Hey CarveOne,
Wow looks pretty spectacular! Even though you say you work slowly it's a lot faster than me....and your workspace is neater/bigger than mine too... looks like I'm losing haha.
I was interested in the upgrades you were talking about, seems like you're going to 1/2" leadscrews haha, and it seems like you must grow a lot of tomatoes haha, (I ended up using the Conduit to bar my windows at home from possible home invasion, the tomatoes will have to wait I guess). I'd like to upgrade to ACME as well, probably 2 start as Graham was suggesting, but I guess it'll be a project for later (CNC + Uni = no money/debt). Is it true though that the torque would be a lot less than with the 1/4"? I guess the ACME ones will be a lot more efficient though, that might make up for some of the power transmission losses.
I had also looked around for anti-Backlash nuts too, and on DumpsterCNC. I noticed somewhere that an anti-Backlash nut doesn't look that complicated to make if you have a CNC already.... It just seemed like you needed to cut 2 pieces of plastic, make them interlocking, then drill a hole through them and tap it. After that, have a spring in the middle that pushes them apart, compress the assembly, and thread it onto your leadscrew. Sure it all "sounds pretty easy" but I'm probably missing a critical detail that makes it really hard to do.... Might try it out later this year in the University machine shop, might need to use a mill to do some more precision stuff than what my CNC will be able to do (seriously worried about slop in the assembly...some shotty incompetent university student was building my machine so I dunno.... ha. ha. ha.).
I liked your round nuts, they look pretty kickass. Is that steel? Should be pretty good and won't rip out of the EMT, unlike those threaded holes, looks sketchy. I also experienced a problem with the rails spreading when I tightened the nuts a lot...is the oak piece used as a spacer or as a reinforcement? If it's a reinforcement how are you attaching it to the channel?
What software are you using by the way, for interface to the controller card (I have the HobbyCNC one)? Mach3? I also got my hands on MasterCAM V9 tutorials and MasterCAM X2 but I have yet to try that out. How will you be going from Solidmodel to G code?  |