Where to buy spindle

[JAZZCNC]

Hi Vass,

Love and peace are in short supply around here friend. . .Lol

You won't go far wrong with those Electonic components and ballscrew specs.

Now people on here who have not experienced these components are going to say that for the price of those drives/motors you can buy servo's and they would be correct.!! . . . But this Stepper setup is much easier to setup and get/keep running than servos, almost plug n play.
They match servo's for accuracy and if you don't need the speed servo's offer then basicly there's nothing between them. (Same holds true for any stepper correctly setup and tuned)
Only thing is don't be tempted to go for the lower powered drives as you'll want the high power to get the speed from the motors you need.

The CSlabs motion controller is second to none. I use both the IP-M and IP-S in all machines I build and can tell you 100% it's the best by far in it's price range. Also if you do decide to go with servo's then it's more than up to handling high count servo encoders with loads of I/O. Infact it's actually designed more to suit servo's than steppers with features to Home from servo drives Index signal and other servo specific features.

So your spec so far would give you a very very accurate machine more than capable of doing what you require.

Forgive me but I've not trawled back to far thru the thread but now you want to cut Ice but don't know the machine spec.
What size is this machine.?
What material will you be using for the gantry and approx weight.?
What feeds are you looking for to cut with Ice.?

[HipoPapi]

Hi Jezz and thanks for the reply.

The gentry is made of 100x100x4 mild steel mainly and 20mm aluminum plate.

The estimated weight of the gantry excluding the steppers/HIWIN rails and blocks/ ballscrews and mounts is:

Y + Z = 135 kg (including 5.5 kw ER32 spindle)

Z = 46 kg (including 5.5 kw ER 32 spindle)

In terms of speed I have no idea to be honest . I was told by someone who used to machine ice that I can push it as fast as I can as is really easy to machine. I guess experimentation will tell.

I was thinking of servos as well, but they need gearing and since planetary gears are expensive and belts aren't an option in the freezer I think I am going to stay with the closed loop hybrid servos.

I have seen your video review of the similar system from zapp and was quite impressed.

Please see the attached pictures for sizes.

Light Grey = 100 x 100 x 4
Dark Grey = 150 x 100 x 4
Orange = 10 mm steel plate
White = 20 mm aluminum plate
Blue = ice
Purple = removable module to be replaceable with 4th axes module in future
20mm HIWIN rails an all axes


Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Vass

[JAZZCNC]

Ok well given the fact you will be running a resonably heavy gantry at higher feeds then I may be inclined to go with servo's due to linear torque.

Other option is to use higher pitch screws 2020 so you can get the same speed at lower motor RPM. Obviously you will lose some resolution but do you need more than 0.01mm.? I think you won't for ice.
20mm will put the motor in a 450 RPM range where torque is strong for the same speed as 10mm pitch. Where with 10mm at 9M/min you will be in the 900rpm range where torque starts to drop away.

Also I think if you contact belt manufactures there will be belts than can handle the cold so you could either use servo's or steppers with higher pitch screws to increase torque with a ratio.

[EddyCurrent]

Looking at the side view, it strikes me that things would be stronger if the cutter was further back so it was 'inside' the footprint of the two bearing blocks supporting the end frame. At the moment it is cantilevered out in front of them both.

[Boyan Silyavski]

Hi Guys,

I don't seem to be getting a lot of love here but hopefully you can confirm or suggest something better regarding my findings.

What i don't like about your design, now that i have seen the more detailed drawings is that the spindle center is overhanging so much that is in front of the gantry leg front bearing block. Do something about that. Instead of triangles you can offset the gantry a bit back, so the forces equalize.
This is a major design flaw in my opinion.
Read more here http://www.cncroutersource.com/do-it...NC-router.html The picture below is from that link and illustrates how basic forces work there.




I would have used servos. I would have definitely used 220v AC drives even for steppers, so seems your choice is right there.

I would definitely flip the Z design, so that the moving plate is the longer part , with the rails there, and that the Bearing blocks are on the fixed plate

[EddyCurrent]

silyavski, I just beat you to it but that's the damn diagram I've trying to find again for ages, so thanks for finding it.

[HipoPapi]

Hi Jazz,

Thanks for the quick reply.
That is a great suggestion as you are absolutely right that I dont need better resolution than 0.01. In fact I dont need better resolution than 0.5. I know it sounds ridiculous when I see what people are aiming for in this forum but realistically everything I do melts.
Ice blocks come in standard sizes of 1000 x 500 x 250 and they are not perfect so essentially here I need precision is the edges to make them match each other to glue them together with water. The cnc would do just the sides the top and bottom will be done on a band saw.

Thanks again I will definitely consider the 2020 screws.

Vass

[JAZZCNC]

I would definitely flip the Z design, so that the moving plate is the longer part , with the rails there, and that the Bearing blocks are on the fixed plate

As you know Boyan I would normally agree with you on this one but in this case then it really is best this way due to tool length and the fact the spindle never goes much below the bottom of the gantry as Vass is cutting large blocks of ice with long tool so needs the inverse travel.

To be honest I didn't pay much attention to the design and more focused on the component selection but I must agree with Eddy and Boyan that the gantry would beneifit from moving the CG back. It looks to me like your using Solid works so this will show the CG hows does it look.?

[HipoPapi]

Silyavsky thanks for the hearts :) feeling much better now.

You and Eddy are absolutely right in your assumption. The design has changed since than. Instead of the 50x100 pieces I have used 100x100 ones all round and now the vertical bit is all the way to the back.Originally I have brought it forward to leave access to the HIWIN blocks but with the 100x100 profile it is no longer necessary.
It looks like this at the moment:


I have tried to design it in a way to have the blocks fixed and the rail moving, but the gentry become a lot taller.
The reason for that is the fact that the lowest position of the spindle is different from what you have seen.
You can see it better in the following picture.


Thanks again Silyavsky and Eddy.

[JAZZCNC]

Ice blocks come in standard sizes of 1000 x 500 x 250 and they are not perfect so essentially here I need precision is the edges to make them match each other to glue them together with water. The cnc would do just the sides the top and bottom will be done on a band saw.

So what you need is a surface planner not a CNC router.? Have you considered building a four sided planer on linear axis.?

This would be very easy to build and wouldn't need expensive spindles, tools, or controller and drives, ballscrews etc.

Because you know the linear movement you can just use programable drives that don't even need a PC. Use planner blocks and blades with normal motors for the cutting heads. For linear movement the simple chain drive could be used as you don't need precision just to move a set distance.

If you wanted to automate the process so each blade moves in sequence then a simple arduino could do this.

Just a thought.??