Router Build Mk 1

[hoppo]

It's been a while since my last post, but things have moved on considerably. Here is the next installment of my build I hope you enjoy.


Fashioning a bracket to hold the stepper motor at 90 degrees to the ballscrew. This is where I drilled the holes. The aluminium was precut from the supplier.


After a bit of countersinking and filing I managed to get it to look like this.


For some reason, after assembling it became apparent that it wasn't necessary, but after a lot more countersinking and some dodgy radial loads being applied with my pilllar drill, brute strength and plenty of ignorance I achieved my aim of countersinking the slots to sink the stepper motor holding bolts into. It's not the best looking piece of metal work, but I guess that's why I'm building the thing anyway! It should do the job.


After marking through the holes on the stepper bracket mount with a transfer punch, I drilled them with a tap drill (4.2mm) for an M5 tap. This was the first of many taps. My advice to anyone attempting their own build is to buy a decent tap wrench and set of taps. I started off with the one seen here which came as a set with a set of taps and dies. It was bloody hard work, the handle kept falling off and eventually later on a cheap tap snapped off and remains in a hole on my build. I paid out for a snap on M5 and M6 tap and tap wrench. Probably cost the best part of £30 but one of the best purchases in hindsight and made the build a hell of a lot easier. As you'll see later there are plenty more holes to be tapped yet.


Attaching the spindle brackets to the front plate of the z axis. Again in hindsight this isn't the best design as the bolts holding them on are inaccessible from behind once the rails are attached. Eventually I'll get round to turning the bolts around and using captive nuts on the back side. I would have liked to have drilled the holes and tapped them but cannot get the accuracy right without the use of a CNC machine. Chicken and Egg comes to mind.


The front of the spindle brackets attached. Just because I can.


Linear bearings attached to the rear plate of the z axis.


The linear rails attached to the front plate of the z axis.


And the ballscrew also attached to the front plate of the z axis.


Rear plate and front plate of z axis married together and working well.


As above but from a different angle.


Attaching the stepper motor holding bracket to the top of the front plate.


Final assembly of all components of the z axis. All in all fairly straightforward. As mentioned above the hardest parts were 'milling' (repetitive drilling and filing) out the slots for the stepper motor and tapping the threads with the worlds cheapest tap wrench and taps.

Plenty more to come. I hope you find it useful and or interesting.