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This probably applies to most of your readers.

MDF can be the old man's CAD. Perhaps we need a new acronym? MAD..... Model Aided Design:excitement:

Either method will help you avoid creating a...

Based on time-consuming experience I highly recommend buying a spare hard drive and an external docking station capable of cloning. Not expensive and more reliable in my experience than software on...

You like to live dangerously Dean!

Chris,
In spite of the above indiscretion, my best advice would be to make a nice big mug of tea and read every post by JAZZCNC.

As Joe said "if you have a milling machine...".

Perhaps the really clever trick is to design your gantry to take both front and top/bottom mounted rails. Front mounting the rails with a simple Z...

A good reason for putting Hellerman or heat-shrink sleeving over each pin/wire.

Kit

One of the main dilemmas with any DIY project is working out where best to direct the inevitably limited funds. Having never heard of a PILZ relay before I did a quick search and seeing what you have...

Time to set up the soft limits before bolting that end-stop in place.

That photograph looks like a blatant rip-off of the insides of my control box!

I used the largest old PC case I had lying around in the shed. But then I'm an incorrigible cheapskate!

davitc,
The toshiba TB6560 is a very common analogue stepper driver chip. You can buy a new board based around it on eBay for about the price of a pint. Put 'TB6560 stepper' into eBay and you'll be...

The danger with normally open switches is that a bad connection doesn't show up until your machine crashes straight through them. They must be connected in parallel. Wiring faults with normally...

Bangood has a host of sizes available up to 25 x 77mm at minimal cost. I think I got the 15 x 40 for my machine and have all the cables inc spindle power and cooling hoses in there.
...

Nathan,
Welcome to the forum. I also make clocks but with wooden wheels rather than brass and probably a bit larger than yours. You'll find all the help you need for building a suitable machine...

This is quite a good introduction...
http://www.skillbank.co.uk/psu/

The stepper driver must be rectifying the AC into DC anyway, though with little or no smoothing. My guess is that making...

I know you didn't want to play with Linux but the cheapest option is to do a clean install of LinuxCNC and follow the instructions for updating to the beta version 2.8 (it's been a beta for years and...

Plus the manufacturers of small machine spindles like ours would have to bring both ends of the three windings, plus a separate casing earth connection out to a seven pin plug.
Readers should also...

Dan,
Strictly speaking the BOB open-collector outputs are either a low impedance path to earth or a high impedance. This is why you need the pull-up resistors to get the required 0v or +5v output to...

There's a nice guide to designing linear power suplies here http://www.skillbank.co.uk/psu/

Whilst it's true a linear supply of a given rating can deliver significantly higher current peaks than a...

A little less certain that powering off the VFD, you could incorporate a switch in the control cable from the computer to the VFD preventing it being remotely activated by accident. This doesn't...

Charlie,
When you do look at the cooling I found that using larger diameter water pipe greatly inreased the water flow from the pump I bought. The spindle fittings take 5mm id pipe but I get double...

A very nice build, I'm envious of your woodworking shop! I started with a couple of wooden machines but nothing like yours. The only common feature was the Makita trimmer as a spindle.
I'd say the...

For my new 2.2kW water-cooled spindle I bought a pond pump and 10 metres of 5mm i/d PVC pipe from my local Home Hardware. A quick test gave a flow rate (with no head) of only 30 l/hour. Another test...

Thanks Clive, I didn't know about that way of setting the squaring.
I have plans to make some new homing switches using latching Hall effect sensors and two magnets attached to the moving gantry....

Clive,
Well, yes it does say that but before this update I always used stepconf to make minor adjustments having never got my head round the inner workings. I was always careful to use the 'update...

I suppose it was bound to happen. I wanted to change my X axis upper soft limit so I did what I've always done: ran Stepconf and changed it. Opened LinuxCNC and ran homing. Only one X axis motor...