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  1. #51
    Living near Southampton has some advantages - fast epoxy delivery!

    Poured again tonight, and fingers crossed, I think we've nailed it.

    We mixed in a very wide tub - an old decking screws container. Did the entire 1.3L in one go, adding 175g 105 and 50g alternatively, mixing a little inbetween. The mixup process took about 6.5mins start to finish, then did another final mix for 1.5min until no streaks were visible and the colour was entirely uniform. We then transferred to a 2L ice-cream tub which had two 8mm holes in the side at the bottom corner taped over (we measured the flow time of 0.5L of water through a 5mm hole, and decided it needed to be 8mm. Found about 20seconds for water through 8mm - so decided that should be a nice 1-2min pour of the epoxy which worked well. Second hole was a backup and never used.

    The pour went really well - managed to time it so that the fizzy bubbles at the end of the tub landed in the centre of the bridge. Surface looks glassy smooth - had two 1-2mm bubbles on the main beams, but managed to easily pop them with a scribe. There are some very small <0.5mm bubbles in the epoxy itself throughout - but I'm not too worried about these as they're so small.

    Weather looks good for the week, not dipping below 14 degrees, and the garage was 23 degrees when we poured. I haven't used any artificial heating yet - the plan is to poke the bridge section on Sunday, and if its still not gelled, we'll start heating then.

    Thanks for the help everyone... fingers crossed!!

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  2. #52
    Lets talk cabinet layout for a moment or two.

    I've just started a thread about tidy wiring (here) so I'm currently still deciding how to do my wiring channels (shown as green in the annotated diagram) as neatly as possible, but I think I've got a plan for the overall layout.

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    As you can see, I've silently been buying more and more electronical bits (psst... please don't tell the wife how much this stuff costs...). My plan is to have the drives vertical in the bottom right with heatsinks facing each other, right by the inlet fan. The outlet fan will then be at the top of the case directly above the VFD (or possibly top left facing out sideways... which might be better from a water point of view if the roof were to leak (a real possibility in my garage...). My thinking here is that they'll have the most urgent cooling need in the cabinet, so they get the coldest air first. I'll probably put the two X drives at the top, as they'll be working the hardest and I don't want their heat transferring to the Y and Z drives - Who knows if that logic makes any sense or not? Maybe it should even be the other way around...

    This position allows the driver outputs to get straight out through the GX20 connections on the base, and the input signals can come directly in from the right hand edge (as shown) of the UB1 where all the step and direction signals come from. The drive PSU is a little awkward here, but shouldn't be too far for the power to get to the drives from the right hand side of the PSU.

    The GX16 connections (limit switches, homing switches etc) also come in at the bottom and can go straight up to the UB1.

    My plan is for mains to come in bottom left, skirt behind or up the side of the PSU, and into the distribution/fuses area. From there each mains device will connect via individual EMF filters and relays/contactors/big on off switch as required.

    Finally, theres a low voltage section up top. My plan for this is to have the safety / 24V circuits up here. This is where the control panel will interface - I have a selection of LED buttons for this, each with a specific function in mind, but I still haven't decided exactly where the panel will go (having a glass fronted cabinet is nice, but not so many options for things like buttons!).

    Anyhow, I hope that either this post is helpful to others, or someone can point out any glaring problems or things I've not thought about! Update on the mechanicals soon - there is currently paint drying, and the garage has been even messier than usual in the last few weeks so I've not gotten around to photographing and writing up the most recent developments.

  3. #53
    I promised an update on the frame - here she is in all her badly painted glory!!

    Since the last photos, I've
    • Faired the edge of the epoxy into the frame and repainted the box sections.
    • Filed off the meniscus along the edges and at the ends.
    • Marked drilled and tapped the epoxy for the rails.
    • Roughly aligned the rails for parallelism
    • Checked the levelling with a precision straight edge - more details below.
    • Thrown the gantry on the rails - it glides super smooth (and made me very happy!)
    • After getting happy about that, I then got very sad. Turns out my steel frame is a bit of a rhombus! When I bring the gantry to one edge, it hits the end of one rail about 3-5mm before the end of the other, and the opposite occurs at the other end. I don' t think this will actually affect anything, except perhaps my pride...
    • I then did some more milling, making my Z and Y nema 23 motor mounts. That was fun. :)
    • Did a rough assembly - All I need now to make the Z and Y axis move under their own power are the belts which are on order. It was nice to be able to measure the distances between pulley centres physically rather than just in CAD.


    The rails both show the same trend, they're high at the ends and low in the middle with an error of about 0.05mm - I'm sure this could be better, the epoxy still set relatively quickly, so I'm sure there are improvements to make. It could be that I just haven't filed down the ends of the epoxy enough and they're slightly propped up at the ends, but its 'close enough' for me at this stage. The other consideration is that this value is the stated accuracy of my straight edge, so optimising it now seems counter productive. I will probably come back and shim the rails, but I'm keen to do a 'proof of concept' and am aiming to have the machine cut something by Christmas.

    I've noticed that the Z axis isn't as smooth as the others; I think it might be the alignment of the ballscrew vs the rails, I've discovered that my design is a bit of a nightmare to try and measure the alignment between the two, because the rails and the screw are attached to different parts. The other thing it might be is that the Z axis is the only one thats had a load of EP2 applied - does that typically increase the resistance on the screw? I can turn the pully by hand no problem, but you can feel that it has more and less resistance at different ends of the travel, which is something I don't feel on the Y. Any hints or tips?

    The other problem I'm now considering is how to check the axis are perpendicular... can anyone point me in the right direction? I think Boyan mentioned needing two precision squares to align properly... I can see why you'd need one, but two?

    Thanks!

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    Last edited by AndyUK; 14-08-2019 at 10:37 AM.

  4. #54
    If the diagonals of the x (long axis ) are equal, then the axis is orthogonal,start from this !
    Then bring the Y axis at a point and measure with a square, that you know it is at true angle.
    How you know that you square is really a square?
    Check this video:
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gDh-E5xhm0o
    If your square is not as it should ,do not through it away,check on YouTube how you can make it square again.
    Good luck!
    And remember any precision tool that is fall on the ground or it it is banged on something hard,stops to be a precise any more,it needs re calibration.
    Last edited by Nickhofen; 14-08-2019 at 09:29 PM.

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  6. #55
    Quote Originally Posted by AndyUK View Post

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    Hello. Looks really good! Is there any benefit if looking a how rigid the machine is by having the gantry rails on top and at the bottom, compared to mounting both on the same side?

    For example if we compare these 5 options, which one is the best for rigidity?

    1. Both rails on the spindle motor side of the gantry, ballscrew in between rails.
    2. Both rails on one spindle motor side of the gantry, ballscrew in between on the opposite side.
    3. One rail on the spindle motor side side, ballscrew on the same side and the other rail on the top of the gantry.
    4. One rail on the top, one at the bottom and the ballscrew on the opposite side of the spindle motor side.
    5. One rail on the top, one at the bottom and the ballscrew on the same side as the spindle motor side.

  7. #56
    Quote Originally Posted by NordicCnc View Post
    1. Both rails on the spindle motor side of the gantry, ballscrew in between rails.
    2. Both rails on one spindle motor side of the gantry, ballscrew in between on the opposite side.
    3. One rail on the spindle motor side side, ballscrew on the same side and the other rail on the top of the gantry.
    4. One rail on the top, one at the bottom and the ballscrew on the opposite side of the spindle motor side.
    5. One rail on the top, one at the bottom and the ballscrew on the same side as the spindle motor side.
    See the Beginner Moving Gantry Design Thread

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  9. #57
    Thanks for that link!

    By the way do yiu have a youtube chabbel? I saw a very similar if not the exact same build. Joe Harris is the name of the channel.

    Skickat från min SM-A530F via Tapatalk

  10. #58
    Hi Andy. Didn't see an answer to your question about VFD harmonics. I fitted an emi filter from the mains to the input of my control box using one of these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EMI-RFI-F...edirect=mobile . This plus star farthing all the shielded cabling eliminates the problem I had when the vfd was running (false estops). Also mounted my vfd external to the controller again to avoid electrical noise getting through.

  11. #59
    Quote Originally Posted by MikeyC38 View Post
    Hi Andy. Didn't see an answer to your question about VFD harmonics. I fitted an emi filter from the mains to the input of my control box using one of these https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EMI-RFI-F...edirect=mobile . This plus star farthing all the shielded cabling eliminates the problem I had when the vfd was running (false estops). Also mounted my vfd external to the controller again to avoid electrical noise getting through.
    Hi MikeyC,

    Thanks for the tips! I bought three of those from Ali Express a while back; I chose three because I placed them after the mains input and before each main component (VFD, 24V PSU, and Drive PSU) - hopefully so that noise from each didn't affect the other, because it had two filters to pass through, if that makes any sense. When it came to wiring them though, I realised the IEC cable wasn't what I wanted (being that theres three inside the cabinet), so I got some alternatives with spade connectors on. Something like this.

    Quote Originally Posted by NordicCnc View Post
    Thanks for that link!

    By the way do yiu have a youtube chabbel? I saw a very similar if not the exact same build. Joe Harris is the name of the channel.

    Skickat från min SM-A530F via Tapatalk
    Yep - If you look at the start of this thread, you'll see its heavily based on Joe's build. I'm a bit more camera-shy though, so haven't gotten on the old youtube.

    In other news, I'm slowly but surely wiring away. Taking a little time over it - life has become rather busy at the moment with all the other distractions :) I'll try and post a picture of current progress sometime this week.

    Thanks,
    Andy

  12. #60
    Hi Andy. That's a very nice layout on your machine - it's certainly strong enough to handle aluminium. Grats on the build JanBo

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