Game on!

[Lee Roberts]

Looking good, nice to see something diff to the norm

[Voicecoil]

Looking good, nice to see something diff to the norm

Cheers Lee - I thought it was worth going back to basic principles and trying a few slightly different approaches to see if was possible to make an aluminium machine that was a bit more rigid than normal. I've learned a lot as I've gone along and come up with some improved ideas which will be incorporated into this build once I've got it cutting metal and can make more accurate and complicated parts - those ideas will also go into the big machine which is the long term goal.

[kingcreaky]

as lee says its great to see new methods. thanks for posting, keep it coming,

[routercnc]

Somehow I managed to miss this thread and have just caught up. Great work Voicecoil and I heartily approve of the twin Z ballscrews. Glad the stiffness spreadsheet is still helping people out.
Let the over build commence - great machine !

[Voicecoil]

Somehow I managed to miss this thread and have just caught up. Great work Voicecoil and I heartily approve of the twin Z ballscrews. Glad the stiffness spreadsheet is still helping people out.
Let the over build commence - great machine !

The twin ballscrew thing kind of evolved, it came from trying to minimise twisting moments on the gantry - I'll be finding out in about a month's time how well it works I guess! Meanwhile lots of wiring and screwing together to be done :-)

[Voicecoil]

Had to take a break from this for a few weeks due to the pressures of (paying) work, but now I'm back with a vengeance and looking to get it finished ASAP. First I've installed the steppers and wiring into the base:

then it was time to start putting the gantry together:

here's getting the rails levelled:

Just realised I need to get the oiling sorted before I go any further, so there's been some frantic buying of bits on the bay of fleas this afternoon: more pics coming it a few days when they land!

[Voicecoil]

So I've mostly gone with an idea Lee suggested, using 4mm pneumatic connectors/tube to supply lubrication to inaccessible parts:


On the HGH15's I couldn't find any suitable adaptors so had to turn up some barbed brass push on thingies:


Tried the same on the long axis, but then realised they would foul the ballscrew covers:

Tried spinning the ballnuts through 180 degrees but then found everything was seizing up - turned out the ballnuts weren't concentric on the screws - thanks Fred - so those are going to have to be a manual lube.
On the subject of lubrication, does anyone know where I can buy a sensible quantity of synthetic semi-fluid grease please? Looks like to be the DB's for this sort of setup.
Z-axis ont' gantry:

So onto the wiring... Found that the closed-loop steppers have the connectors on the encoder cables of such a length that they would sit in EXACTLY the wrong place - half way down the drag chain

....so had to do some inline splicing......

and to finish off added a touch off probe socket into the base

So onto the wiring