First cnc build from surplus liquid dispensing machine

[driftspin]

Hello,

I`m preparing to build my first CNC that could cut wood, aluminium and steel. I started this thread to gather some preliminary feedback about my idea in general (I have not started designing the machine yet). Build log will follow.

At the moment I have opportunity to get old (but functional) Speedline Camalot 5000 liquid dispensing machine for free. This machine has solid steel frame, full metal side plates, large metal tube construction. Total weight of the machine is ~900 kg so frame itself must be around 800 kg or more. I know that this nothing compared to commercial machines that weigh 3-8 tonnes but should be usable right?

To me it seems like this machine has quite strange design - Y axis rails are mounted to block of metal that is bolted to the ceiling of the cabinet. X and Y axis rails are mounted to gantry running on Y-axis. I can imagine that this design is probably not the best for cnc machine unless gantry and frame are super heavy and rigid.
Very coarse pitch lead screws that are used for translating rotational motion to linear motion - not surprised that both resolution and repeatability are 25 microns only.
I`m actually even thinking about building smaller cnc router first. I think that current Y and Z axis on this machine would be suitable for smaller machine.

some photos:





















Why I`m thinking about building cnc is that I also have 2 super bulky precision machined linear rail support bars (1.6 m long and around 75 kg each) from old Siemens pick&place machine and brand new Bosch Rexroth linear rails (25 mm) with 4 new guide carriages. I`m thinking that this would be quite good setup for Y-axis.
Unfortunately I do not have any long ball crew for Y axis so I have to purchase one. What size/brand manufacturer do you recommend?
I do have two 1605 ball screws (~50 cm long) that I salvaged from old Siemens pcb lifting units which probably can be used on X-axis. They look super nice like most parts on Siemens machines.
I also have many servo motors and drives.

I would really appreciate some input regarding how suitable this machine is for cnc conversion.
Is it too weak because its center of gravity too high (all the commercial machines have most of their weight very close to the ground)?
Should I just build my own frame from scratch?
If suitable then would you recommend going for fixed gantry design or not?

Thanks.

HI Ryzen,

Looks like a good find.

What type of controller/drivers does it have. Can you reuse them for CNC?

I think i would strip it for all usable parts.
Including the controls cabinet.
PSU's CB's and so on.


Combine it with the other parts you already have.
Design a machine around the parts you have.


The money of a build is not in the frame.
Maybe only 20% or less in my build.


The money is in the linear guides ballscrews and controls/software, spindle.


Do you feel you can design and build the steel work, or ali if you like, for your build?


Reusing the current frame might restrict or over complicate things.




Grtz Bert.



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[Doddy]

Very hard to gauge from the photos but, flying blind, I'd be interested if you can keep the rails for the X-axis as-is on the bed, strip the gantry out and look for the top half of the cabinet as a full machining enclosure. Build your own gantry and Z-axis. The 25 micron accuracy of the screws is not too bad - look to re-use but use a belt-reduction for positional accuracy. Much depends on how solid the base is, though, as the machine was clearly designed for a different purpose.

My own bench built for an original plan for a 800x400 router weighs in at about 250kg, so depending on your actual goal for your machine the base /may/ well be suitable - and takes a lot of work away from the build. But you need to approach this with eyes wide open.

Tallinn, eh?, was there last month, think I spent more than on my mill frequenting the Põrgu bar :)

[ryzen]

Hi Bert and Doddy,

Thank you for your replies.
I`m not 100% sure what controllers are on the machine but I believe they are custom made from Speedline company - can`t check at the moment because machine is in our warehouse and now they have put like 100 pallets in front of it.

I have to check if I need any electric stuff off the machine - maybe motors only (I work in electronics industry and over time I have gathered most of the components already).
But regarding stripping it to parts I have not decided yet. I also like Doddy`s idea though - I couId take that black block of metal and gantry off the machine and transform it to small cnc. I would only need to make gantry a bit higher and stronger.
Actually building frame from scratch is not a problem because I have access to welding machine. But I`m sure that with my current skills I`m not able to make it as straight as this machines frame.

That 25 micron accuracy was taken from datasheet. From where does it actually come from? Is it the screws or something else?

Btw I also happen to have four quite solid servo motors (two of each), brushed I think. I have attached their datasheets. Do you think that these would be suitable for cnc applications? They should pretty good because they cost around 5000 and 10 000 euros respectively when new.

Doddy, yes I´m from place that is around 30 km out of Tallinn. I guess you must have been here on vacation then. It happens....but hey, both are good way of spending you hard earned money.

Sorry for late reply. I`m new to this forum and for some reason no notification was sent to my email when you replied.

[driftspin]

Hi Bert and Doddy,

Thank you for your replies.
I`m not 100% sure what controllers are on the machine but I believe they are custom made from Speedline company - can`t check at the moment because machine is in our warehouse and now they have put like 100 pallets in front of it.

I have to check if I need any electric stuff off the machine - maybe motors only (I work in electronics industry and over time I have gathered most of the components already).
But regarding stripping it to parts I have not decided yet. I also like Doddy`s idea though - I couId take that black block of metal and gantry off the machine and transform it to small cnc. I would only need to make gantry a bit higher and stronger.
Actually building frame from scratch is not a problem because I have access to welding machine. But I`m sure that with my current skills I`m not able to make it as straight as this machines frame.

That 25 micron accuracy was taken from datasheet. From where does it actually come from? Is it the screws or something else?

Btw I also happen to have four quite solid servo motors (two of each), brushed I think. I have attached their datasheets. Do you think that these would be suitable for cnc applications? They should pretty good because they cost around 5000 and 10 000 euros respectively when new.

Doddy, yes I´m from place that is around 30 km out of Tallinn. I guess you must have been here on vacation then. It happens....but hey, both are good way of spending you hard earned money.

Sorry for late reply. I`m new to this forum and for some reason no notification was sent to my email when you replied.

Hi Ryzen,


What is the resolution on those motors you have? The ballscrews on the machine are 20mm per rev? Make sure you get to the desired resolution and have enough speed/torque/resolution to do what you want.


Those motors are my field of expertise.
But they must be superior to nema 23 @ 4nm.


Doddy mentioned having an enclosure.... That is good reason to build within the current frame space.

Noise dust and mist removal is a underestimated feature.

Grtz Bert.




Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-A320FL met Tapatalk

[ryzen]

Hi Bert,

I don`t have much information about the motors. I only have these spec sheets from motor manufacturer. I also salvaged them from old Siemens pick&place machine.
From that machine datasheet I can see that guaranteed X and Y axis resolution was 2.5 µm.
Max. speed X-axis was 2 m/s
Max. speed of Y-axis was 2.5 m/s

But this resolution is probably because of some other parts. I think these motors can perform better than that. Older pick and place machine axis are usually belt driven so that is the reason they are so fast. I have no idea what kind of drivers I should get for these motors. Motor that was on Y-axis is huge and weighs nearly 10 kilos.

I don`t know the ball screw pitch but by the looks of it they can be more than 20 mm. Most likely can not be used for large cnc because OD is quite small, maybe 10 mm or so.

Yes full enclosure would be very beneficial.

[Boyan Silyavski]

This machine definitely has to be scrapped as in this format is no good for anything CNC related.

Unfortunately i see good only the rails , as the ball screws seem to fast for the resolution of a normal CNC. If motors are not servos with servo drives, basically don't waste your time with it.

[ryzen]

Hi Boyan,

Thank your for you reply.
However I think that current axis setup could be transformed to small cnc router quite easily. Y axis rails are on rather solid piece of metal - would be decent bed if mounted to sturdier frame. Gantry should be rebuild of course.
Today I measured ball screws:
X and Y axis - OD 15 mm, pitch 20 mm.
Z axis - OD 12 mm, pitch 10 mm.

I actually have quite a few servos and drives already.
Drives I have: Electrocraft SCA-B4-70-10. https://www.electrocraft.com/products/drives/SCA-B4-70/