Steel Framed Router

[JAZZCNC]

:heehee: Yep I agree entirely. That's why I don't have any switches on it, or covers and only crude dust extraction ...

No Switch's.! . . Not even Home switch's.?

Next to touch probe the Home switch's are the best and most time saving thing you could put on your machine. Can't count the number of times they'e got me out of trouble. . . must be in the hundreds.
They must have saved me hundreds of pounds in material that would have been lost or wrecked due to loss of position when an error or tool breaks. . . . . Nothing worse than a tool braking after several hours cutting one job. . . No problem and Simplizz's with home switch's.
Send machine home to reset it's position, rewind the code to just before the tool broke and away you go again. . . Brilliant.

No limit switch's on the large machine, IMO you can live with out them on larger machines, soft limits are more than good enough and in the 3yrs using the big machine I've never hit the hard stops or the soft limits other than me trying to drive the thing into them.

[Jonathan]

No Switch's.! . . Not even Home switch's.?

Nope...I did get round to wiring one switch but it's not attached yet. I generally either make a mark at the home position with the tool to reference from if it stalls, or note the position of the ballnuts or screws. Granted that's not as quick as homing assuming it'll home at a reasonable percentage of the rapid feedrate. One day I'll do it...

[JAZZCNC]

Nope...I did get round to wiring one switch but it's not attached yet. I generally either make a mark at the home position with the tool to reference from if it stalls, or note the position of the ballnuts or screws. Granted that's not as quick as homing assuming it'll home at a reasonable percentage of the rapid feedrate. One day I'll do it...

Jonathan Honestly do it ASAP you wont regret it I must use it 1 in 3 times I use the machine. Infact only to day I was cutting some a parts which had small bearing pockets and followed by an outer profile pass.
The code rough'd the pockets first then was to finish them with 0.2mm pass, now I'd forgot to the set code to continue with out stopping between rough n finish pass's so when it went to x0,Y0 and stopped I thought it wanted a tool change so changed for the outer pass tool.! .
When I hit cycle start it went on it's way at full rapid 10mtr/min. . . But to the wrong place. . . . . Luckly I was watching and hit the Oh-shite button before it did damage. Now as you know at full 10mtr rapid to dead stop it obviously lost position probaly not too much but it did.
This I probably could have got away with doing it your way for the non critical outer profile pass but my pockets where 0.2 under size and this I couldn't live with so part would have been lost.

With home's it was a 2 minute affair.! Send it home, change tool back and reset tool height, rewind code with "run from here" to finish pass and away I go back on track and in precise position. . . . . Thats why there so good.:tup:

Edit: Actually the part wouldn't have been lost and I could have made use of the next best thing to you can add to a machine "The PROBE" . . Could have Probed to find the centre of the pockets and tracked my way back from there, works good but still not ideal and more time consuming.

[Jonathan]

Hmm, I guess I'll do it when I attach the profile rails as that'll require a few changes anyway. I can get it plenty accurate enough generally by eye or zeroing from a hole but obviously it can take a while.

Just got my Y-axis going at 51m/min! Seems reliable at that...I don't think limit switches would be much help at that speed!

[JAZZCNC]

Just got my Y-axis going at 51m/min! Seems reliable at that...I don't think limit switches would be much help at that speed!

!!!! . .51M/Min .. !! . . . . What you using for motors.? Servo's.? Thats 5000rpm with 10mm pitch. . . . What stepper you got to do that speed and still give torque enough to drive gantry etc.?
Also what you using for drives and computer because if Mach you must have a good computer and parallel port that will let you set the Kernel high enough to give them speeds.?
Think even my smooth stepper would struggle to get usable steppers to that speed and that blows the PP away.!!

Please Dont take my asking has me not believing you, I honestly do and I'm genuinely interested how you've done it.! . . . . Does the rotating nut make that big a differance on a small machine.?
Post a video bet it looks amazing. .

[Jonathan]

I'm not doing anything special really but yes it's a bit hasty. It's not for long though as the acceleration is only 2m/s^2.

I just got 1m/s! Will post a video soon...