My new 6040 improvement plan.

[PaisleyPCdoctor]

Yes. Never had a cnc before.
I work with electronics. Computers, circuit boards and garage equipment (brake testers etc). I'm forever having to knock together an enclosure, adapter, circuit board or prototypes for my own test jigs etc. The CNC is gonna make my life better!

Just today I was going to order some m16 washers with earth lugs. £36 for 50. I only need four. I'm gonna cut them myself from some 0.5mm copper sheet. That kinda thing.

I'm totally looking forward to using it for fun though- 3d reliefs, engravings etc.

[Kev2960]

Morning, you sound like you have an interesting job. I also have a 6040 and had to iron out quite a few problems along the way. I've started a new blog to help newbies to home CNC to share the problems and solutions.
The CNC Blog

[PaisleyPCdoctor]

Cool. I like that dust attachment. I was planning to do something like that. I have some 1" hose I want to attach to spindle. Could you post a pic of how you attached yours?

[Kev2960]

Hi there, the hose is a push fit (tightish) both onto the spindle and for the plastic hoover hose. I made it 0.1mm smaller than the dimensions on the drawing below. you can do this by reducing your cutter dia. Eg. cutter is dia 8.0 so tell the machine the cutter dia is 8.1
The material used is 12mm MDF

[PaisleyPCdoctor]

Here is the inside of my controller box. Plenty of issues to deal with.

NOTHING is earthed or shielded.

The VFD should bt even be in this box and the VFD output wires are draped right over the unshielded inputs of the controller.

Many if the power cables are undersized. Labelled as 1.5mm, but looking at them, I don't even think they are 0.75mm2.

Plan... rewire the whole thing. Shield and ground everything. Move VFD to seperate shielded enclosure...

[PaisleyPCdoctor]

That last post was from 2 days ago.
I've rewired and shielded everything.
Moved VFD to its own box.
Fixed a few electrical safety issues.
Pump switch removed. If the controllers on, cooling pump is on. Simple.

It's all technically sound, but I think I need to go back in later and make it a bit neater.

I also plan to replace the 24v fan with a 240v version.

I haven't decided whether to move VFD control panel to new VFD box or leave it there. I'll think some more about it.

[m_c]

Over the top springs to mind, especially since everything was working with no problems.

I'm sure you'll carry on with what you think is right, however I'm just posting for the benefit of anybody inexperienced who might read this and think that all this is necessary. It might reduce the chance of problems, but there are thousands of machines that run with unshielded wiring and VFDs inside control boxes, with no issues what so ever.

And if you really were doing everything correctly, your new choke/filter for the VFD should be mounted on a sub-plate, not directly to the case ;-)

[PaisleyPCdoctor]

And if you really were doing everything correctly, your new choke/filter for the VFD should be mounted on a sub-plate, not directly to the case ;-)

It's just the photo, it's not mounted to the case, it's actually suspended in mid air. With the stiffness of the wiring looms, it's not going anywhere.