New build with recycled parts on a ridiculous budget 120cm*60cm work area

[Desertboy]

On the topic of filling the extruded section with resin, reinforced or otherwise, has anyone got views or experience of lining extrusions with carbon fibre?

Obviously this could not apply to the sections above but I am thinking of say RH Al or Fe 120x60x3, 100x50x3 being used for the Y gantry.

I understand the logic of adding weight to kill vibration but this weight has to be accelerated and decelerated.

With a layer or two of carbon/kevlar fibre cloth and resin applied to the internal surface of the RH and cured, could this provide an element of vibration reduction whilst reducing the tendency of the Y gantry to deflect under the torsional load caused by heavy cutting in X?

Just a thought!!

If you're going to use box section I'd go with steel, box section is a lot weaker than T slot extrusion (Less material for a start but also cross bracing, etc.)

Not had enough experience with Carbon Fibre to comment.

[Desertboy]

Finally!



KJN drilled and counterbored this to my cad model has some minor issues but everything is good and would highly recommend KJN to anyone else who might want to do something similar. For what it cost it was well worth it!

[Desertboy]

Started bolting everything together, immediately found out need more bolts lol just ordered £21 worth of stainless socket cap A2's :(

Although I needed 20 M10 bolts which cost £9 of that the rest was M4's, M5's and some M6's of various lengths hope I got it right.

I need to cut 8 bolts down from 60mm to 55mm what's the best way? Was thinking put a nut on the bolt then put bolt in a vice then use a cutting disc. Take the bolt off when done to clean the threads up.

My mum gave me her old laptop which has a knackered battery which is no issues to me of course it's a touch screen which will work very nicely with grbl and the arduino but will be useless when I get a breakout board, proper steppers unfortunately. I like it because it's a very neat solution just no point mounting it properly as it won't be used for long.


I like it because the screen flips so it'll be a neat solution that doesn't need a keyboard and mouse but if needed I can flip the keyboard out (Or bring a virtual one up) pity it doesn't have proper ethernet.

[Zeeflyboy]

I always underestimate the cost of fixings! Screws not so bad usually, but extras like t-nuts and extrusion specific fittings etc add up very quickly.

I find when cutting down bolts the best is to spin a die onto the nut, do the cutting and tidy with a file, then spin the die off and it'll recut any thread that has been mangled on the tip.

A nut would probably work well enough if you don't have dies.

I've used KJN before too, was very happy with the accuracy of cuts and service.

[Desertboy]

I always underestimate the cost of fixings! Screws not so bad usually, but extras like t-nuts and extrusion specific fittings etc add up very quickly.

I find when cutting down bolts the best is to spin a die onto the nut, do the cutting and tidy with a file, then spin the die off and it'll recut any thread that has been mangled on the tip.

A nut would probably work well enough if you don't have dies.

I've used KJN before too, was very happy with the accuracy of cuts and service.

I'm lucky they're less than 3 miles from me otherwise I would never have been able to reuse this extrusion they cut and drilled everything for me was worried they wouldn't touch my stuff because I didn't buy it from them.

I was Naive thinking I could build this super cheap but still with a lot pikeying, buying big jigs to strip for Hiwin's, etc it still cost me under £1000 including the spindle but I had a lot of luck and the extrusion I'd had for over 2 years kicking around.

Was gutted I had to buy 90 T nuts because I have a bucket with easily that in but all M6 and I need 86 M4's for the Hiwins.

Had a lot of fun bolting 50 T nuts down today lol but in the end got a method the first 25 took me 40 mins the 2nd 25 less than 5 mins.

I've been recovering A2's for a while but just not enough next bit machine I'm saving every bolt lol.

[Nr1madman]

Aah I wish I could claim anything near 1000£ for my build. . Think I passed that years ago :D

[Desertboy]

Aah I wish I could claim anything near 1000£ for my build. . Think I passed that years ago :D

If Bought everything new £2.5k plsu a lot of work lol, I really have worked for my router a lot of lost weekends.

[Nr1madman]

If Bought everything new £2.5k plsu a lot of work lol, I really have worked for my router a lot of lost weekends.

Yeah I understand! But if you are similar to me it's not "lost" weekends but fun weekends ;)

Skickat från min SM-N910C via Tapatalk

[Desertboy]

I always underestimate the cost of fixings! Screws not so bad usually, but extras like t-nuts and extrusion specific fittings etc add up very quickly.

I find when cutting down bolts the best is to spin a die onto the nut, do the cutting and tidy with a file, then spin the die off and it'll recut any thread that has been mangled on the tip.

A nut would probably work well enough if you don't have dies.

When I finish my router and built the arcade table going to make a big order for fixing's and T nuts from China we should all chip in and get a massive order then split them off between us. I've found T nuts are 1/2 the price from China on alixpress and it soon adds up lol.

Guy at work has a die set so hopefully won't be too bad.

I wonder if my Nema's are underpowered

The Y axis has 2 matched nema 23's 1.8nm, the X axis (Gantry) is unknown nema 23 as I recovered it but is identical size and weight to the 1.8nm's so I assume it is a 1.8nm and the Z axis is a 1.2nm stubby that one is an Italian stepper motor.

The Poulou stepper drivers can only power 2amp at 24v which will limit the motors even more (The bigger ones are 2.8amp) but I will buy 4 AM882 drivers and breakout next month and have a 48v power supply kicking around so should be able to get closer to their potential in the near future.

[Clive S]

I wonder if my Nema's are underpowered

The Y axis has 2 matched nema 23's 1.8nm, the X axis (Gantry) is unknown nema 23 as I recovered it but is identical size and weight to the 1.8nm's so I assume it is a 1.8nm and the Z axis is a 1.2nm stubby that one is an Italian stepper motor.

In my opinion nema 23's for a router need to be 3.1nm 8 wire, wired in parallel config running at about 4A with AM882 drives at 68V this is a tried and tested solution for many.

In your case I think you are going to slave an axis so you have to think about homing IF using two motors on one axis, so if looking at motion controllers make sure that, that is possible (not all do) Linuxcnc now finally can do this even with a simple bob (as long as you use master 2.8 branch) as it will now home to two axis and be able to offset one to sort out any squaring of the gantry. (this is not an advert for Lcnc as there are plenty of controllers that can do this)
Mach3 can do this as well.