Yet another Chinese 3020 CNC upgrade thread!

[EddyCurrent]

Use some decent runners and make a drawer in the top section to house the laptop.

[Pointy]

Slightly tweaked the design, added top bar and supports. Now made out of 30mm profile.

[Pointy]

I really like the idea of having the laptop built in to the top housing, but I have concerns about vibration and the hard drive. As luck would have it I remember pulling 2 of these 64Gb SSD's from a dead Sony laptop.


All I need now is a msata to 2.5" IDE connector, which I have found on Ebay for £10. 64Gb will be plenty as currently it has a 40Gb IDE drive, of which I am only using 7Gb.

Regards,

Les

[EddyCurrent]

Not suggesting you put a bed in there but thinking about this arrangement for a top lid.
StudyBed – Desk and Bed combination – Deskbed - Studybed

Play the video.

[JAZZCNC]

Not suggesting you put a bed in there but thinking about this arrangement for a top lid.
StudyBed – Desk and Bed combination – Deskbed - Studybed

Play the video.

Thats clever.!! . . . Would be very easy to Duplicate, esp with a CNC router.!

[Pointy]

I finally started to make some progress on this upgrade. I have the frame pretty much built and I am just waiting for some more bits just to finish it off. Today I dissected the laptop down to the bare motherboard and completely dismantled the old controller box. It looks like everything is going to fit in to the top box nicely with plenty of room to spare.

Using a 25pin gender changer I should be able to connect the BOB directly to the laptop motherboard without the need for a cable. I have ordered the IDE to SATA connector, so I can use an old 64GB SATA SSD on the laptop motherboard and I have also cut down the laptop PSU lead and hard-wired it to the motherboard. That side of things I am pretty confident about and if I keep all the mains stuff over one side don't foresee any problems with the electronics.

So the only couple of things I need advice with now are the earthing and panel cut-outs.

I presume it would be sensible to make sure all of the aluminium panels are connected together and earthed. The slot reducing profile is plastic and insulates the panels from the profile frame, so I would need to do some manual connecting.

The panels are 3mm aluminium and I will obviously need cut-outs for the switches, connectors, LEDS etc. My machine, apart from being in bits, is not big enough to do the panels anyway as they are 117mm x 440mm. I know it's a difficult question to answer without more detail but any ideas what sort of cost to get these machined? What software to design the panels that makes it easy to convert to GCode?

Anyway, I'll maybe try and takes some pictures over the weekend if anyone is interested.

Regards,

Les

[JAZZCNC]

I know it's a difficult question to answer without more detail but any ideas what sort of cost to get these machined? What software to design the panels that makes it easy to convert to GCode?

Just draw it in any Cad package and export has DXF.
Regards machining price then if you send material to me cover postage etc and it's simple one off panel I'll cut it FOC.

[Pointy]

Just draw it in any Cad package and export has DXF.
Regards machining price then if you send material to me cover postage etc and it's simple one off panel I'll cut it FOC.

WOW! that is a very generous offer Jazz, but I wouldn't expect anyone to do it for free, it has to be worth a couple of beers at least.

It wouldn't be a one off as there will be a front and back back. I am also considering cutting some holes for 90mm fans on each side.

Regarding the panel cutouts all I've ever needed was some suitably sized drills and some files.

That's how I have always done it, but seeing as I am spending so much time and effort on this, it would be nice to get it done properly. It would also be nice if I could get some text engraved as well.

I haven't done any more on the enclosure this weekend, as I still need a few parts but I did manage to get another cool feature working. I have successfully made a plugin for Mach3 that talks to my custom USB hardware, and I can turn on real LED's to mimic some of the Mach3 software LEDs. I can also send keystrokes via buttons, which should mean I can control the most common features of Mach3 without touching the keyboard or mouse.

Regards,

Les

[JAZZCNC]

WOW! that is a very generous offer Jazz, but I wouldn't expect anyone to do it for free, it has to be worth a couple of beers at least.

It wouldn't be a one off as there will be a front and back back. I am also considering cutting some holes for 90mm fans on each side.

Don't mind doing it FOC but My main problem is I'm very time limited so machine is always busy when I'm in workshop and fitting in large jobs just hisn't possible without planning well ahead and recently machines been broke down so I'm well behind anyway but I can slip in the Odd quick job so if it's quick I'll do it.

Draw it up and let me have a look.

[Pointy]

Don't mind doing it FOC but My main problem is I'm very time limited so machine is always busy when I'm in workshop and fitting in large jobs just hisn't possible without planning well ahead and recently machines been broke down so I'm well behind anyway but I can slip in the Odd quick job so if it's quick I'll do it.

Draw it up and let me have a look.

Thanks again, I have an idea in mind of what I want, but I need decide on the switches, buttons & connectors. It could be a couple of weeks off yet, depending on when the other parts arrive. Anyway as soon as I have a rough idea I will draw something up.

Regards,

Les