Luthier CNC

[bluesking]

Equipped with my newly cleaned ballscrews I made substantial progress today.

First I reworked all of the Ali plates. I widened a bunch of holes. The M12 bolts had 13mm holes, now 14mm. The M5 bolts had 5.5mm holes, now 6.5mm. The idea is to allow more wiggle room so I have wider alignment range on all the mechanics. This worked a treat: I no longer need to use any shims, careful and methodical alignment allowed me to find good alignment without messing about with coke cans and tin foil!

I then bevelled most of the holes in the Ali Plate. I was worried that the burrs around the holes were messing with precise mating of all the pieces:



Whilst I was at it I bevelled the edges of all the plates at 45deg on my spindle sander. I was getting tired of the sharp edges opening up my skin and getting blood all over the machine!


Rebuilt the Y axis (major axis) and aligned the hiwin rails. Here is a vid of the gantry running on just the rails. About the same as before, maybe a bit better, seems fine to me.
https://streamable.com/22i2r

I then connected and aligned the Y axis ballscrew. Got the resistance completely even along its entire travel, all the way to the extremes. It is a HUGE improvement due to the cleaned ballscrews and the improved alignment. Here is me turning the ballscrew and moving the whole gantry with one finger, it is this way along the whole length!
https://streamable.com/n26nm

I can even push the gantry and the Y ballscrew spins accordingly. Unlike Lee, I simply cannot do this with one finger, need both arms and a sure footing! Still, this was completely impossible before:
https://streamable.com/sbztv

Here are some vids showing the same behaviour on the X axis, once again over the entire length of travel. Even easier to move (I think mainly because it is lighter, rather than due to any better alignment).
https://streamable.com/yzbnr
https://streamable.com/73cc5

In summary, everything is hugely better. I now believe this machine is set up absolutely adequately for my purposes, belts encounter almost no resistance when turning, my servos should be able to throw this beast around no problems. In fact, it is much better than my little desktop CNC that I have been using to cut guitar fretboards.

I do not think I can possibly improve on this setup. I love the idea that Lee can move his Z-axis side to side with one finger, but that seems impossible to me on my machine - even disconnecting the ballscrews and one hiwin rail (i.e. moving on just a single rail) I cannot get this performance with the rails I have!

I'm very impressed and grateful for everyones help.

Here is a current snapshot of the machine, ready for assembly of the Z axis: