Sturdy and Fast all Steel CNC , my first build

[AndyGuid]

It's looking great and STURDY!
many thanks for the update Silyavski.
Your build has given me plenty of food for thought!!!

[HipoPapi]

Thanks Silyavski for your reply and I am glad you sorted out the psu problem.
Have you managed to assemble the Z axes and could we have some pictures please.

[Boyan Silyavski]

Hi,

just finished almost everything from the machine part and cables. The box its almost ready.

First of all-Thanks for the interest you are taking in my build!!! And the help of course.

Here are some photos:
/sorry they can be big on small monitor but seems they can not be parsed from G+ so had to copy paste them./


1. The Z axis. 2x6mm plates bolted together. At the back side/not seen/ 2x 20x16mm solid steel bars, on top of them at the back are mounted the rais. 16mm is the distance needed to bolt exactly the ball nut housing.

Generally speaking is good before the build starts to buy 1000 allen bolts with cylindrical head M5x40, for example + say 100 M6x60. Hundreds go for mounting the rails, the others i cut and fit where possible. I mean buying every time 10 screws from the shop is expensive. All bolts together on the machine could easily cost 150euro or more. At local shop the 1000 M5 bolts sell for 60 euro. I found them for 15 euro after extensive online search. The magic word is Din 912

-The M6 bolts are for fixing the screw mounts, ball screw bearings at both ends, linear bearing carriages/hiwin 20/. Where needed i cut them to size. hell i cut a lot of screws these weeks.

- The spindle mount brackets are cast, means not perfect. So i had to fix them on place , mark them, measure, then drill .




2.View from side . My dog is again bored from my craziness.





I am still not convinced how i have to wire the proximity switches. I mean as Limits or Limit + Home. The cables i use is 8 pin. I am still not convinced at that squaring the gantry thing.

Lets see- the machine is perfectly square. And when i say perfectly look at this - moving one of the long ball screws that move the gantry, the gantry moves with ease and the other ball screw rotates by itself :-), all along the distance i mean. I tried moving them in opposite directions but there is no play so actually i can not make it not square, at least by hand i mean.

For the moment i will go as so far that connect the gantry switches only from the left side and make all limits. It will save me some thinking how to pass the cable from the right side. Will do some tests and see if its worth connecting them Limits and Home. For the purpose will make a small connection box at the back of the Z. cause the design is so, that all cables meet there.





3.The box


Now this is where i wasted a lot of time. My friend just dropped me a plastic box and said -fit all here. Well, i fit it. After a lot of thinking, but was a good exercise. I made all from scratch. Next time will by a fancy box like fellow forum members do. For a reason obviously. But again, it was fun.






Let me tell you something. I wasted a whole f***ng day trying to solder with a chinese tin and flux. I even doubted for a moment that i can solder at all. So ugly and weak...
So very frustrated, i went to the shop and spend 20eur on ???g silver solder and 10 euro on flux they use for copper soldering, liquid with a brush. After a lot of thinking , yeah, i did not want to spend 30 euros more that day.

Well, what a perfect buy. A must. The flux works for everything except aluminum. The solders are Perfect. I was born again from hell. NEVER USE CHINESE SOLDER AND FLUX. Thanks to the guy on Youtube that compared the sh*t with the real thing, so i opened my eyes.






The BIG toroidal transformer /650w/ fits nicely into old PC power supply enclosure. Yes, everything is interference isolated in the box. And ventilated :-)





This is the side of the box. All connections go here. All connections realized using 4 pin and 8 pin chinese "aviation plug" . That makes me laugh. I certainly don't want to be in that plane

On my machine/next build/ i will use 4 pole Neutrik Speakon plugs only

The air comes from this side, passes through i filter/hate dust in boxes/ , cools the drives and goes out propelled by a 220v/24w ventilator at the other side.

Behind the alu plate is 4mm thick frame which gives place to fit filter. the filter is 0.7euro sheet used in kitchen filters. The box is drilled with a lot of big holes for the air to pass. Say holes total surface is 1.5x the hole of the ventilator.

The most useful instrument in making the box was STEP DRILL. I did not know what it serves for, before hand i mean , so i learned there something.

[TonyD]

Hi. The poor Dog :) Love the machine. One comment I would make is that my gantry is aluminium plate (effectively 15mm plate in box configuration) with 20mm alu side plates and I couldnt find any play from one side (X) to the other (from a racking perspective). Once the screws were connected and the motors turned, the machine was well able to rack itself. I'm actually looking forward to the independant homing of the X axis proximity switches, as Jazz noted to me before, the bullet type allow adjustment; I'm banking on this to help me get the gantry square as its being set up. Even though your machine is steel, I suspect it can rack and be adjusted.. just a little.

[GEOFFREY]

Hi, love the photos. that does look like a very substantial, purposeful piece of kit. Well done. G.

[FatFreddie]

Even though your machine is steel, I suspect it can rack and be adjusted.. just a little.

Would it be possible to lock one lead screw and put a dial gauge on the other side and measure how much (little) it can be moved?

As Geoffrey said, a purposeful looking piece of kit - very nice :-)

[ba99297]

silyavski very good work and very helpfull thread.
I am planing a machine a little bit bigger than yours (X:1500mm Y:750mm Z:130mm real travel).
I have been inspired by your plans for my machine frame.
I have some questions about what i see.
1. How did your succed to have Z axis rails in the same plane? Did you use epoxy, or did you mill the 6mm plates?
2. Why you use 2x6mm plates instead of one plate 12mm?
3. What clamping system are you going to use?
4. What is the clearance from the lower part of z axis to the cutting surface. Also what is the real traver for your z axis.
5. Finally what is the horizontal distance ( from left to right ) for y,z axis carriages and the vertical distance ( from bottom to top) for y and z axis carriages ( outer side of carriages)?
Thanks for you time

Vagelis

[mekanik]

Hi Buddy
Excellent build and well worth the time and patience you put into its construction.
Mike

[HipoPapi]

Beautiful build, and a lot of great info. Congrats on the final outcome. Must have been hard to part with it :).
Thanks again for sharing.

[HipoPapi]

Hi Silyavski,

I see you have used HTD pulleys and belts on your machine. Did you get those from Zapp?
Also I see they do key cutting which makes it easy to mount the pulley to the servo but how did you mount the pulleys on to the ballscrew. I know its a newbie question but that is what I am. I am thinking to use 3 to 1 reduction and trying to figure it out. Also do you need any special machining for the ballscrews when using pulleys? HTD belts are a good option for me as they are rated to -25 Celsius.

Thanks,
Vass