CarveOne's Work Table CNC Router Build

[CarveOne]

Hi everyone,

I still haven't gotten back to work on CNC build #2 yet, but there are many excuses, um, reasons for it. My employer and I have become swamped with stuff to build and none of it is simple stuff we can knock out quickly. Long gaps between paychecks is tough to deal with for us both.

No power supply or breakout board has been ordered yet, and there is a small amount of metal that I need to order for finishing the Z axis construction. The Y axis lead screw and stepper mount installation will be next in order of priority.

The work shop ceiling's final latex coat will be finished this weekend. It's 2/3 completed as of last Sunday. I have also been doing some outside work around the work shop as time and money has permitted. Planted seven tomato plants, and two black Tartarian cherry and one Bing cherry trees. Still haven't done anything about adding insulation or heat pump system yet.

I will get back to the CNC machine build. I just work too slow.

CarveOne

[Khalid]

Hello CarveOne.. Long time i didn't see your posts..I was also away from the Zone.. Hope you will be good enjoying the beautiful weather their..
Regards
Khalid

[BobF]

Hi CarveOne,
Glad you're busy. The CNC will come along in its own sweet time.

[CarveOne]

Hello CarveOne.. Long time i didn't see your posts..I was also away from the Zone.. Hope you will be good enjoying the beautiful weather their..
Regards
Khalid

Hi Khalid,

I'm glad to see your post and was wondering about you as well. I hope all is going well in your life. How is the Eagle doing? Did he like the nest you made for him?

You are correct, the weather here this weekend is beautiful, mild temperatures, very light wind, and I completed yet another yard project this weekend. Most of the bare red clay in the yard now has grass growing on it for the first time. The work shop ceiling painting is completed. Life is good even as I go broke with the amount of money I have spent on the improvements.

My CNC build has been on hold longer than I expected but it will surely be continued to completion. I have a future upgrade for it in the planning stages.

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

Hi CarveOne,
Glad you're busy. The CNC will come along in its own sweet time.

Hi BobF,

Yes, definitely, it will. I had the same thing happen with my 25x37 build last spring. Stopped working on it for a couple of months.

My employer and I will deliver an 8' span C-130 wind tunnel model on Tuesday that we will complete tomorrow. Hopefully, payment for it will come soon and I can get the remaining few things I need to complete this CNC build.

CarveOne

[.xXACEXx.]

hey carveone

its been a while since i had saw any one make any reply's to any of the subscribed threads i had, started to wonder if something was wrong with my login or something

any way with out getting your employer or you in any trouble ,can you tell us a lil bit about the model you mentioned ? like where did you cut it 3d machined on your machine? or on another someplace else? and did you have an exact model to run tool path off of just scaled down to like 1/100th ? (that could be something that r/c model builders could use to make scale models for flying)

i realize this may be sensitive as it is your work and all ,so if it would jeopardize any thing yall are doing thats fine.but you brought it up and it sparked my intrest...or maybe if you had a resource for more info on that topic ?

its very interesting what everyone is making on their machines till next time....

[CarveOne]

Hi .xXACEXx.

The build log threads have been very quiet lately. Springtime doldrums I guess. Too many unrelated projects to catch up on is stealing time away from the fun stuff.

The wind tunnel models we build are made from RenShape 450 blocks that are machined on a 5' x 10' ShopBot by a company that we do our contract work for. They get the CAD files needed for making the molds from government and commercial sources. We use the molds to lay up the "skins" for the fuselage, wings, and tail surfaces. The skins are usually made of various weights of fiberglass cloth and slow cure epoxy. My employer gets CAD files that are necessary for making internal structural parts from birch plywood, lite plywood, aluminum, and sometimes carbon fiber plate or laminations of carbon fiber cloth on plywood. No two projects are the same unless we build multiple copies of the same project. We don't have our own CNC router at the shop, so I got interested in building my own. Eventually I will cut some of the parts in my home CNC when it is justified. Since we don't do any production runs that need more than two or three of any one part we just make the parts by hand from CAD plots. My second CNC build has a 7" vertical clearance that will allow me to cut molds to make a fairly large diameter fuselage.

Sometimes the boss gets to fly one of the UAV prototype projects we build. My R/C flying skills has never been as good as his and I am too rusty at it now to attempt a first flight with anything but one of my own R/C sport models. I haven't flown much in the past five years.

We build precision scale wind tunnel models for research purposes, scale display models, small UAV and RPV models, and some really wierd looking proprietary flying stuff sometimes. Normally, we build the flying models and someone else installs the electronics and propulsion.

The C-100 I mentioned is a good R/C size and the molds could be used to make a nice model if built light specifically for R/C. This one is around 175 pounds and has fiberglass/epoxy skins approximately 0.1" thick. It will be used for some full speed tests in a wind tunnel and has to be very rigid.

CarveOne

[.xXACEXx.]

thanks ,carveone

that sounds really cool, i work for a company that makes assembly line components for making batteries i never get to see any of the stuff i build actually working, so its neat to hear about others jobs

[CarveOne]

thanks ,carveone

that sounds really cool, i work for a company that makes assembly line components for making batteries i never get to see any of the stuff i build actually working, so its neat to hear about others jobs

We finished the C-130 around 7pm tonight. It has a finish coat of satin black lacquer on it. Black will aid in the photography during some of the testing. (looks very ominous too..) I took a bath room scale to work this morning and the model weighs a petite 125 pounds instead of my guess of 175 pounds. It will be delivered by the boss tomorrow morning while I get started on the next project. Just no rest for the bleary-eyed.

During my 40 years as an electronics technician and engineer in the telecom industry I had chances to do some really neat stuff, and was able to get involved in new system installation turn-ups and field testing of some of the equipment I worked on. Stuff I personally tested is, or was, installed all over the world. I look back on it in amazement now. Too bad I never got rich monetarily from it, but the experiences I have had are priceless.

The job I have now is a whole new series of experiences. Some of what we do is potentially life saving work. The V-22 Osprey model we built early last year will eventually lead to safety improvements on that aircraft.

Enjoy what you do now, .xXACEXx., and strive to know ever more. You never know where it will lead you.

CarveOne

[BobF]

My Dad told me to "do what you like or like what you do". You can approach it from either direction.

[CarveOne]

My Dad told me to "do what you like or like what you do". You can approach it from either direction.

Sage advice.

Doing something that you don't really like and getting rich from it does have benefits though. It pays for the things you really like to do. But then you may not have the time available for it.

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

With no lead screws attached to the gantry at this point in time, I can move one carriage back and forth quickly and see the other side upright support and carriage attempt to follow my moves with some lagging. It's hard to see exactly where the flexing is located. I suspect that it is in the connections at each end of the gantry where toe 4" wide rail and 1"x2" box tube is mounted to the 1" wide side of the upright support tubes. The X axis carriages will be driven by two lead screws and stepper motors and the great hope is that the flexing that I see will not be an issue. However, the flexing still bothers me. In an attempt to provide additional stiffening at the ends of the gantry I made up these four brackets from 3/8" steel bar stock. Two of these brackets will be mounted edgewise to each end of the gantry rail and box tube with bolts. The wider leg will have two bolts that go through the leg and thread into the rail and box tube wall. The narrower leg will have two bolts that go through the leg and thread into the upright support box tube. The narrow leg kinda wraps around two sides of the box tube. These brackets must not interfere with the carriage bearing bolts and will have a lead screw running between them. The carriages will pass over these brackets but will be limited in travel by a half inch at each end of gantry.

I considered using a piece of 1/4" thick steel angle for the brackets but thought that this plate version might be stiffer. A triangle block could be tried also. It would need to be made from a piece of 2" to 3"steel square bar, which I don't have available.

These brackets need to be drilled and counter-bored for cap head bolts and then painted with hammered finish silver paint.

CarveOne

[BobF]

CarveOne,
Have you seen the threads on gantry flex that use the cable to stiffen up the gantry?
I can't put my finger on it right now, but if you have not seen it, I will locate it. The thread was titled. "Make your gantry rock solid" or something very similar.

[CarveOne]

CarveOne,
Have you seen the threads on gantry flex that use the cable to stiffen up the gantry?
I can't put my finger on it right now, but if you have not seen it, I will locate it. The thread was titled. "Make your gantry rock solid" or something very similar.

Yes, I have, and I intend to use the idea, though I had forgotten that I already bought the pulleys and cable. I still want to improve the gantry corners some more though. I have been reconsidering the right angle steel stock today. 3/16" x 2" x 2" is easily available, maybe 1/4" x 2" x 2" also. It should be stiff enough and will not reduce the Y axis travel as much as the parts that I just made.

Thanks for reminding me about the Paralok cable scheme.

CarveOne

[jhowelb]

That cable system need not be elaborate to work just beautifully as demonstrated by my machine.

[CarveOne]

That cable system need not be elaborate to work just beautifully as demonstrated by my machine.

Thanks for the photos. Those will help. I'll improve the gantry corners and finish the Z axis before getting around to installing the cable system.

I have too little time to work on it now that I have a friend's outboard tunnel hull hydroplane in the work shop for rigging the steering and throttle cables. He isn't going to race it, just have fun with it on a local lake. We should be finished with it this weekend. Then I have a few machining projects to finish for other people before I get back to my own fun stuff. The springtime yard projects are all completed now.

My friend and his hydro:

CarveOne

[.xXACEXx.]

that thing looks like its mostly motor !!, it should fly (unfortunately i have saw some that do exactly that)

[CarveOne]

that thing looks like its mostly motor !!, it should fly (unfortunately i have saw some that do exactly that)

You're right! He knows it too. The engine is 20hp. Once it is on plane the driver has to lean forward just enough to keep it from getting too much air under it. It's a careful balancing act. He's on his knees in the boat, kinda like riding a motorized surf board. It will have a kill switch to stop the motor if he gets ejected for any reason. Wouldn't want the prop to keep running if it flips.

Gantry corner stiffener -
Lowes only had 1/8" thick 2" x 36" angles, so I ended up at Fastenal getting the only 1/4" thick piece they had in stock. It is 72" long and I only needed 6" of it. Just my luck. At least I have some in stock when, or if, I ever need it again.This will be plenty stiff and it only reduces the Y axis travel by 1/2". Maybe it will still cut 49" wide MDF in half.

Homemade tablesaw fence -
I decided that the 1" x 2" box tube left over from the CNC build was just not going to be wide enough for the clamp lever and bought a 2" x 2" x 72" box tube while I was at Fastenal. I have 40" of that left over after cutting off a 32" piece for the fence. However, that is long enough for use on a future upgrade to the CNC machine that I've cooked up.


CarveOne

[BobF]

The hydro looks like fun.
When I was in school, there was a lake right across the street from my apartment and they used to race those at the lake. They had small outboards about the size of your friends, but highly modified. The megaphone pipes on those 2 strokes attracted a lot of attention so we went to watch the race. My friend from Atlanta was visiting and just gotten into photography. He took a great sequence of pictures of one flipping and then the driver scramblng out and clinging to the hull until rescued.
Hope your friend has better luck.

[CarveOne]

The hydro looks like fun.
When I was in school, there was a lake right across the street from my apartment and they used to race those at the lake. They had small outboards about the size of your friends, but highly modified. The megaphone pipes on those 2 strokes attracted a lot of attention so we went to watch the race. My friend from Atlanta was visiting and just gotten into photography. He took a great sequence of pictures of one flipping and then the driver scramblng out and clinging to the hull until rescued.
Hope your friend has better luck.

There is an outboard class race scheduled for the closer of two local hydroelectric reservoirs this month. My friend will not enter that. This is just a weekend play toy for him. He has built and run R/C hydros (glow and gas) for many years, and has been to a lot of other hydro races.

CarveOne