From Chinese to Taffynese

[Carlb1058]

As most would know through my initial postings on joining the site you would have seen that I'd bought a Chinese machine that has proven to be A) fairly adequate and B) bloody rubbish - so while I wait on the nice postman to deliver my couplings (today I hope) I've decided to tear the machine down and rebuild it except making it 300mm longer and wider and made out of 45mm square steel, which will give me approximately a 700x600 workable area - the height however is fine as it's only a hobby after all and I only want it for working with wood and plastic. I do have plans on making it a vacuum table and upping the motors.

First things first though, the controller.
The el cheapo controller has made way (sorta not quite finished wiring *shudder*) for 3x542's and a bob utilising the existing controller PSU, all encased in a mac G4 tower with internal/external cooling and exhaust - built this way because of the heat in my shed during the summer 40degs plus on some days. I realise it's all overkill but protecting the electrics sounds like a plan to me Why use a mac case? Cheap for a start I bought two of the buggers as running computers and gutted this one for spares for $20 or 12 quid there-abouts and secondly they're build quality is amazing, you don't realise it until you have to gut the buggers, thirdly no undoing screws to gain access to the inside - just pull a lever.

So far parts re-used are the two fans (one sucks one blows) and the zip drive mount once turned upside down and a couple of reversed edge bends made an ideal bob holder once pop-rivetted to the drop down door.

Attached are a couple of photos of the controller box build process as a start. I'm off to the shop to buy a shed loada different coloured wire to get it all wired up


The large hole is where the original speaker was - now going to hold my E-Stop, above that is where the the spindle motor speed knob is going, with the main power switch and spindle power switch


The larger section of the stock PSU will be mounted in the base at the front of the case.

Now to find plans for a vacuum setup for the table before I go ballistic with the welder.