Sturdy and Fast all Steel CNC , my first build

[Boyan Silyavski]

Hi there,
today worked more on the drawings, mostly lightening things where possible without compromising strength. Starts to look like a cheese. However all holes will be closed with bolted light plastic plates so at the end will be quite dustproof even if its not seen on the drawing.

Received the spindle mount brackets. And made an important decision.
Well the 2 brackets are very nice, especially for the money, but... not the same as on the sellers picture. In fact they are so robust that i will use only one. man, they are big.

The important decision is that until i don't have the ball screws and the Hiwin rails at hand Not to order and laser cut pieces and not do any soldering at all. My design heavily depends on the exact hole placement and the laser cut pieces, because i have at hand a very cheap laser service, so cheap that it would be more costly to than to draw by myself and drill the holes at home from junk steel plate with my flimsy drill. And as i don't have a mill at hand and the service here in Spain is very expensive, laser cut is the way for me. Which gives me quite a freedom in my design.

I need some help with the following because i have no idea at all:

1. Proximity sensors

Ok, i designed a plates for them, there is like 12mmm possibility for adjustment. Will solder the plates /10mm thick/ directly on their places. But..

-How far from the actual x,y,z hard stop ???? / x = moves the z , y=moves the gantry/
-any example of Z proximity switch placement? No idea still how and where to fix them. Of importance is the diode to be visible.
-Homing of the z is up, yes?

2. Drag Cable Chain
The thing still missing from the drawings.

-Judging from my current setup/2 small chains one next to another/ i need 20x50 internal drag cable chain so cooling hoses and cables can pass freely. But... i can not find anywhere what is the radius. Grrrrrrrrr. If somebody has a similar chain and point me to the radius i would be very grateful

3. Motor cables
can somebody point me to per/m good motor cable, shielded, here in EU?


It seems also for the purpose of the chain, i have to lift the machine. Another thing is that i still have not found a good case for the electronics. It has to look really good.
I am starting to thing about raising everything and boxing the electronics inside the machine. I have my small machine at home like this, so i know the all bad points and will avoid them. Believe me there are many. Like when drivers heating from inside, heats my aluminum table that heats the hot glue i use for fixing stuff and everything flows in the air some times when routing... Of course knowing them i can avoid them. By the way vibrations to the components was only once a problem and it revealed a cold weld on the BOB transformer. Nothing more...