Potentially a nice problem to have....?

[Phil Mayor]

Potentially a nice problem...?

Hi everyone, I'll just give a quick overview then I'll get to my 'nice problem'...? you can skip to paragraph 4 if you aren't bothered about the overview.

I've built two previous smaller DIY CNC Machines out of Aluminium but I quickly realised I wanted a bigger/more solid machine, so I started designing a new DIY steel Frame CNC with VAC hold-down at the end of last Summer, this will be at my Garage at home and used as a hobby Machine mainly but I'd like to build more things and possibly sell them further down the line...

I made a physical start on the build back in November and planned to make this an ATC Machine, 3m x 1.6m (with rotating Ballnuts on the Y and slave A axis) big enough for a full sheet of MDF and some extra. I now have the Frame all welded up and level, The next job is fitting the Gantry, as I wanted to make this build bigger I decided one thing I wanted to upgrade was my spindle, so I ordered a 5Kw ATC in October knowing it would take a while for delivery.

To cut a long story short, I had a lot of issues with the delivery company and eventually, the Spindle was 'lost in the post' The spindle company where helpful throughout and said they would send another Spindle out, however, they didn't have the original Spindle I ordered in stock anymore, and they could only send an upgrade, which I was obviously happy about as it wasn't costing anymore and the original Spindle wasn't cheap, so I knew I'd be getting a good deal.

So, the Spindle arrived on Friday and this is where my 'nice problem' begins... This thing is an absolute beast, and much bigger than the one I ordered, and a bit intimidating to be honest, it weighs 31kg and it's 530mm long! The VFD that I ordered with it is also huge and has a lot of ports that I don't know what they are for but would love to utilse them to get the Spindle working to its full potential, so if anyone's willing to help me understand and help me wire it to its full potential, it would be greatly appreciated.

Another issue I've encountered is the cost of the power cable for this thing, something I didn't think of at the time but when I've been looking for double shielded (I assume it would need to be double shielded? ) 4 core flexible cable 10AWG I nearly fell off my chair, some websites were coming in at £600-£700, so if anyone knows where I could get anything cheaper that would be great too, but obviously I want it to last and be safe so nothing dirt cheap... I was hoping in the region of maybe £250-£300 would be great for around 10m of cable..?

My controller is an AXBB-E - taken from my previous build, both my other builds have all been manual speed control and power on but I would like to automate as much as possible this time around.

Thanks for looking and for any input in advance,

Cheers,

Phil

[routerdriver]

I've never known anybody complain about too much power,so it is indeed a nice problem.Does your intended location have the capacity to make it work at peak efficiency?
There are a couple of aspects of the design that make me wonder;the location of the longitudinal ballscrews is a long way from the rails and there isn't a huge span on the bearings,are you satisfied that it won't tend to tilt the gantry when power is applied?Just the inertia of moving the hefty spindle will give it a series of jolts over time and cutting forces may contribute their share of wear factors.

[Phil Mayor]

Hi RouterDriver,

it's not really a complaint, more of a concern as I know the cost of Power Cable could be a lot higher than I planned for the initial Spindle I'd ordered.

Good point about the ballscrew distance, this isn't set in stone at the moment and I could easily reduce the distance between the rails and ballscrew, so I'll keep that in mind.

Cheers for the reply