I got my kit in early July at the beginning of a month of vacation. It was all supposed to be done by now...right! I have the woodwork done, primed and painted and am starting out on the mechanical stuff. I sealed the MDF with Duratec sealer, which works great, and finished with car primer and paint. I have a HobbyCNC controller, MSC 1/2x10 2-start lead screws, DumpsterCNC delrin nuts and anti-backlash clamps. I got a lot of information from my friend John who built a Lion's Claw (prototype kit) router and learned from his experience. His is doing good work now with his machine.

My only snag so far is with the nuts, for which I did not buy the right flange. Joe's blocks will take the square flange and it was probably mentioned in one of the threads but I never took the time to check the details. So I had to put the proverbial round peg in the square hole. Thankfully, I have a lathe and was able to pop the nut blocks into the 4 jaw chuck and bore them out. It remains to drill and tap some holes. I will make the holes in the flange bigger than required so that there is some adjustment to ensure that the nut is well aligned with the feed screw. My friend John insists that it is impossible to live a normal happy healthy fulfilling life without a lathe and I have come to agree with him. They are just so handy to get you out of a jam! Even a little 7x14 chinese mini-lathes are very useful for this sort of job, or making spacings, bushings or what have you. Of course once you get one you will end up wanting a mill too - great for cutting the slots for the mounting screws on the aluminum bearing holders - no filing for me!

This week I hope to finish the Z axis including installing the acme rod, then polish up the gas pipes and install them on the X and Y and assemble the gantry. It is really coming together.

Nice work on the build, look forward to seeing it all come together. Also nice pick on the dumpster stuff, it's amazing to see how a simple thread modification and some cheap well machined hardware can make your entire machine perform better. I was stalling and struggling at 80IPM and after I upgraded to the different start/tpi rod & dumpster hardware I was up to around 150-160 IPM a little higher at times when in rapid traverse.

I ran into a problem with the Z nut - one of the horizontal bolts that attach it to the Z carriage hit one of the vertical bolts that attach it to the support blocks below. I also notice that sometime when I drill the HDPE the drill goes off at an angle, even when I drill in a milling machine! I perhaps fed too fast, did not take the time to center drill or something - dunno, but most frustrating. Any hints or pitfalls to avoid when drilling in HDPE? My bit was sharp and I was holding everything very square. It is tricky stuff to deal with I find.

I cleaned the pipe rails last night and once the Z axis nuts are dealt with I will assemble the gantry. I forgot the 1/2" bearings and ordered them last night. This should come together in the next 2 weeks as all the difficult stuff is done.

I ran into a problem with the Z nut - one of the horizontal bolts that attach it to the Z carriage hit one of the vertical bolts that attach it to the support blocks below. I also notice that sometime when I drill the HDPE the drill goes off at an angle, even when I drill in a milling machine! I perhaps fed too fast, did not take the time to center drill or something - dunno, but most frustrating. Any hints or pitfalls to avoid when drilling in HDPE? My bit was sharp and I was holding everything very square. It is tricky stuff to deal with I find.

I cleaned the pipe rails last night and once the Z axis nuts are dealt with I will assemble the gantry. I forgot the 1/2" bearings and ordered them last night. This should come together in the next 2 weeks as all the difficult stuff is done.

Is that you Scott? This is Bill Griggs. I am also building a Router. Mine is a slightly redesigned Hybrid 4'x4'.

Bill

It's great to see other Montrealer's in here :)

Hi Bill, yep, that's me. I now have the gantry assembled. Should have the rest of the assembly done this week. I am waiting on the bearings for the feed screws which will hopefully come this week and by the end of the long weekend (Canadian thanksgiving) I should have the mechanical assembly complete.

Hi Bill, yep, that's me. I now have the gantry assembled. Should have the rest of the assembly done this week. I am waiting on the bearings for the feed screws which will hopefully come this week and by the end of the long weekend (Canadian thanksgiving) I should have the mechanical assembly complete.

Is it me, or is the Z axis mounted backwards, on your gantry?

Nice paint job Scott!! Guess you mounted Z backwards for testing?:idea:

Cheers
dewalt58

Is it me, or is the Z axis mounted backwards, on your gantry?

Good eye, i'm sure he knows now or when he gets the leadscrews for sure.

Joe

Good eye, i'm sure he knows now or when he gets the leadscrews for sure.

Joe

DOH! Can you say "noobie"?

BTW, I know some guys are gluing the rails in place. Is there any need to do this? Personally I don't see it.

Today I spent a couple of hours scrubbing the rust and black stuff of the pipes that I got for the X. It was all that was available locally. I ended up chucking them in the lathe at one end and holding the other with a fixed steady. Now they are clean and I can go ahead and install them...at least I could if I had not put the gantry on backwards...2 steps fwd and 1 back.

It is a long weekend and since it looks like rain tomorrow and no flying I will likely get everything assembled. Will post pics and hopefully not embarrass myself again!

Sblack, glue what rails in place?

X axis rails - the 1" gas pipes. A friend built a Lion Claw machine and he glued them... I take it by your answer that this is not being widely done on Joe's machine...toldja I was a noob...

I got it assembled and the carriage flipped around, which was a bit of an adventure in itself. This thing is big and heavy! I had to sling the gantry from the ceiling to be able to maneuver it in place. Now I need to add the drive components - motors, feedscrews and nuts etc. It might be a strange order to do it in but I was anxious to get all the pieces together so that I could once again move in the shop. I am picking a filter cap today so I can finish the control box. Now all I need is a PC for the shop to run it.

Looking good, But you got finger prints on the End piece, You will need to clean those off before you place it in the Art Gallery. LOL

Joe

One disadvantage to going with the typical white , the anti back lash housing on the back of my gantry is practically black from lithium grease and oil

The router is finished except for running the wiring from the control box to the steppers and limit switches. I have a bit of energychain stuff that a friend gave me which will fit the Y. I have also seen some examples on the form of guys using some sort of flexible corrogated conduit for running the wires - looks like a vacuum cleaner hose. Sometimes you see it in cars to protect wires from chaffing. Any idea where I can get that or what it is called? Any suggestions of good examples of arranging wiring? I could lash something up but sure as hell I will find out that it wasn't quite the best way and I will end up removing it and drilling a bunch of needless holes in the machine. Any advice greatly appreciated or links to good threads. There are so many pics on this forum (which is great) that it is hard to zero in on one or 2.

thanks

Scott

Howdy Scott,

If conduit in the picture is what you are talking about. Lowes , home depot will have the blue flex conduit in electricial dept. I could only feed two cable into the Blue conduit. I merged all three into black hose from sears water pump hose accessor kit,saw same kit at OSH in the plumbing section cheaper few days after I bought this. I am guessing but believe the black is 1.25 dia.


Kent

Thank very much Kent!

I like your setup. I was going to build a table for mine but I think 4 stout legs screwed to the end plates as you have done should be fine, maybe with some diagonals for stiffness.

Kent, I read through your adventures and Joe mentioned that you were using Uni-strut? Is that the blue stuff? I am not familiar with that term. You are doing some great work.

Kent, I read through your adventures and Joe mentioned that you were using Uni-strut? Is that the blue stuff? I am not familiar with that term. You are doing some great work.

If you look at the bottom left in the picture you will see the blue tube in something that is it. It is a U shape piece of metal.

Rick

Hello Scott


Rick answered the uinstrut question,it can also be found in the electrical department. Joe is using alot of it in his new Hybred 4x4 at least in the fewe pictures he released at the begining, havn't seen any new pictures for a while.
My legs are made from 2x4s glued together. works great so far. With the shelving unit on the bottom the table is quite heavy and rigid. It still shook a bit when doing rapid short movements between all axis. I strapped it to the wall t as suggested by Joe. This help termendously.

Unfortunatly it required me to relocate 2/3rds of my garage :eek: still working on getting things in order :).

Also after the relocation of the machine, I am now getting some whip.( didn't have any noticible whip before) Its not real bad I can live with it.

Here is picture of one side strapped down I used 2x8 and some long 5/16 bolts.

I see T slots in your bed. Are these just cut in the spoil board? Is it MDF? Does this have the strength?
I have a T slot bit for the router, and a sheet of 3/4 MDF waiting to be a part of mine soon.
Thanks

I used two sheets mdf 0.75. Look at pictures it is self explanatory.
I lost a bit of Z travel this way but didn't think I would need it soon :)


And no my table doesn't curve like that .. My camera just has a warped sence of humor :rolleyes:

Nice setup Kent. Very professional and I like your slots for hold downs. I might steal that :)

That is, if this thing ever works. It is all done, wired up, the HobbyCNC board is installed, there is a power supply feeding it with 32V or so and when I throw the big switch.... nothing. Not a wimper. No buzzing, clicking, humming or smoking. A friend who has this setup told me that when powered up the motors will click and then hum and hold their position. I have power to the board, I set the Vref voltages, I did the required test before soldering in the driver chips and I can't find any bad joints or solder bridges, though perhaps I am not looking hard enough. I know there are 100s of these boards out there and they work so obviously I have messed up somewhere, but where?
I am using the Keling 6 wire motors wired unipolar. I have joined the hobbyCNC yahoo group and hopefully when my membership is approved I will get some suggestions there. In the mean time if anyone has any ideas please let me know. Sooooo close but so far.

Thanks Scott.

The hobbycnc group is great I had one axis not work and they figured it out in a minute. I sodiered in part wrong. removed and replaced it correctly all was well afterwards. You said nothing happens I am curious did the fan come on ? Your friend is correct click and then hum and hold their position. I hope you have a simple fix like mine the hardest part was getting it back out. They will more then likly tell you to reflow all your sodier. You might recheck everything to make sure in correct. Do Not remove connections to motors until there is no voltage at test point.

Good luck hope you get it up and running soon it is a blast to watch and even better to get something carved that looks good .

Kent

I didn't have any jumpers installed - didn't know it wouldn't run without em! Now it jogs very nicely on Y and Z but X binds up and misses steps. Strange as there is no friction that I can feel by hand. I am running each motor at 1.5 amps (Vref .21) and have 1/2 10 2start rods with junkyard delrin nuts that work like a charm on the other 2 axes. So this has me a bit stumped, but it is cool to watch it move around. I hope to start cutting this weekend if I can fix this bug. I have worked my way through all the other bugs so it is a matter of sticking with it. thanks for the encouragement.

I replaced the X stepper with a spare and it didn't change a thing. I checked the X screw for friction and the bearings for binding and didn't see anything obvious. Then I swapped X and Y motor outputs and now the Y hickups in one direction so I either have a bug with the commands from Mach3 or a problem on that channel of the board. I will go and redo my solder joints on that section and hopefully clear that bug. Every other snag has just been a question of being persistent and this is no different.

I replaced the X stepper with a spare and it didn't change a thing. I checked the X screw for friction and the bearings for binding and didn't see anything obvious. Then I swapped X and Y motor outputs and now the Y hickups in one direction so I either have a bug with the commands from Mach3 or a problem on that channel of the board. I will go and redo my solder joints on that section and hopefully clear that bug. Every other snag has just been a question of being persistent and this is no different.

Scott,

Check to see if the resistor network is soldered in backwards.


Bill

Hi Bill,

Ya, John Bell warned me about that (guess how he knows!) and I looked last night and they all seemed to be facing the same way, although it is difficult to get in there and see with the heatsinks in place. I recall being careful to get that right. I think this is different because it will run fine for 2-4 seconds and then hickup. My understanding is that putting the resistive network in backwards makes it run badly all the time in one direction - is this correct? It is almost like a reaction to something getting warm. I have replaced the motor and connections and no difference so I suspect a bad solder joint. We shall see. I am getting close.

Hi Bill,

Ya, John Bell warned me about that (guess how he knows!) and I looked last night and they all seemed to be facing the same way, although it is difficult to get in there and see with the heatsinks in place. I recall being careful to get that right. I think this is different because it will run fine for 2-4 seconds and then hickup. My understanding is that putting the resistive network in backwards makes it run badly all the time in one direction - is this correct? It is almost like a reaction to something getting warm. I have replaced the motor and connections and no difference so I suspect a bad solder joint. We shall see. I am getting close.

You are correct. BTW have you seen my step by step series in the Builder's Workshop section of rcgroups? Maybe it will help. Otherwise, just reflow the solder joints.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=702944

Bill

Post something showing your motor connections. What color wire to which HCNC terminal, then the experts here can check that part. If you passed all the preliminary tests, at least part of your board is working correctly.
You could also use a voltmeter to see if there is an output voltage on your terminals.
Do you have a computer connected yet? How about a trial version of Mach on the computer?
I have been able to make the motors turn, even though the output shafts are connected to nothing.

John suggested slaving A to X so that the X signal would drive the A channel and I hooked the X stepper to A. It worked fine, so obviously the snag was in the X channel on the board. I reflowed all the solder joints, cleaned well and it works well now. I cut a dxf file in midair and it was pretty freakin' impressive I must say. Will make dust this weekend. Thanks for all the suggestions. As usual, carelessness will do you in every time :)

All you need to do in mach is change pin assignments from 3-2, to 9-8 the pins for an A-Axis on the board. But slave will work for now.

But glad you got it going anyway, now you can finally test the machine and see its capabilities of what it can do for you.

Joe

We wanted to slave so that the X signals were scoming from the computer (to verify that they were good) but the X motor was being driven by the A channel. Had it not worked we would have suspected pins 2 and 3 on the parallel port. BTW, how do you drive the A channel to jog? What keys?

Next is limit switches and a big red panic button and some legs so that I can have my bench back. The smoothness of the machine is impressive. I watch it go and I have a bit of a hard time realizing that I built it! I am not really a CNC hobbiest. I want this machine to help me build an airplane and I can see so many possibilities. Cutting sheet aluminum parts, form blocks, the instrument panel, even maybe carving a prop (props are upwards of $1000 ea or more). It was a bunch of work and there is more to do but it was not particularly difficult or expensive for what it is. Most impressive. People who I show it to are blown away. Thanks to all.

Well, I have been cutting parts now for a few days and the results are very good. I have taken the plunge to learn mastercam9 and the time invested was worth it. The machine has performed flawlessly - not a hickup. The one problem I am having is that the dumpsterCNC delrin thread clamps are slipping with use and backlash is creeping in. I tried torquing one down a bit and I pulled the brass threaded insert out of it. I think I will machine some aluminum collars to back them up and hopefully that will fix the problem. I was wondering if anyone else had a similar problem and how they dealt with it? I am using the 2 start feed screws.

This machine is awesome.

Glad to hear the machine is working good for you. Looking forward to some pictures and videos, everyone loves them... lol

Joe

Joe, what clamps are you using to pre-load the feed screw bearings? I saw on one of the msgs on your thread that the dumpster delrin clamps weren't working for you. What did you change to?

the dumpster clamps will work fine, I also used 1/2" collar clamps from fastenal.

Joe

Hi guys, thought I would update you on progress. I have done a bunch of work with the router and it is working very well - most impressed.

I cut the first form blocks for my homebuilt aircraft project and they are perfect. I am having some issues with chatter which is either the router bits or the mdf that is getting into the bearings. I am using the slotted mdf for a sacrificial table top. It is really convenient except for one thing. The hitachi router blows it cooling air down and any dust that settles into those slots gets blasted out the end of the slots right into the bearings! I am going to approach this 2 ways - first, a think vinyl or mylar will be sandwiched between the sacrificial table and the real table but it will overhang the edges enough to protect the pipes. 2nd, I am going to put a deflector plate on the bottom of the router so that the router cooling air goes outwards instead of downwards and I will make my dust collector plate go below this deflector so the router cooling does not interfere with dust collection. We will see how that works.

I think if you guys ever find Osama and are looking for a suitably barbaric way to dispatch him, just lock him in a room with one of these routers cutting MDF for a few days. That would be a long painful slow death! I came to this conclusion after my first experience with 3/4" material. I won't cut it again until I got the router cooling air and dust collection figured out.

Joe, you are using the 1/4 spiral bit for MDF - what depth of cut and feed speeds can you achieve? Are you using a roughing and finishing pass? What depth for each? I still have a bit of chatter to deal with, but I have a few ideas as to what it is - to have known cutting parameters to shoot for would be helpful.

Great machine!

Yes the MDF dust is bad, get good dust collection on it! For MDF I like using either a 1/4 or 3/8 upspiral, I typically take .15 per pass (little more than 1/8") and I can feed hard, MDF mills nicely with sharp carbide tooling. I don't rough or finish, not for just straight parts. You can do a final full depth stepover if you like but I dont find the need. Btw nice photo but are you using vcarve? One of the nice things about tabs/bridges in it is that you can go 3d and I usually only make my tabs 1/8" thick max and 1/2" long max. It's plenty to hold MDF in place.

yes 0.15 depth cuts, 60 to 80ipm feed rate, and tabs on last pass, then i just cut with knife and use flush trim bit to final trim off tabs.

look forward to more pictures... :)

Joe

Here is a deflector.
http://99.224.51.73/thephillips/PhotoGallery/CncMachine/YetAnotherDustCollector/YetAnotherDustCollector.asp

Here is a deflector.
http://99.224.51.73/thephillips/PhotoGallery/CncMachine/YetAnotherDustCollector/YetAnotherDustCollector.asp

He did a good job on the deflector. I will be doing one of those for sure on the 4x4.

Joe

I have now been using this deflector for about 2 months, I love it. Removal of the cutters is way to easy, I actually think it is faster than trying to get the tools out of the quick tool change (expect if you had it set up for ATC which I personally don't think would work for me). I now have two dust sheild sone for short cutters and one for longer cutters.

Look forward to seeing it incorporated into the 4 * 4. Need any help with getting it implemented for it let me know.

BuzzArt

Buzz you are one of the ones that has taken the machine and run with the ball, I just provided the basic machine but its people like you and others who take it a step further and improve upon it. and sharing with others for the greater good.

hopefully someday the wife will let ya build a bigger machine and your signs and work will increase.

i take it the machine is working well for you.

Want do you mean "just provided the basic machine". Without all the work and support you put into the awesome design of the 2006 machine I would not be able to do what I have so quickly and easily. Enhancing it and giving back to the community is a pleasure.

Not so sure about getting the additional room yet, already took over my older computer lab which is 10 * 16 for paint a prep environment.

Machine is working very well. Did tons of work before Xmas and just starting to get back into it after a 3 week break. Next modification I am hoping to get to is to improve the sacrifical table so that it will work more freindly with my T Slots. Present problem is the T slots are only available outside the sacraficial bed area. I have an idea that will expose them everywhere. Once done I will document my mods and why I did them. Hoping to get around to it in Feburary.

Well it looks like the thinking is already done on the deflector. Great - I can get back to building airplanes. Thanks so much.

I am using mastercam. I never thought of tabs only on the last pass - so obvious once you think of it.

Thanks for the help guys.

I am trying to engrave a placard for my aircraft in aluminum. The letters are 1/4" high and I am cutting them with a 60 deg point carbide sign cutting bit. I am cutting around 20 thou. deep with the hitachi router cranked up to full rpm. The results are awful. The aluminum looks like it has been melted and basically plowed out of the way. The bottoms of the cuts are pockmarked, not smooth. So I assume I am using the wrong bit or rpm. Any suggestions?

Also, the machine is rounding off the square corners of letters and the bottom elbows of the letter W don't make it all the way to the bottom so the letter is short. Is this backlash or something in the settings? Any advise for the cutter, feeds, speeds or a possible bug with Vcarve would be appreciated.

Hi sblack,

The 'rounded corner' problem you are seeing could well be related to the Constant Velocity setting in your control software (Mach?). Looking on the vectric forum and to avoid this problem people appear to run their machines with constant velocity switched off.

See > http://vectric.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=17642#17642

I hope this helps and if anyone else has any experience of this type of issue it would be interesting to hear how you stop this happening?

Tony