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  1. #121
    Quote Originally Posted by Dean jeffery View Post
    I use these for HDPE and acetal

    https://www.directplastics.co.uk/hdpe-sheet
    Nar then stranger.!! . . . . Bit expensive that place. I'll find the name of the place I bought from and let you know. 3000 x 1500 x 30mm was less than half what they want and delivered.

  2. #122
    And there was me thinking this chap had saved me some dosh!

  3. #123
    Quote Originally Posted by AndyUK View Post
    And there was me thinking this chap had saved me some dosh!
    Ah ah Dean is fairly local to me and they only deliver local so no point giving you their number down in the deep south. . .Lol

  4. #124
    Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post
    Nar then stranger.!! . . . . Bit expensive that place. I'll find the name of the place I bought from and let you know. 3000 x 1500 x 30mm was less than half what they want and delivered.
    Hi Dean

    Yeah it’s been a while don’t frequent on here often.

    Yeah it’s not the cheapest of places but still cheaper than the OP

  5. #125
    Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post
    Ah ah Dean is fairly local to me and they only deliver local so no point giving you their number down in the deep south. . .Lol
    Thanks anyways I don’t buy often or use a great deal when I do, just a few meter lengths.

    Dean I’ve just given your email to a bloke at work, he’s been wanting a cnc router for a while.

    He’s been asking me questions over the months and keeps sending me links to pre built low spec machines, so I’ve said just contact the bloke who built mine.

    On a side note

    Did some maintenance on mine last weekend, just a clean and re pack bearings and what not.

    Also checked positioning and backlash

    It’s not changed in over 3.5 years of use and it’s been used, I was shocked tbh

    Back lash is under 0.01mm my DTI only measures in 0.01 increments but I’d guess at 0.005, and positional error well at 10m/min full travels it’s bang on the money

  6. #126
    Quote Originally Posted by Dean jeffery View Post
    On a side note

    Did some maintenance on mine last weekend, just a clean and re pack bearings and what not.

    Also checked positioning and backlash

    It’s not changed in over 3.5 years of use and it’s been used, I was shocked tbh

    Back lash is under 0.01mm my DTI only measures in 0.01 increments but I’d guess at 0.005, and positional error well at 10m/min full travels it’s bang on the money
    That's good to hear, always nice to get feedback like that.! . . You still cutting Carbon fibre and Ali parts for RC Cars.? Heath's lad (guy who deliverd machine with me) is racing Model touring cars and he's an expert crasher so might have some business for you. ..Lol

  7. #127
    Quote Originally Posted by JAZZCNC View Post
    That's good to hear, always nice to get feedback like that.! . . You still cutting Carbon fibre and Ali parts for RC Cars.? Heath's lad (guy who deliverd machine with me) is racing Model touring cars and he's an expert crasher so might have some business for you. ..Lol
    Credit mate it’s really holding up to tight tolerance all these years

    Carbons the main material and the off plastic run not so much alloy now just makes far to much mess, and messes my spoil board up with using mist so only cut this for personal 1 offs that don’t require mist.

    Been using some new cutting data and halved the previous machining time in carbon, been using this for around 18 months now.

    Well if your mate needs anything just cad the parts up and the crashes will be cheap to fix

  8. #128
    Regards limit switch end point placement, how close to the physical stop should I place the trigger point? Obviously want maximum travel, but don't want to slam into them at 10m/min.

  9. #129
    Quote Originally Posted by AndyUK View Post
    Regards limit switch end point placement, how close to the physical stop should I place the trigger point? Obviously want maximum travel, but don't want to slam into them at 10m/min.
    Machine dependant really because of different Gantry mass and inertia, do a little test hit the estop at a mark low down the travel and see how far it over travels. This will give some idea then just little more to be safe.

  10. #130
    Had a weekend playing with the machine and finishing up a few bits.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    I've used a 75mm cable tray to hold the 62.5mm wide X cable chain and fitted it with 3D printed supports. Looks great, and I think that cable tray size must be made for the cable chain, smoothly fits right in and glides in and out when going back and forth (gosh this post is starting to get a little suggestive...).

    I've tidied up the wiring around the machine generally, although I still need to make a control box for all those switches!

    All the limit / home switches are in place and working nicely, again 3D printed mounts. Thanks for the advice on placement Jazz.

    I've got the coolant circuit filled and burped - the flow rate is absolutely tiny though, just a trickle, serves me right for running such a long loop with just the crappy little pump that turned up with the kit. Its 15m of loop in all due to the X axis stepper cooling, and 8mm piping, so I might need to upgrade the pump.

    UCCNC is now controlling the spindle speed and direction which is great, and I'm using an old Xbox 360 controller to move the machine around which works great. However, I'm seeing the digital display on the VFD fluctuate and can hear the spindle isn't at a steady speed. This is an issue I've seen described with the analogue control methods with the UB1 and UCCNC, so I suspect I'll need to change over to a digital control signal in the future.

    Regards spoil board, I plan to use trespa, but am using some cheap MDF to start with in an attempt to get some mistakes out of the way on something that really doesn't matter.

    Quote Originally Posted by AndyUK View Post
    • 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...
    Spent last night doing spot drilling on a waste board at all four corners and roughly measuring the squareness of the machine. I should have paid more attention to the above at the time - Its not that the steel frame is a rhombus. The X and Y axis are not quite 90 degrees, which leads to an error of 4mm across the two diagonals. I have a precision angle, but haven't got a way to nicely attach a dial gauge to the gantry yet - Its on my list though!

    Initially I'd forgotten the above, and tried correcting by adjusting the home position switches, assuming the gantry was racking. I got the error to 1.5mm (thats 90.1 degrees) on the diagonal, and the next correction stalled the X axis, so clearly I was pushing the ballscrews out of alignment with one another and was twisting the gantry beyond it's limits. That was a big warning sign that I was doing something stupid; obviously the gantry should be nicely aligned to evenly wear the screws and not try to twist against the rails.

    Now, I'm not too concerned. Ultimately this just means I've screwed up somewhere along the way getting the squaring on the gantry. Looking at the gantry carefully, I can see the gap between the side plates and the X carriages is slightly larger at the front than the back on one side, and the opposite on the other, which tallies with the rhombus I'm seeing. So I think the main problem is that the carriages are bolted onto the gantry slightly askew. My hope is that addressing this will solve my issue, and mean that without any screws attached my bearings will hit the same point on my rails and remove that earlier error I spotted.

    Ultimately, worse case I'll need to remake the bearing plates which those carriages bolt onto (which I already planned to do anyway, I broke a drill bit in one of them so one carriage only has two bolts in - I was kinda hoping I could remake them with the machine itself...!).

    I might however do a few cuts with this error in place, just because I'm at the stage where I can start to use the machine for it's purpose, and if I don't get some output soon I think I may get lynched by SWMBO....

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