AndyUK's Build - 1.2x1.0m Gantry

[Neale]

Ah, that's the problem with my machine! I never was very good at art. I only show my router to visitors wearing blindfolds, and who promise not to laugh...

[Kitwn]

Ah, that's the problem with my machine! I never was very good at art. I only show my router to visitors wearing blindfolds, and who promise not to laugh...

I can appreciate that. It was only shortly before I had to disassemble my machine for moving house that I finally replaced the plywood 'mock-up' Z axis with a real aluminium version. But then I always have been a fan of Heath Robinson.

[AndyUK]

Christmas Gift:

(Plans from)
https://wilkerdos.com/product/rocker-templates/

[Nickhofen]

Nice!

[Kitwn]

Christmas Gift:

(Plans from)
https://wilkerdos.com/product/rocker-templates/

That's wonderful, my sister would love one of those! I wonder what it would cost to send the parts from Tasmania to Walkden in time for her birthday? She'll be 70 next year.

[AndyUK]

Finally got around to trying my first inlay with this machine. Tried to challenge it by using a series of line widths, 0.5mm up to 3mm. Classic walnut and maple. 70x70mm square.

Used a 30 degree V bit, 2mm inlay depth, 1mm glue void depth, 1mm air gap above.

Plug and base (are there real names for these?) - Ran the cut twice on each to clear up some fuzzy bits - suspect my feeds and speeds arn't quite right, but I was being conservative.


Glue time.... used some pretty standard PVA, that might come back to bite me but seems to be working.


Trimmed the excess slowly and gently... reveal time!


Some sanding through the grits, add oil... et voilà.


Not perfect; looks like theres some reaction going on at the interface between the two woods, and I think there was an imperfection in the maple or the plug cutting that caused that slight discontinuity, but overall quite pleased for a first attempt.

[JAZZCNC]

Looks good Andy, nice feeling isn't it when you see the fruits of your labour produce stuff like this. Well done..

[Kitwn]

If my first effort (on the ToDo list behind a few more urgent tasks) looks that good I shall be happy. What's next?

Kit

[AndyUK]

What's next?

Well... I once said this about my wooden control box:

First thing was to make a quick and temporary control box...

Turned out temporary is over a year! I've also got a much better idea about the buttons I wanted, so popped a few more on there.



Also coming up with a few ideas for design modifications. I'm considering adopting the two plates idea on the X axis to make the gantry adjustment more independent from the ballscrew and linear rails. It will also add a little height to the gantry; I'm finding that although the bed height is adjustable in theory, the work involved is quite prohibitive (its bloody heavy, you need to re-level everything, and then you're working at a non-optimal height). I've found that with tool length, my current setup can only manage a depth of about 50mm or so. With a small bed height adjustment and a few tweeks I should be able to get a bit more room. Then theres the lack of a tramming plate on the Z axis, and it would be nice to have my Z probe plate wired so that it travels around with the spindle and is always close to hand....

[Kitwn]

Also coming up with a few ideas for design modifications. I'm considering adopting the two plates idea on the X axis to make the gantry adjustment more independent from the ballscrew and linear rails. It will also add a little height to the gantry; I'm finding that although the bed height is adjustable in theory, the work involved is quite prohibitive (its bloody heavy, you need to re-level everything, and then you're working at a non-optimal height). I've found that with tool length, my current setup can only manage a depth of about 50mm or so. With a small bed height adjustment and a few tweeks I should be able to get a bit more room. Then theres the lack of a tramming plate on the Z axis, and it would be nice to have my Z probe plate wired so that it travels around with the spindle and is always close to hand....

Very interesting. Your wooden control box is much neater than my re-purposed PC case will ever be!

I used two back plates for the gantry-mounted axis (Y on my machine) mainly out of practicality. It means that I can have the fixing screws for the linear bearings for the Y and Z axis overlapping, gave greater rigidity as I could only get 12mm plate and meant that I had some wiggle room to get the two axes exactly perpendicular after marking out bearing and rail mounting holes by hand and drilling them with an ordinary drill press. It also allows the whole Z axis assembly to be removed as a unit if required.

The real trick is working out an accurate way to measure whether the two axes ( ie the rails) are really perpendicular or not that is separate from measurements of where the axis of the spindle is pointing. I haven't quite cracked that one yet. I know the axis of the spindle is accurately perpendicular to the Y axis but I have no way of knowing if the spindle itself and the Z axis movement are precisely parallel.

Kit