I ordered it from Igus thinking it would be here next day or 2 days most, had I known earlier it would be like this then I'd probably have gone to China for it like you say.
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I ordered it from Igus thinking it would be here next day or 2 days most, had I known earlier it would be like this then I'd probably have gone to China for it like you say.
I bought two chains from them and they came next day, about one month later I had a visit from a rep and he left me with two books about 40mm thick and sample pieces of chain. ..Clive:glee:Quote:
Originally Posted by EddyCurrent
There was a time when I used to order hundreds of metres of great big chain and also their flexible cables but times and people(reps) change.
Gave me time to get the fans fitted anyway, something I was not looking forward to but not as bad as I thought. I'll probably fit a thermostat with a remote sensor in the hood.
Two fans mainly because I already had them but they are 110 Volt so just wired them in series. Made a box with a sliding lid to allow easy replacement of filter medium, the fans are blowing into the panel pulling air through the filter medium. A vent at the top allows heat to escape by convection or forced by the fans, it does not allow crap to enter under gravity.
The wiring will have to be kept to the back of the panel as much as possible so as not to interfere with air flow.
(just ignore the temporary lashed in wiring)
Attachment 11917Attachment 11918Attachment 11919
I like that top vent, do you have a source for them?
I'm hoping they come in 80mm square versions. I currently have regular fan filters at the top to stop crud getting in but I think the air flow restriction they cause will be too great so a vent like that would be perfect. The alternative is to fit a couple more fans at the top but that then risks creating a negative pressure in the case.
Home made from an old IKEA metal shelf, sometimes I don't mind a bit of sheet metal working, I was going to use the side cut from an old washing machine, another good source of sheet metal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wobblycogs
I drew it in Sketchup to get a template for cutting it out of a flat sheet.
Eddy noticed you have wire tags or numbers on your wires where did you get those.? . . . I've looked around but can't find any at sensible money.
Got this type on ebay
Cable Tie Ident Nat 100mm Pk100 - Price For Pack Of 100 - MCV100 | eBay
Cheers but they only sell letters and I want letters and numbers.Quote:
Originally Posted by mekanik
I use these
PARTEX PA1 Number Cable Markers | eBay
or there's a kit
Cable Marker Kit with Numbers 0 to 9 containing Partex PA1/3 Cable Markers | eBay
also these but I don't use this type
Partex PA2 Compact Disc Cable Markers NUMBERS - Colour Coded | eBay
Cheers Eddy I've actually just ordered from that Ebay site you've posted.
I used these for my panel : Buy Cable Markers HellermannTyton Assorted Clip On Clip On Cable Marker, Pre-printed with 0 to 9, Pack of 200, HellermannTyton 561-05030 online from RS for next day delivery.
Not as cost effective if you want loads of them, but it cost less than a tenner to do my panel.
BTW Ed, your machine is looking great. I still can't believe you managed to cram all your electronics in that enclosure! I'm using one the same size and gave up trying to get the VFD inside as well as everything else.
Si.
I use the size down (rs part 408-4490) from the ones firetrappe listed, as I find they fit most normal wiring in control cabinets, without sliding up and down small wiring too much.
I prefer them because they clip together and you don't end up with the markers randomly moving along/around the cable.
Cogs, for evey exhust fan you have, you need twice the amount for intake fans, this creates the "flow" through the box. I like the look of Eddys vent on the top but would have preferred to see a 4 fan array there instead or as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wobblycogs
.Me
I know this doesn't really count but the VFD has a built in fan. I ordered one of these;
New 90~250V 10A Digital Temperature Controller Thermostat -50~110℃„ƒ w/Sensor UK | eBay
it will control the 2 fans, if I see the temperature increase above what seems reasonable I will modify the cooling setup.
Picking up on your earlier reply to a question from me - you said that you would bolt the mounting plates to the top beam rather than weld them, to avoid distorting the beam. Does that mean that you would not want to weld the beams directly to the upright supports, even though you are using epoxy to level the top surface afterwards? I had been thinking of tack-welding the whole frame, then carefully running full welds in progressively.
Maybe once I've started welding less critical bits of the support frame I shall get an idea of how much distortion to expect, but at the moment I'm trying to learn from the experience of others!
Hi Eddy
I have been having a think about the distortion problem, did you weld all round the pads ? perhaps if the weld was just on the long sides it might not have distorted as bad.
Just a thought
Mike
@Neale, If you intend to weld the top beams to the frame instead of bolting, that's fine, you will of course have to use the epoxy routine. The reason I wanted to bolt them was to avoid the epoxy bit but in the end I still had to do it.
Another reason I had to use epoxy was due to the top beams leaning out slightly. When I tacked and welded them I had two pieces of wood between with perfectly square ends and the whole lot was clamped together with two long sash clamps. I thought this would keep them vertical but unfortunately it did not.
@Mike, Yes I welded all round the pads, you might be right about just welding the sides.
More progress, getting there now.
If anyone thinks the energy chain looks big, I still have some 8mm pipes to put in and at least one more cable.
Junction box on the machine, the cables from the panel will festoon down to allow movement of the machine but they will probably have some spiral wrap around them eventually.
On the right, inside the junction box, you can see where I've just passed the spindle cable directly through the box, this is to have no additional terminals between the VFD and the spindle motor,
Attachment 11977
Energy chain now arrived and fitted, note the grey plastic curved piece to transition the cables form the tray to the junction box. This was made from one of my favourite sources of material, soil pipe offcuts. The 110mm soil pipes are made from plastic that can be shaped with a paint stripping heat gun, just cut it lengthways and slowly heat until it lies flat, you get a piece over 300mm x whatever length you cut.
I used Dexion slotted angle iron for the energy chain trough mainly because I've had a load sitting in the garage for years. With energy chain it's advantageous to have a trough that is open because it allows debris to fall through without collecting in the bottom causing all kinds of problems.
Attachment 11978
A small aluminium box just fitted nicely under the energy chain bracket to allow connection of limits and home switches.
Attachment 11979
Just a view from the front. Unfortunately my great set up is no good now because the energy chain crashes into the keyboard and monitor bracket so a bit of rearranging will be required.
Attachment 11980
Got it going to it's home position today but there seems to be an issue with the slaved A axis, I might have to fit a switch on this after all. As it is with just a home switch for X, it reaches the switch and just comes to a halt, unlike with Z and Y where it backs off slightly. I tried unchecking the home limit selection for A in Mach3 but that made it worse. Will have to read up tonight about options for that, further reading on this subject here http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/gantry...is-gantry.html
Ed, looking very nice and professional. Nice work!
Regarding the Homing issues, have you configured the ESS plugin in Mach?
I haven't got as far as you yet, but I know there have been some compatability issues between certain versions of Mach and the ESS plugins.
Have a read of this thread on the Warp9 forums : Forum
You will need to register to read it if you haven't joined already.
Si.
I find it amazing that it took him 6 years to get the Smoothstepper to do Homing the way that Mach3 does. No wonder people have always had homing issues with the Smoothstepper.Quote:
Originally Posted by firetrappe
@Si, thanks for the link, I looked at this a while ago and subsequently forgot about it, I'll give it a read now and have a go tomorrow. To be honest I kind of ignore the Smoothstepper and just do everything from Mach3, maybe it's time I got a better grip on it.
Yeah I agree. I ordered the ESS and then found some recent posts by you on the 'zone. I thought I might have made the wrong decision with the ESS, but luckily it finally seems to be sorted. It's just a shame that it's not obvious on the Warp9 pages. An occasional changelog file to accompany the various new plugins might help!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ger21
Hopefully once I get my machine i'll be able to find a version of Mach and ESS plugin that play nicely together and also with your screenset.
Ed - If you find a solution then please post your settings and which versions of Mach/ESS you're using. It might save me from similar issues.
Si.
Eddy, that machine looks great, but I would not have expected less from you!!! G.
From what I understand, 3.043.066 and .067 are very buggy, and it's best to use 3.043.057 or .062.
Yes, the SS homing issues have kept me from even considering a Smoothstepper.
Whenever I get my next router finished, I'll be going with a CSMIO/IP-S, unless I move away from Mach.
All being well it should be ready to do a test cut tomorrow, the bed isn't fitted yet but that won't stop it having a go. Edit: just thought, I might not have suitable cutters for anything detailed.
Got the temperature controller fitted, ideal for under £9, it brings the fans on at 25 degC at the moment, it was 21deg ambient in the shed today (logs were good burners) so they were on and off quite regular.
Second photo shows the remote sensor in the ventilation hood, it's held in place with a 'girder clip' for cables.
Also I moved the monitor/keyboard arm further up the wall so that it clears the highest part of the machine when moving, it looks a bit mental but Aldi had a nice little 2 step set of caravan steps just the right height for comfortable access, plus it's a bit of physical exercise.
Attachment 11995Attachment 11996
Now to the homing problem.
This my setup;
* The X axis (the longest) has two stepper motors, X and A axis, each driving a ball screw.(A is a slave of X)
* I'm saying that the gantry is rigid enough so that I only need one homing switch on the X motor side.
* I'm also saying that if Mach does it's dance with the switches where it backs off slightly once activated, my gantry is stiff enough that the AM882's trip on stall at the slightest racking which is another reason I only want one homing switch on X.
* A ESS SmoothStepper is installed.
* Mach3 version 3.043.066
* SmoothStepper plugin version 10o1d1h
Edit: input 5 of the bob has stopped working for some reason, I was going to use this as input for a separate home switch on the A if I decided to go with two switches.
So I got all the setting as right as I could in Mach3 and the Smooth Stepper dialogues. The important one here was to tick the box called 'Home Slave With Master Axis'
Hit the ref Z button in Mach3, axis homed no problem
Hit the ref Y button in Mach3, axis homed no problem
Hit the ref X button in Mach3, axis tried to home but nearly wrecked the machine due to one side jumping severely.
I unbolted the ball nut bracket from the A axis side and tried again, the problem was the X motor was driving but the A motor remained stationary.
Uninstalled Mach and installed version 3.043.062, same SmoothStepper plugin, still no good, same results.
Installed SmoothStepper plugin version 10h2d1a, it worked !
Uninstalled Mach3 version 3.043.062, installed version 3.043.066, it worked !
I also tried other versions of the SmoothStepper plugin without success.
So the combination that works for me is Mach3 version 3.043.66 or version 3.043.62 and the SmoothStepper plugin version 10h2d1a.
It's interesting that if you read the Warp9 forum they talk about a version of the plugin that has a homing dialogue page that let's you specify homing parameters similar to the offsets in Mach3 but that version of the plugin failed to work for me. The version that works, 10h2d1a, does not have a homing dialogue page so everything is done from inside Mach3.
I was forced to cut something today !
Small Aztec Calendar, http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/worksh...html#post53632
Using cutter shown which was best I currently had, machine bed consisting of one piece of 18mm plywood held with one clamp to frame, mdf workpiece held with double sided tape.
So rather crappy but it works :triumphant:
According to Mach3 it took 55.35 minutes to cut (if that's what you can call it)
Attachment 11999
Ambient in the shed was 21 degC and throughout the cutting the panel cooling fans kept things to 25 degC with ease. I have them set to come on at 27 degC and off at 25 degC
It's nice when you cut one of those for the first time. Where did you get your dxf from I think I had trouble with mine getting the full size without doing a lot of editing. :yahoo: ..Clive
It's in the link I put there http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/worksh...html#post53632Quote:
Originally Posted by Clive S
It's one Dean made smaller I think, it's not the great big version, it needs renaming to .ncc instead of the .cnc
Great stuff Eddy, well done, now youcan start to think about cutting something intricate!!! G.
Thanks, for a start I'll need to get some small ball nose cutters, it's something I've never needed to use in the past.
Looking wonderful and very professional. Very well done. One question though (ducking behind the wall) where's the lube blocks???:whistle:
Just being cheeky as you have done a very very good job and I am in the process of getting my control box anywhere near the well laid out set up you have done. -Michael
Eddy i am not professional but i want to say that your job looks grate. I don’t know if there are mistakes but for sure there is much good mood. One more time congratulations for your job. I manage that soon i will start mine cnc router.....
Michael, thanks for the positive comments but sorry I can't figure out what you mean by "lube blocks", please elaborate.Quote:
Originally Posted by m.marino
Vagelis, thank you for your thoughts it's much appreciated, I will keep watching your build log.Quote:
Originally Posted by ba99297
I still have the bed to finish but I've ordered a sheet of 18mm birch plywood today and I will be bolting one half to the steel frame, give it a skim with the router to get it flat, then screw the other half on top and give it a final small skim. As I intend cutting wood that will be fine but if aluminium needs cut I'll have to mount it in a shallow pan to catch the cutting fluid.
Eddy,
Lube points for bearing surfaces. When they are brought to a common point for charging it is called a lube block as it is either a single pump point with a multiport outlet or it is a bunch of singles that are bolted together to make a block that is mounted to the machine. I hope that makes sense used to install them all the time on machines to be able to lube a area within the machine without having to tear part of it apart. -Michael
Ah I see now, I'm using grease not oil so it's a manual operation with a grease gun. I think I would refer to the 'lube block' as a 'manifold'
Correct same thing. Though they can be used for both grease or oil depending on how they are set up. Most of the ones we did where grease under low pressure so that the line would do a slow feed which helped keep clean grease where you needed it. -Michael
Thanks for the info Ed. Sounds like you tested your E-stop circuit a few times during the process!Quote:
Originally Posted by EddyCurrent
I think i'll definately try that combo on my setup first. Hopefully it will work even though i'm using 2 homing switches on the X-axis. I'll let you know how I get on.
Si.