can make the vibration go away by putting slight side force on the screw in any direction near the nut when running but did not think that was a solution. There is a very slight runout on the X axis screw in the centre and I mean very slight... bigger ballscrews, better quality or more grease???

The MDF bed is only temporary, I plan on making a T slot bed later on. Need to do a bit more testing and fine tuning first.

The large holes surrounded by the 4 smaller ones in the sideplates are for the built in 4th axis when I get round to it, that was John S's idea!

Not sure whether to build a smaller machine or a bigger one next, probably be a bigger one..!