Luke11CNC Build Log ,I'm so naïve

Z-axis is in progress, plus Y-axis stepper motor mount:

Attachment 5003

Attachment 5004

Attachment 5005

I reground the cutter (6mm single flute) freehand after the Z-plate as it was chipped. Better finish than ever! :surprised:

Attachment 5006

All the bits made, mainly drilling and tapping to do now then check it all fits properly.

So close now :smile:

Something worth noting for the future is that the aluminium flat bar is nowhere near flat, so in future I will stick with getting aluminium plate like I used for my machine.

The BK support is partially dismantled in the photo as it's not going to work without modification. Glad I never considered using them on my machine, too much trouble compared to just making the whole thing.

Just a small up date the x-axis ballscrew has been re-taped and put back on the machine Thank you Jonathan

99.9 % of all components have been made so more images are due this weekend :naughty::naughty:

Jonathan has agreed to come over on the 19th to wire up the CNC Machine so in short 12 days and my machine should be cutting (Christmas is coming early) :toot::toot:

James and Luke:smile:

Good to hear folks and hope you have lot's of safe fun designing and cutting stuff on the gantry Router. Best wishes and have a very Happy Christmas Season.

Michael

O my god o my god

I've seen it my z-axis running by a stepper motor up and down up and down thanks Jonathan

and I say

bring on the 20th, let me complete the cnc machine and play

I've already started to get prices on the 4th axis and will be ordering parts in three weeks

barley twists here I come

James and Luke

luke has started drawing his creeper ready for the cnc machine (bless him)

Few more bolts / holes and it's done:

Y-motor mount:
Attachment 5051

Z ballscrew fixed end, slightly unusual motor mount. Had to make longer spacer for the bearing support as the existing one wasn't long enough and caused far too much friction.
Attachment 5050

My router is accurate, but alas still a bit off square:
Attachment 5052
Attachment 5053
Attachment 5054
Attachment 5055
Made a quick nylon seal for additional protection as that bearing gets the most dust being right above the cutter:
Attachment 5056

Will post a video and more info tomorrowish.

they look amazing Jonathan

But image 1 the bracket is inside out, motor needs mounting on the other side Hee Hee

James

Quote:

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Originally Posted by luke11cnc

But image 1 the bracket is inside out, motor needs mounting on the other side Hee

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Oops, yes it does. It fits on both sides.

Jonathan do you think we could make that third leg/mount adjustable ??

James

So it look's a bit like this:tup:

Attachment 5062

Please note Jonathan this is not to scale:rolleyes:

James and Luke

Yes I can and will change that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4o6t...=youtube_gdata

Putting the DTI where I did to start with is a bit pointless, but using it to test the runout revealed the runout is 0.06mm measured about 10mm from the chuck, which is poor. It increases linearly with distance too ... so the cutter is held at an angle to the axis of rotation. I measured inside the spindle bore too, and it's the same.

Luke, What are you using for the bed of your machine?

For mine I was thinking 20mm Aluminium but I'm swaying more towards 10mm or 15mm due to Cost of water cutting, postage and materials.

Unlike mine you have a frame though....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jcb121

Luke, What are you using for the bed of your machine?

For mine I was thinking 20mm Aluminium but I'm swaying more towards 10mm or 15mm due to Cost of water cutting

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Depending on the frame support centre's on your bed then I wouldn't go less than 15mm.!
If you look at the link below you will see my bed made from 16mm strips with 10mm gaps spaced at 45mm centres and the support beams are spaced approx 400mm centres.
Overall it works great and soon will be upgraded again which hopefully will make it just that bit better. The bed (which is adjustable height) will be removed and a stainless steel box fitted underneath so mild flood coolant can be used and will filter and catch the chips which will be dumped into a collection bin.

If doing again I'd lessen the support beam centres to 300mm and use 20mm strips, that said the 16mm works great just feel 20mm would give it that bit more meat allowing for a longer lasting bed after it as been surfaced a few times. With 16mm the distance from the clamping boltd head to surface determines the amount of usable bed surfacing.
Thou unless some major coding cockup goes on it will be years before that's a problem.!!. . .that said it only took me 2wks before I'd drilled a nice 6 hole ballnut pattern into.:redface:
http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/showth...-machine/page8

Edit: The reason I used strips was 2 fold.
1: cost of plate Ali too much wonga
2: Didn't like the thought if a major cock up happened then the whole plate was screwed up, with strips I just replace any that get damaged if I have a brain fart when coding or machine goes on rampage.! It also made slots for T-nuts easy.
( By the way I use the 10mm T-nuts for KJN profile because the drop between the slots and when twisted self lock which means I dont have to have an access point at either end of the bed like you do with STD T-nuts on a mill making clamping anywhere on the bed easy.

Jes for now just a sheet of MDF Untill after Christmas but then I will be fitting this

http://www.aluminiumwarehouse.co.uk/...duct_info.html

with a 10mm gap for t nuts

James

Attachment 5064

this will cost me £160.00+vat

9@4000
1@2000

James

I was about to post saying see what Jazz has done for his bed, but luckily refreshed the page...
I'm intending to do the same with some sort of tray underneath so I can use coolant efficiently.

Jazz, it sounds like you don't put anything between the part you are cutting through and the bed, just let the cutter mark the bed and surface it occasionally? It must take a long time to cut the surface considering it's aluminium. I surface the MDF at 8m/min but you're not going to go that fast on aluminium!

At the moment my bed is made from MDF and pine, it's a grid of 3x1 PAR wood with 18mm MDF on the top and 9mm underneath. That's clamped on top of two steel rails (box section), which mount to the frame for adjustable height. I've only changed the height once in the past 3 months...
It's like that because before I made the steel frame for my machine the X-axis rails mounted directly on to the bed, so the bed needed to be rigid.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by luke11cnc

Jes for now just a sheet of MDF Untill after Christmas but then I will be fitting this
http://www.aluminiumwarehouse.co.uk/p16210/Aluminium_Flat_Bar_-_Imperial_Sizes_(6082T6)_1_in_x_⁵/₈_in/product_info.html
with a 10mm gap for t nuts

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That gives you a roughly 71% aluminium (29% air...) bed, compared to 78% for Jazz's 35mm(?) strips. Not much less to be fair, but more frequent clamping slots, so only slightly weaker but as Jazz says he'd prefer them to be thicker anyway. Probably not much in it, but something to think about.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by luke11cnc

this will cost me £160.00+vat

9@4000
1@2000

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That's 840mm wide which is 24 strips and you can get 3 strips per 4m length, so surely that's only 8@4000 (still £160). Or were you thinking of using the other bits for the perpendicular pieces underneath?

so would you recommend using 3/4x7/8 19.05x15.88mm then Jonathan ??

switches and cable ordered Jonathan

James

Attachment 5065

Looking at the price list Jonathan I may go with 20x20mm so I have 5 or 6 mill worth of surface trimming so it should last me quite a while

what do you think ??

James

It makes sense to use thicker, so yes 20mm. However I'd be inclined to use wider than 20mm strips (only 67% with 20mm and 10mm gap) for additional strength. It's less work to 40x20 compared to 20x20. If you went to maybe 40mm wide you can get two bolts side by side in each strip which should be stronger - less twisting? Not sure...

good point Jonathan

James

Jonathan: Yes I do always put something between the bed and part. Depending on the job at hand.?
If it's a non critical job that the top surface be exactly parallel to bed or thru drilling then I just use any thing to hand that resonably flat IE MDF off cuts.
If it's more important it's parallel to bed but doesn't need to be exactly 100% perfect and doesn't have any drilling involved then I use a 1mm thin ridged card board I bring from work that doesn't compress.
If it has to be exactly 100% perfect and must cut thru or involve drilling then I have several sized 15mm HDPE slabs that I clamp to the bed then surface. MDF is no good for this because the minute you cut the top layer it turns into a shape shifter and no matter what folks think MDF aint flat or parallel thickness.
To be honest 60% of the time the card board is used 30% MDF 10% HDPE.

That said regards MDF.? I've just been given an MDF type paper product sheet that is resin impregnated. It's used to make the cubicles in swimming baths and shower area's. It doesn't swell no matter how wet, even when submersed under water. This I know to be true because this sheet was outside for 8mths.
I've just used a piece as a spoil board and it machines like plastic and surfaces with a perfect finish because of the resin.
Really it's the perfect product for a long lasting disposable bed topper.! . . thou I do understand it's very expensive.

James: (Or anybody who's interested)

Here's how I did it. (It was a bit tedious but worth it) . . . . Material 1"1/2 x 5/8 (38.1x15.88mm)

Using a 90Deg spot drill in the spindle find the centre of bed and scribe boxsection. Then mark the first strip exactly in the centre then bolt down exactly in the centre of the bed lining up with scribed mark.
Then using a 8mm spacer working out both sides bolt down each strip to bed. Then using a 8mm twin flute end mill create a climbing milling toolpath to cut the 10mm slots in 2 depth pass's, didn't want to use a 10mm endmill as it would have been cutting on both sides and required much less DOC taking longer and leaving a worse finish. . . .(Yes I know the 8mm cuts on both edges but only on the way up not down.)
Reason I did it this way was because I have some machine clamps that use 45mm centres. They could have been just butted with a 10mm spacer but there are other bennifits to machining the slots for me(see below). . . . Plus the strips arn't exactly straight.!!

Doing it this way I know exactly that all my slots are exactly parallel to the X axis. Across the very top (Yaxis) and down the outer edge (X axis) as a strip that bolts on top of bed and acts as referance edge, which again is machined parallel and square. I've made some 45mm wide aluminium strips (various lengths from offcuts) that have a 3mm notch down the centre with the edges machined parallel that fits tight into the slots and can be used as positionable reference edges anywhere on the bed ( WHY.? Because I like to cut in differant parts of the bed to save wear on the ballscrews from always cutting in the same spot.)

James I would go with the 3/4 or better still 1" the little extre expense will be worth it.

Thank you Jazz

Yes I will go 11/2x1
James

Useful ... yes MDF is not flat, but then again it depends what tolerances you're trying to work to. That resin impregnated sheet sounds worth looking in to.

For me to cover my bed with 1.5x0.75" and 8mm slots would cost £475 even taking into account the 7.5% discount they give you for spending too much! Not really happening, though it would be a big advantage I can't really justify spending what my lathe cost on the router bed, could get a 60W laser and power supply for that :naughty:. I guess I could just do half the bed (1000*910mm, or 2000*455 but probably the former) and leave the other half MDF. As long as I skim them both equally that won't loose much, except it means I'll start using one end of the X-ballscrews much more than the other but that's not the end of the world. Would put a sheet of 3mm aluminium underneath half the bed to act as a coolant tray.... got a spare coolant pump.

Anyway, I'm going a bit off topic there. I've put the slot in the mount as requested and the Z-axis is very close. Done a little wiring on the control box too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jonathan

Useful ... yes MDF is not flat, but then again it depends what tolerances you're trying to work to.

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Yep thats why I said "Job dependent"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jonathan

. I guess I could just do half the bed (1000*910mm, or 2000*455 but probably the former) and leave the other half MDF.

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Yes thats not a bad idea. . . I actually do put MDF full length down one side sometimes for jobs that are awkward to clamp or drilling and obviously don't need flatness.
The good thing about MDF is that it's easy to screw into and for small parts that need profiling some times it's easier because the slots don't line up and make clamping hard if not impossible. Thats why the more and closer the slots are together the better really because it gives you more % chance of always dropping on a hole or something to latch onto with clamps or bolts.

Has you probably Know full well Jonathan the bed and imparticular material clamping is an often un-thought about side of building a machine and can be a right pain in the arse. I can honestly say that yes while it was expensive other than the water cooled spindle it's the best upgrade I've made to my machine by far and wished I'd done it 2yrs sooner, makes work holding so much easier and far more accurate/repeatable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

The good thing about MDF is that it's easy to screw into

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That's exactly why I'm hesitating. For almost all the parts I make I screw the aluminium down enough for the router to spot/drill the holes then use those holes for screws to clamp it properly and stop things flying when it is cut out. With the aluminium bed it's more difficult since I would clearly have to make the holes align with the slots which isn't always possible... never straightforward is it!

Ye I used to think like that but belive me it is far better and you still can use MDF spoil boards for quick or awkward jobs. The only difference is I don't ever have to surface the bed when it's critical to flat and true. I find because of 45mm centres 90% of the time find a suitable hole or pocket. Drilling is the most trouble some for me but I often pocket holes anyway(If not loads holes) so it's not a big deal.

One of the things I will often do when cutting several jobs that all have different needs is mix both MDF, HDPE and my card board spacer trick and use offsets G54, G55 etc.

I have my bed divided up into area's and have spot drilled small registration dot's so I know the 0,0 of each offset. Then I just fasten each particular job down using which ever method best suits the job lining the board up with the ref marks, line the material up with the corner of the board then in CAM/code I always have the part just in from 0,0 stand back and let it rip.
Depending on the jobs and time etc I don't always do it in one large piece of code, sometimes I'll have seperate code for each job just with the different offset coded in. This way I don't lose too much time unclamping re-clamping etc and can set the next job off straight away because I've set up the next offset while the previous job was cutting, just set the Z0 which is a 10 second affair with tool probe and away it goes again. . . It's quite efficeint.
The other good thing about clamping MDF or HDPE boards is because of the accurate and parallel tracks and offsets I can easily remove and replace the board with work still attached. Sometimes I'll do really long jobs that can be 15-20+ hours long so some times don't want to leave the machine on unattended so pick a suitable point to stop the code but then some times find I need the machine for something else in the mean time.!. . . doing it this way I can clear the table for the new job but still be perfectly back in position and carry on at anytime.

Like I say " FOR ME " it really has been a good improvement and worth the investment but everyone has different needs and ways of working.

Yo oh oh James any news on progress.? . . .how close to making chips are we.?

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Originally Posted by JAZZCNC

Yo oh oh James any news on progress.? . . .how close to making chips are we.?

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I'll let him answer this one :wink:

They must be too busy making chips to answer! :):clap:

edit...
I know I will be! lol

So sorry for not updating sooner but Im still smiling and It's been a busy day today as I'm trying to get ready for Christmas

Really BIG BIG thank you to Jonathan for wiring up the CNC machine and letting Luke help you solder and strip wires

well the machine is working and cutting well But I do need to screw it down as vibration is clearly a big issue Please let this be a warning to any one thinking about building a CNC a simple table design is not going to cook it.

I will follow up with a video as Luke took one on my Phone and I will also upload some more photo's as soon as I tidy up the garage (still looks like a bomb has hit it)


I have booked Jonathan to give Luke and myself 3 to 4 hrs training on the machine (don't want to break it!!)

any way I'm happy just sit and look at it and reflect on the journey taken with my son

James

:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:

:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtnnJ...ature=youtu.be

I did say I would up load our first ever video of Luke's cnc machine

I have to apologise for the video as Luke was in control of my phone.



More photo and a walk around the cnc later as I have to clean the house,garage,wrap Christmas gifts and go food shopping

James

Will look forward to future video. Good to see it running and hope thing continue to go well.

Merry Christmas.

Michael

yep, looking forward to you doing some videos! Don't forget the glamour shot of the finished item too!

Well done, :yahoo:
have a good xmas.

Great to see it shake it's stuff finally. . .Well done and happy Xmas. :clap:

yes shaking it's stuff is about right but it's not quite finished yet

I have bought the bed material and some brackets to screw it down to the floor

I must admit I was shocked to see how much power is in the stepper motors

James

Quote:

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Originally Posted by luke11cnc

I have bought the bed material and some brackets to screw it down to the floor

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Put some rubber between brackets and floor it helps deaden the sound. Old inner tube work good.

Horse mat material might be good stuff too... (unless the camera was stationary and that was the CNC moving?? lol) There are some industrial isolation rubbers around that look very similar to car exhaust mounts... got a friendly Quik-fit anywhere nearby?

You can always tell when someone has there CNC machine up and running for the first time.:question: . . . Because you never bloody see or hear from them again for weeks.:smile:

Now you see James why I say make sure you finish everything you planned on doing before turning the machine on.!:rofl:

Dear Jazz

I'm sorry but sadly that is no the case I've been sent some soft ware and have been trying to install it.

But I'm a old dragon according to my kids when it comes to computers

Now I thought I was quite a whiz but sadly NOT.

Plus one off my kid's came home for Christmas and just out of the blue said "You'r going to be a granddaddy" Fuck he has only just turned 18 and I'm still picking myself up of the floor

As soon as I get the software to work I will be posting some work video's I hope I get it working soon as I have clock plans coming

James

Quote:

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Originally Posted by luke11cnc

Plus one off my kid's came home for Christmas and just out of the blue said "You'r going to be a granddaddy"

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Oh great congratulations or would you prefer it to be commiseration's.!! . . . . I'm dreading that day, mines 18 in Feb and I'm hoping the day don't come any year soon.!

Anyway keep us posted on CNC side of things. . :beer: