It's begun....

[Washout]

Afternoon gents (and ladies),

Not posted for a little while but I have not been idle ;-)

Here are a few pics of latest progress and despite a few "rough" bits (z axis plates and spindle mounts), I am finally approaching the end of the mechanical side of things.

I do a have some deflection in the gantry, which is due to my crude mounting solution, but have an RFQ out to help resolve this and will soon order a second ballscrew plus pulley/belt to make sure both sides get equal x axis driving force.

In the meantime, I am now working on the cable runs for the steppers and then the water cooling system and VFD/spindle wiring.

Good news is I have the rest of the year off from work, so I'm hoping I can get at least some light material cutting underway before Christmas.

Lastly before finishing I had better relate some frustrations:

1. I had underestimated the weight of the gantry once all the "stuff" is on it and care is needed when assembling the z axis, as its easy to drop the spindle/mounts etc and if your fingers are in there pain can result - propping things up when securing bolts etc is a must

2. Constructing the z axis is a pain the first time you do it - everything had to go on in order to avoid not being able to get tools onto bolts/nuts etc.

3. Like a berk I assembled the gantry reversed as you can see in one pic, but luckily I needed to almost completley disassemble the gantry to get the y axis ballscrew mounting block in, so put it back the right way.

4. to align the x axis ballscrew I torqued down the fixed end (stepper motor end) then ran the gantry by hand to the far end and tied down the ballscrew and floating end bearing. Hopefully that is the correct method, but it turns and moves easily by hand (I'm assuming turning a stepper by hand is OK).

5. I had a job getting the rails into the bearing blocks on the z axis and actually stripped a bunch of ball bearings out of one of the block, so had to get some replacements, but they are relatively inexpensive and I've sorted out a method which involves only bolting one end of the rails to the front plate, which gives some play to allow for alignment. I then put the remaining bolts onto the rails once they are located in their bearing blocks - not a hard job just needs doing with the front plate in the right place, so I can get access from the rear.

Oh I should (fingers crossed) be moving house soon and I'm really looking forward to the new workshop :-)

Hopefully my next update will not be too far away.

Later



Chris