routercnc_MK3

[routercnc]

I thought I'd finish off this build thread with the final pictures of the control box, machine, plus my long awaited bed upgrade:

Here is the control box with the door finished and 15" monitor mounted:


I still haven't wired up the POKEYs (cycle start, hold, stop, feedrate) but the rest works.

And the rest of the machine:


The bed was OK but there was often a gap where I wanted to hold something down. It was intended to take a wooden spoil board, and then cutting would happen on top of that. I stripped the old bed out:


Then I machined up a drilling jig to drill each end. There were 4 holes. One pair would take an 8mm clearance and the other pair would take M8 threaded holes. On the next cross member the holes were reversed so that a clearance lined up with a tapped hole etc. The idea was to join each cross member into the back of the previous one and build it up:




Then I added members at the far end. This was to allow cutting pieces on their end and other options. The bed was skimmed to make it level:




Checked it against a known straight edge and it looks pretty good:


Then drilled a matrix of M6 holes for the clamps:


In practice these have not been great and some of the threads have already stripped as the extrusion is only about 4mm thick. I've started upgrading these to M8 which due to the shape of the extrusion will go into a much thicker part.

I've done some machining on the new bed and it is definitely stiffer and gives a better cut than before. Pleased with how it turned out. Will post some pictures of the new bits I've been making in a new thread.