Dans router

[Dan Brown]

I got my stepper motors going the other day through mach3 plus a cheap 4 axis chiniese driver board, woo HOOO:dance:

I wanted to see something actualy working before i spent any more money, so seeing those little babies move was like a green light for me to stick my hand a bit deeper in my pocket.

so now I'm just waiting for the posty to bring me my goodies, I've bought a system4 board with 3 drivers from roy at diycnc (i'll keep the chiniese one as backup)and supported round rails and bearings from gary at zapp automation. The sooner the better as my girlfriend is away with our baby daughter for a few weeks so i could realy get stuck in

I've not designed anything yet but the rails for X are 1300 X 20od, Y is 800 X16od and Z is 400 X 16od ( i wanted the option of a fair bit of movement on the Z for ifever i get around to adding a 4th axis),

firstly i'll make an ugly MDF monster and then hopefully use that to make something a bit better

I absolutly can't bl**dy wait:naughty:

[Dan Brown]

woooo my rails and bearings arrived today from Gary at zapp automation.

the system4 i've stuck in a metal medicine cupboard i found in a skip and is all running nicely

the machine i'm planning is going to have 2 motors on the X so i've also bought 2 driver25 boards and a ext module to run them so as to leave the C axis free for future expansion to a four axis machine

I was going to take up on the option of joining X and C and running the fourth axis from a stand alone board as suggested by Irving but then i got drunk and completly forgot:whistling:
oh well, either way's good



more soon

[irving2008]

Nice box... you might want to get some of that curly plastic cable wrap (B&Q do it) to keep the wires from the board to the 25pinD neat and away from the motor wiring.. i personally would have used a length of screened cable here - Maplin part # XR46A for instance

[Dan Brown]

Nice box... you might want to get some of that curly plastic cable wrap (B&Q do it) to keep the wires from the board to the 25pinD neat and away from the motor wiring.. i personally would have used a length of screened cable here - Maplin part # XR46A for instance

i was going to get the right cable but forgot when i was in maplins, doh

when you say to keep them away from the motor wires, is that because they aren't screened?

[irving2008]

mainly so, random noise pulses can have odd and intermittent effects and huntiing them down can be a pain...

[Lee Roberts]

Cable brading will do fine also, check ebay if you need anything in a small size let me know got a reel of it here doing nothing.

[Dan Brown]

Well so much for the build log,
to be honest all the steps up to this point have been so embaresingly shoddy i just couldnt bring myself to show them (at least not without knowing if it'd work)

i built it a few days after my last post but wired my motors up wrong and blew 2 drivers and so i've just been having to look at it for two weeks till i could get more not knowing if it even works

I've had a good look around and i'm sure this is the worst build here but it works!

heres some pics anyway



i'm sure you can see after seeing them pics why i NEED a cnc machine, acuracy aint something i've much pacience for unless i'm on a computer, i allways find myself getting pi++ed off and just whacking loads of gripfill all over the place.

building that 'machine' has curtainly given me a much better idea of how i' going to build my next one.

next thing to do is buy a few meters of toothed belt and have a muck about

[wires]

hey, if it works dont knock it. for us amatures the first machine is simply a means of learning and then to build a better one. i started a build log but havent done much lately, money is a bit tight at the moment. i have just done some designing on solidworks to try and visualise what i will be building. i see what you mean about the gripfill, deadly stuff

keep at it, its a bit of a steep learning curve but the guys on here are great for advice and,no doubt, when you get this one running ok you will soon be cutting bits for your next one...minus the gripfill:naughty: