New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area

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Originally Posted by MartinS

On the topic of filling the extruded section with resin, reinforced or otherwise, has anyone got views or experience of lining extrusions with carbon fibre?

Obviously this could not apply to the sections above but I am thinking of say RH Al or Fe 120x60x3, 100x50x3 being used for the Y gantry.

I understand the logic of adding weight to kill vibration but this weight has to be accelerated and decelerated.

With a layer or two of carbon/kevlar fibre cloth and resin applied to the internal surface of the RH and cured, could this provide an element of vibration reduction whilst reducing the tendency of the Y gantry to deflect under the torsional load caused by heavy cutting in X?

Just a thought!!

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If you're going to use box section I'd go with steel, box section is a lot weaker than T slot extrusion (Less material for a start but also cross bracing, etc.)

Not had enough experience with Carbon Fibre to comment.

Finally!

Attachment 22423

KJN drilled and counterbored this to my cad model has some minor issues but everything is good and would highly recommend KJN to anyone else who might want to do something similar. For what it cost it was well worth it!

Started bolting everything together, immediately found out need more bolts lol just ordered £21 worth of stainless socket cap A2's :(

Although I needed 20 M10 bolts which cost £9 of that the rest was M4's, M5's and some M6's of various lengths hope I got it right.

I need to cut 8 bolts down from 60mm to 55mm what's the best way? Was thinking put a nut on the bolt then put bolt in a vice then use a cutting disc. Take the bolt off when done to clean the threads up.

My mum gave me her old laptop which has a knackered battery which is no issues to me of course it's a touch screen which will work very nicely with grbl and the arduino but will be useless when I get a breakout board, proper steppers unfortunately. I like it because it's a very neat solution just no point mounting it properly as it won't be used for long.

Attachment 22429
I like it because the screen flips so it'll be a neat solution that doesn't need a keyboard and mouse but if needed I can flip the keyboard out (Or bring a virtual one up) pity it doesn't have proper ethernet.

I always underestimate the cost of fixings! Screws not so bad usually, but extras like t-nuts and extrusion specific fittings etc add up very quickly.

I find when cutting down bolts the best is to spin a die onto the nut, do the cutting and tidy with a file, then spin the die off and it'll recut any thread that has been mangled on the tip.

A nut would probably work well enough if you don't have dies.

I've used KJN before too, was very happy with the accuracy of cuts and service.

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

I always underestimate the cost of fixings! Screws not so bad usually, but extras like t-nuts and extrusion specific fittings etc add up very quickly.

I find when cutting down bolts the best is to spin a die onto the nut, do the cutting and tidy with a file, then spin the die off and it'll recut any thread that has been mangled on the tip.

A nut would probably work well enough if you don't have dies.

I've used KJN before too, was very happy with the accuracy of cuts and service.

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I'm lucky they're less than 3 miles from me otherwise I would never have been able to reuse this extrusion they cut and drilled everything for me was worried they wouldn't touch my stuff because I didn't buy it from them.

I was Naive thinking I could build this super cheap but still with a lot pikeying, buying big jigs to strip for Hiwin's, etc it still cost me under £1000 including the spindle but I had a lot of luck and the extrusion I'd had for over 2 years kicking around.

Was gutted I had to buy 90 T nuts because I have a bucket with easily that in but all M6 and I need 86 M4's for the Hiwins.

Had a lot of fun bolting 50 T nuts down today lol but in the end got a method the first 25 took me 40 mins the 2nd 25 less than 5 mins.

I've been recovering A2's for a while but just not enough next bit machine I'm saving every bolt lol.

Aah I wish I could claim anything near 1000£ for my build. . Think I passed that years ago :D

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Originally Posted by Nr1madman

Aah I wish I could claim anything near 1000£ for my build. . Think I passed that years ago :D

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If Bought everything new £2.5k plsu a lot of work lol, I really have worked for my router a lot of lost weekends.

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Originally Posted by Desertboy

If Bought everything new £2.5k plsu a lot of work lol, I really have worked for my router a lot of lost weekends.

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Yeah I understand! But if you are similar to me it's not "lost" weekends but fun weekends ;)

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

I always underestimate the cost of fixings! Screws not so bad usually, but extras like t-nuts and extrusion specific fittings etc add up very quickly.

I find when cutting down bolts the best is to spin a die onto the nut, do the cutting and tidy with a file, then spin the die off and it'll recut any thread that has been mangled on the tip.

A nut would probably work well enough if you don't have dies.

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When I finish my router and built the arcade table going to make a big order for fixing's and T nuts from China we should all chip in and get a massive order then split them off between us. I've found T nuts are 1/2 the price from China on alixpress and it soon adds up lol.

Guy at work has a die set so hopefully won't be too bad.

I wonder if my Nema's are underpowered

The Y axis has 2 matched nema 23's 1.8nm, the X axis (Gantry) is unknown nema 23 as I recovered it but is identical size and weight to the 1.8nm's so I assume it is a 1.8nm and the Z axis is a 1.2nm stubby that one is an Italian stepper motor.

The Poulou stepper drivers can only power 2amp at 24v which will limit the motors even more (The bigger ones are 2.8amp) but I will buy 4 AM882 drivers and breakout next month and have a 48v power supply kicking around so should be able to get closer to their potential in the near future.

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I wonder if my Nema's are underpowered

The Y axis has 2 matched nema 23's 1.8nm, the X axis (Gantry) is unknown nema 23 as I recovered it but is identical size and weight to the 1.8nm's so I assume it is a 1.8nm and the Z axis is a 1.2nm stubby that one is an Italian stepper motor.

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In my opinion nema 23's for a router need to be 3.1nm 8 wire, wired in parallel config running at about 4A with AM882 drives at 68V this is a tried and tested solution for many.

In your case I think you are going to slave an axis so you have to think about homing IF using two motors on one axis, so if looking at motion controllers make sure that, that is possible (not all do) Linuxcnc now finally can do this even with a simple bob (as long as you use master 2.8 branch) as it will now home to two axis and be able to offset one to sort out any squaring of the gantry. (this is not an advert for Lcnc as there are plenty of controllers that can do this)
Mach3 can do this as well.

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Originally Posted by Clive S

In my opinion nema 23's for a router need to be 3.1nm 8 wire, wired in parallel config running at about 4A with AM882 drives at 68V this is a tried and tested solution for many.

In your case I think you are going to slave an axis so you have to think about homing IF using two motors on one axis, so if looking at motion controllers make sure that, that is possible (not all do) Linuxcnc now finally can do this even with a simple bob (as long as you use master 2.8 branch) as it will now home to two axis and be able to offset one to sort out any squaring of the gantry. (this is not an advert for Lcnc as there are plenty of controllers that can do this)
Mach3 can do this as well.

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Would this power supply do?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/800W-High-...AAAOSwPhdVJL-~

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Originally Posted by Desertboy

Would this power supply do?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/800W-High-...AAAOSwPhdVJL-~

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No. But you could make one for that price:

https://www.rapidonline.com/50a-brid...al-case-519318

https://www.rapidonline.com/samwha-h...acitor-11-3121

https://www.rapidonline.com/lcr-ep08...-clamp-11-3004

https://www.rapidonline.com/vigortro...-x-25v-88-0012

Some people might use 24-0 -24V secondary

Fixing become much more expensive when you order the wrong ones lol, I was convinced they were M10's that bolt the extrusion together they're actually M12 so £20 wasted on 30 M10 bolts and an M10 tap :( Ordered correct bolts going to try and wing it without a tap first.

Maybe I should build my own power supply has a certain geek factor to it ;)

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Originally Posted by Desertboy

Fixing become much more expensive when you order the wrong ones lol, I was convinced they were M10's that bolt the extrusion together they're actually M12 so £20 wasted on 30 M10 bolts and an M10 tap :( Ordered correct bolts going to try and wing it without a tap first.

Maybe I should build my own power supply has a certain geek factor to it ;)

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I don't think you can screw a bolt into the extrusion without a tap I use these:- https://www.cutwel.co.uk/threading/m...1-tb804-series

In a battery drill.

Building a power supply is simple about one hours work.

I doubt you will get an m12 bolt in without a tap.

3 piece set here for 8 quid... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HSS-METRIC...NnuGfIi7lhU9Dg

Hi this is where the bolts are going into
Attachment 22459

You can get away without a tap if you use a decent impact driver but I've heeded your advice and bought one anyway lol might as well do it right. ;)

They sell bolts for self tapping into these I assume they have a more aggressive thread but I have used stainless A2's before untapped but that was with the 20mm extrusion which was very hard to do.

The 20mm is a solid circle though in the middle I think this would be easier to drive them in but might as well tap them. Annoying because I wanted to assemble the frame this weekend and bolt the rest of the Hiwin's on.

Yeah I've used the self tapping thread screws before, albeit m6 rather than m12. As you say they have a cutting type thread rather than the typical. Work well though, especially when you have a lot to do it's a big time saver over tapping.

your extrusion holes are a slightly different design to mine and looks easier to tap with those "tabs", I just know that even tapping mine to m12 was quite an effort. I just imagine you might risk shearing a bolt off trying to drive a thread that big with a normal bolt using an impact driver.... which might probably ruin your day, although m12 is quite meaty so that would take a lot of force I guess.

If you were closer you could have just borrowed my taps, but I guess just posting them to you won't work out much cheaper or quicker. No one near you that you could borrow from?

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

Yeah I've used the self tapping thread screws before, albeit m6 rather than m12. As you say they have a cutting type thread rather than the typical. Work well though, especially when you have a lot to do it's a big time saver over tapping.

your extrusion holes are a slightly different design to mine and looks easier to tap with those "tabs", I just know that even tapping mine to m12 was quite an effort. I just imagine you might risk shearing a bolt off trying to drive a thread that big with a normal bolt using an impact driver.... which might probably ruin your day, although m12 is quite meaty so that would take a lot of force I guess.

If you were closer you could have just borrowed my taps, but I guess just posting them to you won't work out much cheaper or quicker. No one near you that you could borrow from?

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I just bought one £8 was worth it

I have just tapped 26 M12 in heavy extrusion, it take less than 20 secs a hole with the right tap.

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Originally Posted by Clive S

I have just tapped 26 M12 in heavy extrusion, it take less than 20 secs a hole with the right tap.

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Oddly enough I have 26 to tap.

The right tap makes all the difference! Broke my m6 spiral machine tap a while back and had to tap 7 holes with a straight old regular one last night. Probably took 3-5 minutes / hole because of all the back and forward you have to do. :(

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words
Attachment 22464

And the words here are my Brother is a wanker! Bits of my machine are under all that! I've managed to clear most of it now and found the bits for my machine luckily everything is ok BUT I am missing a set of BK12/BF12 bearings.

Was the air Blue:hysterical:

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Originally Posted by Clive S

Was the air Blue:hysterical:

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I'm not a violent man that's why I paid some crack heads to break his legs :tickled_pink:

Managed to do 10 bolts without a Tap but hard hard work take note the size of lever lol. Ran out of bolts now when the rest come the tap will be here as well.

Attachment 22465

2 pieces making the bottom frame are 6045 extrusion which makes it look a little odd. I wonder if I spaced them close enough together the gap is less than 30cm between each extrusion will have an 18mm MDF board on top

I'm impressed with KJN's cuts the frame fits together perfectly. I had the outer frame cut from 9045 ages ago then had them cut the 4545 and 6045 that make the bed up the other day. Other places I;ve used they would not fit properly.

Need to have a think about legs I want to have a shelf underneath so I can put vacuum cleaner & cyclone, water cooling, etc on the shelf to keep things neat and under control.

Now looking at it I realise I need to add more supports for the bed I have another piece of 6020 I can cut to 2 1m pieces and if I buy 2 more pieces (£24) then I could do this for the bed

Attachment 22466
With a a sheet of MDF on it I think it would be ok.

I wouldn't have the frame drilled I would just use corners and T nuts I have enough kicking around.

Hmm this might have been talked about already.. but is the gantry spanning the long axis instead of the shortest possible?
Or is the image playing tricks on me? ;)

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Originally Posted by Nr1madman

Hmm this might have been talked about already.. but is the gantry spanning the long axis instead of the shortest possible?
Or is the image playing tricks on me? ;)

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There was method to my madness, I originally had SBR25 and 15mm clone Hiwin's so I decided the SBR25 could take the most weight and made my gantry span the longest axis. (This is 1.5m) then I ordered 1 1.4m ballscrew and 2 1m ballscrews. A few weeks later I managed to score more original 15mm Hiwin's so now the whole thing will be linear rail.

If I had the Hiwin's originally I would have built it the other (More conventional) way round but hey hoe.

If this is a real issue with flex I will have to buy another 1.4m ballscrew and convert it over it wouldn't be too hard.

I knew I read something about it!
Well.. I totally understand ;)
When building like a mechanical pirate the plans can always change :D

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I think I will make the bed a vac table using 16mm holes (I have caps to block off the areas not in use.)

The recess is 1220mm*800mm so I can cut MDF/PLY to fit perfectly into the recess with 1 cut.

Attachment 22480

Attachment 22481

Not much to report just waiting for the plates but have bought a 2nd hand PC so I can run Fusion 360, think I did ok.

3.4ghz I7 2400k (performance is about 15% of the latest I7's ghz for ghz mostly down to DD4 I bet), 8gb of ram but will ditch and get 4*8gb DDR3 dimms 2nd hand £72 so have 32gb of ram, fitting a GTX760, new power supply and SSD so will be a significant improvement on present PC for under £400 ;)

I could actually play games on this but not going to have time with learning Fusion, CAM and not killing my customers who do all deserve to die.

If I had the cash I would have bought Ryzon 8 core jobbie but need to get proper steppers and PSU next so scrimp and save every penny ;)

Attachment 22608 The ballscrew will have a mount either end to bolt into just laid it roughly where it's going to go, Hiwin's bolted on finally need to cut them down.

This will be the gantry (Has clone Hiwin's on)

Attachment 22609

3 individual pieces 2 * 4545 and 1*9045 will drill 5 holes through the 4545 and bolt using T nuts to the 9045 to reduce flex.

The Hiwin problem anyone who's used 15mm Hiwin's and a 1605 ballscrew knows this problem lol, it doesn't affect my Y axis because the ballscrews are at right angles to the Hiwin's but the gantry and Z axis both had this problem which I solved with a combination of spacers and recesses.
Attachment 22611

Aluminium extrusion is strong but not that strong lol
Attachment 22612

Heavy duty 6045 I found under the mess when the shelf collapsed this will get cut down for leg supports now.

I still have 2 pieces of the SBR left with bearing this will be the basis for my positive pressure vac former ballscrew driven naturally.
Attachment 22610
I can say from personal experience DO NOT BUY EVOLUTION TABLE SAW it's total shit!

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Originally Posted by Desertboy

I can say from personal experience DO NOT BUY EVOLUTION TABLE SAW it's total shit!

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That's a shame, I have the big Evolution cutoff saw and I use it for all sorts of things, it did sterling service cutting a load of old thick wall galvanised imperial scaffold poles into manageable lengths, you need a squirt of WD for ally cutting to avoid clogging up the blade and you must clear the blade if you do clog it.
Just don't try cutting Titanuim, it will eat the blade, don't ask how I know! ;-)

- Nick

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Originally Posted by magicniner

That's a shame, I have the big Evolution cutoff saw and I use it for all sorts of things, it did sterling service cutting a load of old thick wall galvanised imperial scaffold poles into manageable lengths, you need a squirt of WD for ally cutting to avoid clogging up the blade and you must clear the blade if you do clog it.
Just don't try cutting Titanuim, it will eat the blade, don't ask how I know! ;-)

- Nick

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The saw is really good it's the rest of the table that's crap lol, plastic has no place in a table saw! The fence is useless and the table is coming to pieces. I've often thought about taking the saw out and rebuilding it with a real table.

I have an evolution mitre that's a lot better machine but still flimsy it's great for home use but if you've got any commercial uses I think Axminister is a better choice. My friend has done many a house up with his evolution but his tolerances are lot lower than mine.

If you do get clogged teeth from aluminium I found cutting a bit of scrap steel cleans it out fine again but good advice I usually add a tiny amount of SAS (Think it's the same stuff as WD).

Screwfix sell evolution compatible blades for 1/2 the price I have one on my machine at moment can honestly say they are as good the proper ones.

As for eating blades also don't try and cut SBR25 rail with it either lol blunted the blade in and made a slight groove in the rail. Afterwards blades would not cut wood anymore just burn it ;)

In the end I cut the rail with a £1 cutting disc and grinder in about 30 seconds, right tool for the job lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPQlXNH36mI

My custom nema mount and bK12/Bf12 mounts work pefectly
Attachment 22618

BK12/BF12 mount countersunk bolts so the bolts go from underneath the other 2 holes are to bolt into the T nuts.
Attachment 22622

The ballnut & spacer bolt in perfectly although I removed the bolts again as they need to be cut down 5mm.
Attachment 22619

Attachment 22620

Nice build, I am watching.

I've used and abused my big evolution sliding mitre saw over the last couple of years and it's still trucking, I've been very happy with the value for money. It's a little... agricultural... certainly not a precision tool and despite my best efforts I've never been able to completely square it up but it chomps through everything I throw at it, and I use it a lot for chopping up 20mm alu plate but have cut paving slabs, stone tiles, steel, alu, PVC pipe, copious amounts of wood. it's never complained!

Build is looking good!

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

I've used and abused my big evolution sliding mitre saw over the last couple of years and it's still trucking, I've been very happy with the value for money. It's a little... agricultural... certainly not a precision tool and despite my best efforts I've never been able to completely square it up but it chomps through everything I throw at it, and I use it a lot for chopping up 20mm alu plate but have cut paving slabs, stone tiles, steel, alu, PVC pipe, copious amounts of wood. it's never complained!

Build is looking good!

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The saw bit is great on my evolution it's the table bit that's crap lol, I to cut 20mm aluminium plate on my table saw and the table saw still has it's original blade. The mitre blade is the one I blunted trying to cut SBR but guess that's hardened. Screwfix sell evolution copy blades for ~£10 each they're pretty good.

Never could get my mitre square either lol.

I should chop the end of the Hiwin's to make it flush but it feels a sin to chop 20cm off original Hiwin's and if I swap the gantry round the shortest way and buy new ballscrews I can get another 10cm of travel out of it.

I already know if I keep this for any length of time will change the ballscrews to 2510's and swap the gantry round.

I tried to increase the chances of making a reasonable machine by outsourcing the manufacturing which I think was the best decision I made in my life lol. All I have to do is get the cad right ;)


I've already made 2 mistakes lol, I missed a counterbore but this is a non issue I can sort myself, one of the ballnut recesses is not long enough this is more of an issue but think we might solve it with a hand router and a jig.

Lovely gantry parts you have there Desertboy. They look awfully familiar.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4334/3...2451653f_b.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4377/3...4fd090f8_b.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4381/3...7cd9b92d_b.jpg

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Originally Posted by Chaz

Lovely gantry parts you have there Desertboy. They look awfully familiar.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4334/3...2451653f_b.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4377/3...4fd090f8_b.jpg
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4381/3...7cd9b92d_b.jpg

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They do there don't they lol, a big thanks for Chaz helping me out here couldn't have done it without him ;) Was leaving the big reveal for when the machine moved ha ha ha but confidence is a lot higher that it will all be good.

This is my first CNC machine and I designed it myself with a vague idea how my reprap moved lol, the best advice I got so far I think was using 20mm tooling plate for the gantry ;) Then ditch the SBR for the Hiwin's.

Very happy with my plates from Chaz and the only issues I have come across come from me not measuring everything out properly! After mentioning exactly that in Zeeflyboy's thread I should be super embarrassed lol.

What happens when you don't bother modelling everything and use some lines and data from the engineering drawings lol.

And let me say Thor might look impressive but when she moves the earth moves with her lol.