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

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Originally Posted by 1Jumper10

I've never anodized before but if it's important to agitate the solution of sulfuric acid, I would be reluctant to use air to do it. I wouldn't want to create any kind of vapor to begin with and then I wouldn't want it being carried out into immediate area where it could cause problems. Breathing and corrosion and such. Is there some reason you couldn't use a motor driven polyethylene agitator? Just a thought...

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

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I have never done any work with sulphuric acid either but the resident forum member has done so much in his life so he has to be the go to person for all advise on all matters. So it MUST be the correct way to agitate the acid. (I don't think) perhaps with an 80 cfm compressor.:excitement::stupid:

A bit of reading here http://www.tsh-technic.com/sites/def...ons-update.pdf

Doesn't seem that complicated to anodize at home

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

http://astro.neutral.org/anodise5.shtml

I'm sure you know all this already but I find it interesting ;)

If you need to keep the solution agitated a small maxijet water pump would probably be fine they are designed for semi acidic environments I have a load of spare working pumps you can have one for free if you want and if it melts who cares. But leave it a small test jar first over night I think lol be annoying to destroy your acid with melted plastic.

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Originally Posted by Clive S

I have never done any work with sulphuric acid either but the resident forum member has done so much in his life so he has to be the go to person for all advise on all matters. So it MUST be the correct way to agitate the acid. (I don't think) perhaps with an 80 cfm compressor.:excitement::stupid:

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These kind of remarks are absolutely unnecessary for the good tone here in the forum. I feel sorry when seeing such unfounded attitude.



I did the aeration using a simple silicone tube which i pinched many times with needle having previously sealed its end. Its important for the reason of evacuating the air bubbles that form when anodizing and moving the water to equalize temperature faster. The tube was connected to small silent air compressor with regulator , but any compressor from fridge would do, in that case a way should be found to vent out the unnecessary pressure build up .

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

Anyone who has any experience with anodising I'm always up for helpful info given I'm a noob.

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Don't underestimate the amount of de-ionised water you need. You have to use copious quantities of it at every step to keep the parts clean, else you'll see white deposits appear on the parts at the end. The deposits sometimes polish off, but it's best avoided ...

Yeah I'm guessing as Boyan suggested it may be worth getting a reverse osmosis setup... can use the water in coolant mix too (and the iron ;) ).

Desertboy - cheers for the offer. Sulphuric acid is a bit more of a bitch than most acids as it's an oxidising agent. Seems many plastics just can't deal with it so you have to be quite careful about what you put in it... Not so bothered about damaging a pump, more bothered about contaminating the acid.

most DIY kits seem to just use air agitation and an aquarium pump to supply the air. We'll see whether the budget can stretch to a decent pump next month!

Back to the build!

So had a chance to make my rail alignment doohickeys:

http://i.imgur.com/1n65YYA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/aMjuOP5.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4qO62TL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kwu3PZM.jpg


My plan to cut them so that the critical height is on the same part of the ballscrew seems to have worked well:

13.499mm

http://i.imgur.com/BaTkHVp.jpg

13.500mm

http://i.imgur.com/QPTPRDa.jpg


Biggest variation i found was 13.497 to 13.503, so max variation of 0.006mm (0.00024 inches if you are that way inclined), so pretty happy with that.


I 3d printed a jig and made some drill bushings on the lathe, looks like a shocked robot:

http://i.imgur.com/tjaaNk3.jpg

After drilling, tapping and a quick de-burring I gave the 20mm bed plate a good clean and laid the machine down on it upside down. Wiped each piece and area with an alcohol wipe to try and minimise any dust or dirt before fastening the rail spacers into position against the bed plate as a reference.

http://i.imgur.com/7zRe8mL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/90aqn9D.jpg

Then finally gave the rails a good wipe with a vanguard anti-corrosion wipe (hopefully minimise any naughtiness between the steel rail and milled aluminium mounting surface) before mounting them against the rail guides.

http://i.imgur.com/lhoav8o.jpg


Next up will be re-making the front plate after my motor mount height snafu, then I can crack on and get this lower frame finished off before moving on to the Z-axis next.

Good work Zeeflyboy. Like your thinking - in the absence of a large surface plate (£££) you've done the next best thing.

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

Back to the build!

So had a chance to make my rail alignment doohickeys:

http://i.imgur.com/1n65YYA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/aMjuOP5.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/4qO62TL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/kwu3PZM.jpg


My plan to cut them so that the critical height is on the same part of the ballscrew seems to have worked well:

13.499mm

http://i.imgur.com/BaTkHVp.jpg

13.500mm

http://i.imgur.com/QPTPRDa.jpg


Biggest variation i found was 13.497 to 13.503, so max variation of 0.006mm (0.00024 inches if you are that way inclined), so pretty happy with that.


I 3d printed a jig and made some drill bushings on the lathe, looks like a shocked robot:

http://i.imgur.com/tjaaNk3.jpg

After drilling, tapping and a quick de-burring I gave the 20mm bed plate a good clean and laid the machine down on it upside down. Wiped each piece and area with an alcohol wipe to try and minimise any dust or dirt before fastening the rail spacers into position against the bed plate as a reference.

http://i.imgur.com/7zRe8mL.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/90aqn9D.jpg

Then finally gave the rails a good wipe with a vanguard anti-corrosion wipe (hopefully minimise any naughtiness between the steel rail and milled aluminium mounting surface) before mounting them against the rail guides.

http://i.imgur.com/lhoav8o.jpg


Next up will be re-making the front plate after my motor mount height snafu, then I can crack on and get this lower frame finished off before moving on to the Z-axis next.

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0.006mm!

Excellent work I guess you don't need to write in your ebay descriptions please allow 1-3mm for measurement errors lol.

Cheers chaps.

Desert - I was more impressed when I wheeled the first one off and it was 13.500mm which is exactly what the model was supposed to be. Pure luck, my machine isn't that accurate lol. The variation is pretty impressive but that comes from cutting on the same part of the screw I'm sure.

Always painful when you are going back over the same steps, even more so when you mess up too....

Re-made the face plate today with the re-positioned bearing mounts to account for the different height motor mounts. I also tweaked the design to give more adjustment around the bearing mounts to hopefully make aligning them with the screws easier.

Interior done:

http://i.imgur.com/CMtfngV.jpg


Using my new 10mm roughing end mill with 10mm DoC, 1.4mm tool engagement, 2000mm/min and 14000 rpm I blasted through the exterior roughing, was just in the middle of congratulating myself on how much better I'm getting the hang of fusion's CAM abilities until the very last bit where it had decided to machine out one of the bolt holes that was occupied by a steel bolt - result was a new but now broken $30 10mm roughing end mill. FML....

http://i.imgur.com/DyXBH1c.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/zkUup1T.jpg

Anyway, aside from a broken endmill at least it had finished the exterior before committing suicide... So I ran the finish paths and all was well, but then I went a goofed again and ran the wrong tool path - so it tried to do a chamfer with a 6mm flat end mill. Hit stop before it got too far but still an unfortunate mark on the front right side. Just a cosmetic issue thankfully, but still annoying.

http://i.imgur.com/yajSuNI.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/H9qStXt.jpg


Good news is that at least its done and the error with the motor mount height is fixed.... One day I'll be able to make a simple part without messing it up, I'm sure. That's the dream!

Made one of the screw mounting plates:

https://i.imgur.com/iTwQ7MI.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/hhjxC2S.jpg


Flipped for the rear side, it was previously held down at the near edge too but I removed the front clamp to run the chamfer.

https://i.imgur.com/xmkbE9S.jpg


Unfortunately it's way too tall to fit into the CNC for drilling the sides, so I 3D printed another jig and made some drill bushings on the Lathe:

https://i.imgur.com/J4x9JDT.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/D9avqBA.jpg


Nice snug fit:

https://i.imgur.com/n6ys2Kk.jpg


Drilled and tapped:

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


Assembled:

https://i.imgur.com/QNd4zjY.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/YOVH2bI.jpg


Fitting to the machine reminded me that I need to flip the nuts on the screws and also showed a small design tweak that's required to then give the nut clearance, other than that though the fit is spot on regarding heights and spacing.

Damn, that's some very nice work there.

Sorry to hear about your troubles in post 170. Annoying when the part is big like that and expensive to replace.

Drill guide templates are very handy to make sure the holes are precisely where you want them. Got some more to do in my build later on.

When you flip the ball nuts have you got some metal tubing to roll them onto to keep the balls in place? If not I can measure the tube I use so you can turn something down.

Good work - keep it up

Cheers desert.

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Originally Posted by routercnc

Sorry to hear about your troubles in post 170. Annoying when the part is big like that and expensive to replace.

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Yeah very annoying, but could have been worse I suppose...

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When you flip the ball nuts have you got some metal tubing to roll them onto to keep the balls in place? If not I can measure the tube I use so you can turn something down.

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They came with some plastic tubes actually, but thanks. Of course I tried to use the Z-axis 1604 ball screw's tube for the 1605 and the end result is that tonight I learned how to re-pack a ball nut lol. Thankfully I did it all in a sandwich bag so no balls were lost. Helps when you use the right tube :applause:

Other than that I made the required design tweaks and modified the plate... I wanted to give the cutout that clears the motor mount a little more clearance and I also made room for the flipped nut.

Aligned the plate using dowels to make sure it was square to the axis, then used a probe to determine zero... occurred to me that perhaps not many have seen the touch probing screen on mach4, quite convenient to use for most circumstances:

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

https://i.imgur.com/p2I3rbL.jpg


modifications made:

https://i.imgur.com/XV96Bh8.jpg


Fitted to the machine, for ballscrew alignment the plan is to assemble by the fixed position motor mount here:

https://i.imgur.com/4elEajM.jpg


Then drive it up to the top with the floating bearing mount screws loosened off, then re-tighten once up there... ensures the screw is lined up to the linear rail at both ends. So far seems to have worked as it's nice and smooth at both ends with no binding.

https://i.imgur.com/x59Cn48.jpg


Now I just need to make the other side :apologetic:

Looking good.

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Originally Posted by routercnc

Looking good.

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+1

ta!

So nothing exciting, bit of a wash rinse repeat but in mirror image:

https://i.imgur.com/mv3Jj2B.jpg

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

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

https://i.imgur.com/Oa5Pqbb.jpg


And now got both fitted... next up will be the Z-axis I think.

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

https://i.imgur.com/aw2O21j.jpg


I also thought I'd just put this little video of my current machine munching some aluminium... I think she does a pretty good job for a 6040 type machine. This particular bit I did with a 6mm x 22mm single flute end mill with 2000mm/min, 1.5mm axial engagement and 5mm depth of cut at I believe 19k rpm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrBF...m-upload_owner

Hi Zeeflyboy,
Very nice speeds for a small router. I only use about 400mm/min with an 8mm endmill and 0.5 radial cut on my milling machine, so I am rather jealous. I'm starting the process of building a router similar to your new one, but with dual screws/pulley on the X instead of your two motors, so I am following your progress.

One thing I noticed, although your finish looks very good, in the area circled in red you have these vertical lines that are kind of similar to what I sometimes get with my milling similar plate thickness. Do you know what it is causing it?

Edward
Attachment 22756

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Edward

Hi Zeeflyboy,
Very nice speeds for a small router. I only use about 400mm/min with an 8mm endmill and 0.5 radial cut on my milling machine, so I am rather jealous. I'm starting the process of building a router similar to your new one, but with dual screws/pulley on the X instead of your two motors, so I am following your progress.

One thing I noticed, although your finish looks very good, in the area circled in red you have these vertical lines that are kind of similar to what I sometimes get with my milling similar plate thickness. Do you know what it is causing it?

Edward
Attachment 22756

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I get similar lines. I've always put it down to insufficient machine stiffness and slight ball screw backlash (~50um typically). Commercial machines which are very stiff and heavy, with low or zero backlash don't have them.

Good work. It machines aluminium nicely all things considered.

The plates you have just made- any reason they were not a single plate instead of 2 separate plates? I can't remember what the upper structure was going to be but I'm sure it would have benefited from this extra stiffness.

I assumed the same, ultimately there is a lack of stiffness and some small amount of backlash which would explain a small amount of surface imperfection. Its pretty much just a cosmetic issue and quickly polishes out.


Router - yes it would no doubt benefit from being a single piece but its too large for my machine to handle. It might be an upgrade that the new machine can make for itself later on.

I treated myself to a couple of new toys recently, and thought I would share how I have been trying to tweak the machine into shape given it's had a lot of use recently and probably needs a little tune up.

For squareness, it's a bit tricky as the X-axis actually has a small bow in it on mine which makes square a moving target. I decided to take the centre of the bed as a reference as that's where I do the majority of my work and then use points 100mm either side of that to set the squareness. As it turns out between those points the X-axis bows towards the front of the machine by about 0.05mm but fixing that is more work than I want to take on given I'm building a new machine anyway and the deflection on this machine renders it somewhat moot.

Anyhoo, back to my method of squaring:

I treated the Y axis as my fixed one and the X will be knocked into shape by loosening the screws on one side of the gantry base (both side and bottom screws) and tactical use of a mallet to knock it into shape.

First I drilled two holes for some precision dowel pins along the Y-axis span, and used that to edge up my square reference which happens to be a thorlabs precision angle bracket from the new machine I'm building. A machinist square would be good to use too, but the one I ordered is sadly out of stock and I have to wait another month to get it...

Next up I put my dial indicator on the machine and ran to my first reference point (centre plus 100mm) and zeroed the dial. Run to the second reference point (centre minus 100mm) and then knock the gantry arm gently with the mallet until it reads zero. This will have slightly changed zero down the other end, so wash rinse and repeat. If you stop off in the middle you can check how straight your gantry is now as well.

https://i.imgur.com/19C0Pd2.jpg


Next up I really wanted to accurately tram the spindle, so I bought myself a tramming gauge. You could DIY one, even using just a single dial indicator if you wanted to save money, it's just quite useful to have the two as it saves time when knocking the spindle straight. If you do make yourself/buy one with dual indicators, its worth mentioning that you need to zero both indicators from the same reference point as this removes any issues with runout or different length indicators.

You want to make sure you are doing this from a level reference, so make sure you skim whatever surface you are doing it on with a fairly fine step over to get a nice flat surface to start from. First up I checked the angle in the Y-axis as this one needs to be shimmed and if you have done X first, you undo all your hard work when you loosen the screws to insert the shim material... mine showed the top of the spindle was leaning towards Y minus, so I loosened off the screws (be careful not to let the spindle drop) and inserted a small piece of shim material at the bottom of each side (the small bit of brass under the bottom screw).

Bit of trial and error, also noting that tightening the screws will change this reading so you need to check with the screws fully tightened up, but in the end I managed to get it to this point - each gradation is 0.001" so it's about 0.0005" out of square in Y across the length of the tramming tool. I'll take that!

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


Next up was to knock it into shape in X, so I loosened off all the screws except for the top right which helps hold the spindle in place. That one I just slightly loosened off to help the mount move but not so much that the spindle became loose. Use your surgical mallet skills to knock the spindle until both sides read the same and then for convenience I re-zero... as you tighten up the screws again it will move a bit, so just tighten then a little at a time and keep tapping it back into square until you finally have them cranked down nice and tight. On this one i Managed to get it to within what looks like a bit better than 0.005" or so (less than half of a gradation out).

It is then worth having a little spin the whole way round to make sure it's all still where you expect and that you didn't mess up your previous work in Y. So all said and done I believe if my maths is correct the spindle is now square to within about 0.006 degrees (calling it 0.015mm out across the 125mm span of the tramming gauge).

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


What will be quite interesting is that now that I have actually quantified the tram and the square, I will test it again after a few machining operations to see if it stays put or drifts.


Anyhoo, not saying this is the only or even the best way of doing things but it's just what I found easiest... it's all easily achieved in an afternoon.

Awesome stuff. I need to do the same. I know I have a slight offset in the spindle mounting which I Can shim out but not yet done. It has minimal impact on parts but its not ideal.

Nice method !!!

Managed to crack out the back plate for the Z-axis today:

First fixture

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


Second fixture (I actually had two screws in the right side holes as well but took them out before I remembered to take a pic)

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


My replacement 10mm roughing bit arrived last week so I got another chance to use it after breaking my previous one with some stupid G-code. It very happily munches away at 14k rpm, 10mm DoC and 1mm axial engagement at 1500mm/min... makes short work of this 20mm plate as it's all done in two passes! Looking forwards to being able to up the feed rates and axial depths on the new machine I hope though.

Finished part:

https://i.imgur.com/r7bItM1.jpg

I'm not sure why but I cant seam to see the pic's on the last few pages they have a little square with a x in it? anyone getting the same? the first ones still work fine. I get the same on booth my computers and my phone

Works ok for me.

Me to

I can see the pictures

Nice work on the squaring and tramming.

Charlie, if it's working for everyone else might just be that imgur was over capacity when you looked and the older pictures were cached... try clearing your cache and refresh.

Thought I'd experiment a little with the seals for the Z-axis. I have some red material on order so we can stick with the colour scheme but for now to dial it in I'm just using what I've got which is a nice orange!

So this is the part, I've designed it now so that it has a locking flange to prevent it from going walkies... it should just push into the top/bottom plates and wedge in place.

https://i.imgur.com/E6uc8yg.png

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


So off to the printer to try it out... I'm using a material called Cheetah by ninjaflex. It's a fairly firm but flexible rubbery material (shore hardness 95A) which is abrasion resistant, resistant to chemicals and pretty tough.

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

https://i.imgur.com/MJLvY7X.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Pbqde1t.jpg


Here you can see the flexible rubbery nature:

https://i.imgur.com/YlollN5.jpg


Fit is excellent, but maybe just a smidge tight. I need to check it with the part actually held in the plates, but it may just need a very slightly enlargement of the interior cut out.

https://i.imgur.com/0lg9mTv.jpg

strange I just tried the other halfs mac and that is the same, I can still see all the new pictures in other threads though. o well I'm sure it looks great.

Charlie:

How about this - the last photo showing the 3D printed part on the rail:
Attachment 22836

Zeeflyboy:
Great timing - I've been thinking about how to seal the rails on my Z axis. I've planned ahead and have tapped holes in the base of the Y axis to accept a plate with some sort of brush/seal, and I was playing with ideas for the actual seal. I was thinking about cutting them out of a small piece of plastic with the router, and inserting them into the plate, as you have done.
But 3D printing is a much better idea as you can get tight into the corners, cheers for that. Also by chance bumped into a colleague today with a 3D printer and he is now lined up ready to make me some parts. I just need a slot this week to get back onto the CAD and draft something up as a trial.
I think as you say it is a matter of fine tuning something to keep the worst out but not rub too much.

yes that shows up

Really odd - I've been using imgur for all the photos so nothing has changed... I really can't think why it only affects you, and only for recent pics... how odd.

RouterCNC - I just printed one out which I enlarged the cut out by 0.15mm on and I think it's perfect. Given you are using 20mm rail too you are welcome to have my model to modify as needed to make the exterior fit your machine? You use fusion right?

If you need them printed out I can print them out and pop em in the post for you too if that helps. Flexibles can be a tricky thing to get right, some printers cope better than others (bowden types really don't tend to do great for example) and stuff like cheetah is pretty expensive to buy if he doesn't already have something comparable.

The fusion file would be great. Maybe zip it up and attach it to a post in this thread ?

Thanks for the offer to make some parts - he's been printing all sorts for ages plus has a CNC machine so I'll give him a go at making something. Thanks again

Hopefully attached for you.

HiWin do a scraper/seal add-on kit for their blocks, I used it on my mini-mill.

Its a steel scraper plus another wiper/seal for each end along with longer screws etc, fits easy and works well. ;)

Where's the fun in that! :excitement:

I'm with Zeeflyboy on this one but mostly because I find pay to be a dirty word. Also it's nice to solve things with your own ingenuity even if sometimes your the only one that sees the brilliance lol.

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

Where's the fun in that! :excitement:

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Desertboy

I'm with Zeeflyboy on this one but mostly because I find pay to be a dirty word. Also it's nice to solve things with your own ingenuity even if sometimes your the only one that sees the brilliance lol.

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Fair-do's to you, just thought i'd throw it out there ;)