El Beast - Initial design phase, comments and critique welcomed!

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

Interesting. Just to be clear the part of the gantry that is actually doing the work is 65 x 200 mm made up of a heavy 40mm extrusion and a 25mm tooling plate, not just the 25mm tooling plate on it's own. The span is 620mm... it also has 6mm plate top and bottom which will be screwed down to the extrusion and the tooling plate. Given the relatively short span I don't think it should have much flex?

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Yes, I got that, the extrusion will help, but I suspect it would need to be bolted to the plate at a lot of points to get it to work " as one": if they're not joined seriously rigidly, you won't get the full benefit of the extra thickness as they can slide over each other. If you want to stick with your current arrangement, I suspect that splitting your plate into 2 and having some in front and some behind the extrusion would also be of benefit.
OK your gantry isn't overly long, but if you're machining metal you need all the stiffness you can get. And as the rest of your machine is so beautifully made it would be a shame to compromise this surely?

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

Interesting. Just to be clear the part of the gantry that is actually doing the work is 65 x 200 mm made up of a heavy 40mm extrusion and a 25mm tooling plate, not just the 25mm tooling plate on it's own. The span is 620mm... it also has 6mm plate top and bottom which will be screwed down to the extrusion and the tooling plate. Given the relatively short span I don't think it should have much flex?

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The 25mm plate may not stiffen much the alu profile. The top and bottom 6mm plates probably won't do anything. Each bolted joint is a potential weak link when the contact surfaces aren't perfect.

Now all we are doing here is guessing. A very stiff gantry won't be very useful if the weakest link is your gantry arms.

problem is finding somewhere to buy it in UK.


Cheers guys, I'll have a think - 80mm would be easier to work into the design than 100mm but 100mm is easily available at misumi where I need to buy some profile anyway.

I believe I could make the 80mm work, although it would need new plate ordered for the side arms as the stock I have isn't big enough). Problem will be finding somewhere to buy it - have sent an enquiry to ITEM and to another place, will see what comes back. In the mean time I can continue to work on the design as it only really changes the side arms... will run both ideas and maybe look into simulations to get an idea of differences if I can wrap my head around it sufficiently well to simulate a fairly complex construction.

https://i.imgur.com/iWplkum.png

https://i.imgur.com/TTntTGZ.png

https://i.imgur.com/I3b70yT.png


Oh and just printed out a shield belt clasp to see how it would come out - seems to be good, can pull on both ends pretty hard and no give

https://i.imgur.com/u2nvtDD.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/3qG6JhJ.jpg

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

problem is finding somewhere to buy it in UK.

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Talk to Pamela at MBS <[email protected].> they're the UK agents for Item stuff, seem to be able to get most stuff within a week or so. Not cheap, but then quality rarely is I guess, and they seem to be a good source of heavyweight profiles.

BTW, how does your tramming plate work please? is the back of it machined to a very gentle radius so you can tilt it?

Thanks - they are actually the other one I sent an enquiry to but from the look of their website was not sure they sell to plebs.

Tramming plate only trams in one axis (left/right as you look at the machine head on), the entire gantry will be able to be trammed fore/aft (the Z-axis can also be trammed left/right independent of the tramming plate) to make sure the axis of movements are correct. Plan for spindle is to tram fore/aft with shim stock then left/right using the tramming plate. The issue I always had tramming just with shim stock is that you would get one axis in, then the other would be out... this way should work well for me.

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Originally Posted by Voicecoil

Talk to Pamela at MBS <[email protected].> they're the UK agents for Item stuff, seem to be able to get most stuff within a week or so. Not cheap, but then quality rarely is I guess, and they seem to be a good source of heavyweight profiles.

BTW, how does your tramming plate work please? is the back of it machined to a very gentle radius so you can tilt it?

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MBS got back to me very quickly with a quote - not a cheap piece of extrusion, comes to around £200 with cut and delivery... in for a penny in for a pound though I guess!

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

MBS got back to me very quickly with a quote - not a cheap piece of extrusion, comes to around £200 with cut and delivery... in for a penny in for a pound though I guess!

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That doesn't altogether suprise me :apologetic: - I got them to quote on a ~1.3m length of the 120x120 profile and that was the neck end of £200 + VAT. On the subject of the tramming plate, I assume the thing at the top LHS corner is an eccentric bolt of some kind?

Nevermind, it's done. Thought I'd go for it before I had time to think and change my mind!

Want to give a big thumbs up to machine building systems - extrusion arrived already and it was incredibly well packed (much better than the misumi ones were!) with a good wrapping of cardboard and wooden end blocks.

Quick pic comparing it to current machine, it's a beasty extrusion to be sure - thanks for prompting me to "upgrade", think it'll be worth it.

https://i.imgur.com/mnVqe3f.jpg

Ooooh, that is even more chunky than I thought it would be.

Looks good. Can't wait to see this beast making some chips.

This doesn't look like home made machine.
I am speechless, attention to details and general looks blowing my mind - hats off

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Originally Posted by Tom J

This doesn't look like home made machine.
I am speechless, attention to details and general looks blowing my mind - hats off

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I agree. Well done.

Even bearing with red seal - so nice
every colour with black will looks good - keep to colours

Hah thanks, very kind. Yes I did specifically go with the red seal bearings because OCD lol....

I tried out driving the Z-axis and while it works beautifully (there appears to be no lost motion and no backlash I can measure using my 0.01mm DTI), if I try to ramp up the acceleration higher I get a fault on the motor drive, which was surprising given it's unloaded but suggests that it's failing to follow the steps asked (closed loop drive).

I thought back to a comment about rotational mass and had another look at my pulleys, which were solid steel. The main one was seriously heavy.... so why not an experiment!

Bought some AT5 pulleys and belt, same ratio as before but this time the belt is steel reinforced and more importantly the pulleys are aluminium.

Of course we can't be dealing with stock... so modification time. I wanted to anodise the aluminium to increase wear resistance but of course that required me to remove the steel belt retainers. To make putting the belt on easier I decided to have the new ones be removable.

So first to the lathe for some slimming down of the necks

https://i.imgur.com/8B68n8Y.jpg



Next to the router for some drill holes and weight loss cut outs

https://i.imgur.com/2ZKom5e.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/FtlaXfG.jpg


Bubble bubble

https://i.imgur.com/t3aji3F.jpg


Cut out some belt retainers from some spare stock

https://i.imgur.com/XZhHDna.jpg


Fitted them to the pulley to apply a 60 degree chamfer and do some smoothing:

https://i.imgur.com/ajSKrZW.jpg


Anodised and laser etched

https://i.imgur.com/WwIK9yn.jpg


Comparison - Old steel 28T HTD pulley, unmodified 28T AT5 pulley, and the modified 28T AT5 pulley.

https://i.imgur.com/ITiLlt8.jpg


So moving to the alu pulley was a weight reduction of around 60%, then modifications to the alu pulley dropped that down by about 22% - not bad. Totally not worth the effort from stock pulley I'm sure but it's so preeeeettty...


Proof is in the pudding as they say, and acceleration is happily ramped up with no motor stall :)

Lesson learned - watch your rotational mass, especially if it's placed on a fairly large diameter like a pulley!

Also made a start on the X-axis, you may recall these belt guides... decided to get them done and out the way so I can do a proof of concept test before making a mess of expensive extrusions.

https://i.imgur.com/t2pLBdB.png


12mm plate secured down

https://i.imgur.com/poKrnBc.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/O3f1emS.jpg

Top side finished:

https://i.imgur.com/QjdZ4dg.jpg


Second operation:

https://i.imgur.com/7VPY427.jpg

Third:

https://i.imgur.com/N6QlR07.jpg


Racked up and getting a healthy dose of science

https://i.imgur.com/IZBVKnE.jpg


I cut some steel rod to length for the roller shafts and then needed to make the rollers themselves on the lathe... for this I've used some PTFE rod as it should remain maintenance free for a long time.

https://i.imgur.com/hnyDJCz.jpg


All finished and fitted, rods retained with a little loctite.

https://i.imgur.com/c3CGd7i.jpg

Hope everyone had a good break over Christmas!

I've been using my time not working on this project to continue mulling over my design for the X-axis, and I think I've decided to go a slightly different route on the protection belts.

One problem with my current design was that it prevented me from securing the 25mm rail plate to the extrusion as positively as I would like, given that the belt is running behind the Rail and covering an extrusion slot. It also means that to remove/clean/replace the belt would require disassembly of the X-Axis which isn't ideal.

So this is a result of a bit of playing around with ideas... The belt now runs through the extrusion itself, with access from the outside of the gantry arms. There will be cover plates to hide it all away and help keep out the dust, although I though some clear or perhaps tinted perspex would be quite cool too as you could see the belt mechanism at work.

Also got the Gantry tramming adjustment in there now which should allow to nicely fine-tune the alignment to the bed.

Sadly means I wasted my time with those last parts, but won't be the first or last time I'm sure!


https://i.imgur.com/MKzp9ZE.png

https://i.imgur.com/O5a20UY.png

https://i.imgur.com/TPf5vGe.png


I also took delivery of a big load of alu plate, including the bigger 25mm plates for the gantry arms so I've got all the plate I need to finish it now (assuming I don't mess up of course!).


I have a couple of things I want to do before continuing properly with this though. Firstly, I'm in the process of making a proper CNC enclosure at long last and I want to get that done before I do any large amount of milling. Secondly, I've been thinking how I can accurately make the parts that are too big to fit on my CNC and decided I can kill two birds with one stone.

I have wanted to build a router table for a while now to go with the table saw, and some recent furniture I've made has reinforced how much I could do with one... So I have designed a nice little router table lift unit using a 2.2kw spindle mostly around spare parts (rails, extrusion etc) I have lying around anyway so I can do it cheaply, and will use that to cut the larger pieces to size. The Tramming plate and spindle mount are identical to the Z-axis, so I can just borrow that one for now meaning not much machining is required to get up and running with it. The table itself will just be fairly simple - some melamine MDF with fence and rails etc.

https://i.imgur.com/HbY9KFp.png

The router table will allow me to accurately make most of the gantry parts that are too long to fit on my machine. As for the rail plate, that will require me to make the external dimensions on the router table and then my CNC can work the interior.

Good news is that the enclosure and router table shouldn't take me too long to make, and then work can properly resume on the X-axis.

The belt idlers will be running on the toothed side of the belt? I guess they will be toothed idlers?

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Originally Posted by Davek0974

The belt idlers will be running on the toothed side of the belt? I guess they will be toothed idlers?

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They not drive belt, they serve as protection to rails against chips/mist etc. Many of us use concertina folded covers.
Zeeflyboy has brought design to different level - read higher:)

Nice, thanks for clarification ;)

As Tom says, these are just flat belts (polypropylene webbed belts to be precise) which are acting as shields... due to the compact nature required in my case, bellows etc would just have wasted work area which is why I'm trying to be a bit more creative with shielding/sealing.

Heh. This thread continues to impress... Excellent.

Cheers!

So got a chance to make the new belt guides today.or simplicity I just 3D printed the bodies in my XT-CF20 - in this new design they don't take any real force as they are supported by the gantry arms so no need for anything stronger. Had some Acetal rod which I used this time for the rollers.

Making the rollers on the lathe

https://i.imgur.com/l30gomS.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/GLPNFDm.jpg


3mm axle rod, printed body, turned roller:

https://i.imgur.com/37Aqbod.jpg


Wash, rinse, repeat:

https://i.imgur.com/ZCiSWpy.jpg

Interesting design feature. Looking forward to seeing it in action.

Just a question:
Did you measure how flat the milled Misumi extrusions are?

after a year or more of not being able to see the pictures on your thread for some reason I think due to something with our internet connection they have suddenly started working! The machine looks fantastic and a huge amount of progress since I saw those few bits sitting on your floor way back! would love to come take a look again sometime, the anodising setup looks like the icing on the cake!

Thats one of the most beautifull designs i have come across as it comes to a diy project.
waiting to see how the final asembly will look like and how its moves/cuts.

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

I just 3D printed the bodies in my XT-CF20

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Great work, what 3d printer are you using?

Since my last post your roller idea/design has been playing on my mind, I really enjoyed seeing your innovation on this and what you had come up with, that has led me to thinking about it more and wanting to share my thoughts with you, obviously it's up to you if you implement something or not but here goes!

What about if you added a spring to the rollers, milled a slot along their length, then took some thin copper sheet and made some finals for the ends of the belt, so cut to size, fold over and crimp to the belt ends, this strip of copper could then be a sung sliding fit into the recess/slot you made on the rollers, so it would be spring loaded, under tension and want to roll itself back up.

Then you wouldn't need to run the belt through the gantry and would end up using less belt.

Think of a roller blind on a house window, without the draw cord of course.

I thought about this one a while ago and it's kind of 6 of one and half-a-dozen of the other.... Sure a spring loaded roller assy. uses less belt, but it's likely to be a lot more bulky potentially in a spot where "a lot more bulky" may not be cool. You can buy ready made spring roller blind units made for machine guarding, but for narrow widths all the ones I've seen are a bit cumbersome, whereas running it back through the extrusion the bulk of the belt is all stored in what otherwise would be dead space.

On another subject Zeeflyboy. what kind of % power do you find is best for laser "engraving" stuff on your anodised bits please?

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Originally Posted by Voicecoil

I thought about this one a while ago and it's kind of 6 of one and half-a-dozen of the other.... Sure a spring loaded roller assy. uses less belt, but it's likely to be a lot more bulky potentially in a spot where "a lot more bulky" may not be cool. You can buy ready made spring roller blind units made for machine guarding, but for narrow widths all the ones I've seen are a bit cumbersome, whereas running it back through the extrusion the bulk of the belt is all stored in what otherwise would be dead space.

On another subject Zeeflyboy. what kind of % power do you find is best for laser "engraving" stuff on your anodised bits please?

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All good points, I get what your saying about potentially bulky...

Yea that reminds me, the other question/thought I had, your home anodising results are some of the best I have seen, it would be great to see your setup/procedure for doing this..

would be a great addition to the Metal Finishing Techniques sub forum.

Sorry for the lack if updates and replies, I've been busy doing other things recently but hoping to get back to it soon. I've managed to run an external air line to the Man cave and mostly finished building the big CNC enclosure, just need to re-wire up the CNC machine and get things rolling again.

Lee - to answer your earlier question I use a Makergear M1, with an e3d v6 hot end and an e3d titan extruder.

I must admit I hadn't considered doing the belts in the way you describe, so cheers for the idea. Having pondered it for a bit I think that would work better in a design that had a bulkier gantry arm for the roller to sit inside. Certainly would have been better than the v1 here where the belt running behind the front plate might have compromised it's attachment to the extrusion, but since switching to the thicker extrusion which allowed running through the dead space I think it's a relatively simple design with few drawbacks.

Voicecoil - that's a difficult question to answer, as the glowforge I got for the wife doesn't really work that way. It is a 45W CO2 laser, but the power scale runs from 0-100, and then full power. The full power one is easy enough to figure out but the 0-100 is not a percentage value (obviously, since full power is not the same as 100), but a seemingly arbitrary scale. Equally speed is an arbitrary 0-1000 which does not directly correspond to any unit such as mm/min etc.

It's generally fairly forgiving though. Start on the lower end and if the engraving isn't sufficiently defined you can run over it again without moving the part... I have found different colours (ie the red and the black) respond slightly differently due to the propensity to absorb/reflect the IR laser's power.

If you do it too many times/too much power you completely burn through to clear aluminium which for me had a slightly gold tint. I actually took advantage of this on the side plates to create some differentiation between grey/white/metal.

Gorgeous build!

Are the Nema23 closed loop steppers you're using 2Nm or 3Nm?

Anxiously waiting for an update on this build 😁

This build goes from debate thread to pure engineering art and visual satisfaction is just joy to watch. Hopefully you can share the complete design with us in the future, I say that your work on the design itself worth the money and I’ll be more than happy to pay for it :)
cheers

Where is Zeeflyboy these days? HIs build seems to have come to an end.

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Where is Zeeflyboy these days? HIs build seems to have come to an end.

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i wish i knew, this build and the engineering detail have been a revelation and helped me out so much.

i hope Zee is doing ok and am a bit concerned due to the lack of updates, come back dude we miss you.

Hello all, I reached out to ZeeFly on another site to check if he was still ok and well of which he is. He hasn't stopped the build but has had to take time away but did say he hopes to continue with it soon!

Very sorry guys!

I am in fact still alive... I've been busy with family life as my son is currently of the age where my attention is constantly desired. I can usually set foot in the man cave for only a few minutes before the little man comes along and asks what I'm doing! I also had some other higher priority projects and house DIY that have demanded the CNC went on the back burner.

I am however hoping to get back to it to some extent this summer, I have the finished Z-axis out on show staring me in the face every time I go in the man cave so it reminds me that I need to get started again so that I can put the bugger to work!

The fly in the ointment now is that I'm currently furloughed (and the company is facing large scale redundancies that I don't know whether I'll be impacted by or not)... so ironically now I have somewhat more time due to a big financial hit over the least couple of months and the prospect of further hits I don't have the ability to spend as recklessly as before on non-essentials until I know with a little more certainty what the future holds. The good news is that I certainly have most of what I need to continue to make progress without spending too much, just need a really good chunk of time free of distraction to organise everything, re-align the CNC after the enclosure build and get a plan together.

Actually I don't think I posted anything about the enclosure... I'll pop a pic up once I've had a chance to clear the mess from the few little projects the CNC has been working on.