Thinwater builds the Widgitmaster Midi Router

[Thinwater]

I ordered the Midi plans from Widgit on Ebay. They are very nice and well worth the money!

I ordered the metal from Alro and it came in today. The picturred pile will make 2 of most of the parts except the table. The mic 6 type ground cast tooling plate is expensive.

[Thinwater]

I had a little time on the VF 2 today so I made the front and back plate. They were clamped to a sub plate and all of the outsides cut. Then the holes and counterbore for the bearing done in one set up. I still have to do the counterbores for the bolts but they are not as critical as the bearing hole so they were saved for the second op when the plates have to be flipped over to finish them.

I put in the Thompson rails and it must be EXACTLY lined up to go together. It is not a press fit, just extremely close.

I put it on the surface plate and measured the rails. Over the 12" span one is .0015 higher on one end and the other is .002 higher. From the center, that makes the one that is .002 off only one thou off at each end of the travels.

I will have to check my set up closer on the next one to make sure they are both within .0005" over the 12" span.

I will have a little more time tomorrow to make more parts since my shop is closed on Saturday.

[Thinwater]

I got the sides of the gantry completely done today. There are a lot more holes and counterbores than it first looks like. There are several different sizes and take several different tools to finish, plus the end mills for the counterbored screw and bearing holes.

I had enough time to get the sides done also. They started as 1/2" x 2" bar and were cut down to 1.75 before using.

I made the center support on the manual lathe. I got it close to the right length then put it between two angle plates on my surface plate to measure it with a height gauge. Widget calls out a tolerance of .0002 on this part so he must have decided it was important. I needed to take another .0022 off so I put it back i nthe lathe, touched of the bit and movet it in .00200 using the DRO. I took a cut then a spring pass. It came out exactly the correct size to the tenth. I was lucky!

I center drilled the support and tapped it #10x24 for the two bolts.

This is a cool build. I like it a lot better than the 80/20 stuff I have made before. Next weekend I will do the X slide, Y back and Z slide.

Once it is finished I will see what I have to enlarge and or move to put ball screws in all 3 axes, then make another one with the changes.

I am looking at the DeepgrooveCNC controller as well as the fineline automotion controller. Any recomendations are welcome.

[widgitmaster]

Thank you, I'm honored!

WidgitMaster

[mactec54]

Thinwater

Take a look at Dmm Technology, for ac servo package, this is way better than a stepper package

http://www.dmm-tech.com/

[Thinwater]

Thinwater

Take a look at Dmm Technology, for ac servo package, this is way better than a stepper package

http://www.dmm-tech.com/

Thanks for the link. They are a little large for this project but perfect for the commercial model I am working on the plans for now.

My Thompson Ball Bushings arrived Staurday after I had finished machining. If they had been here that morning I would have made the slide for them so I could make something move and entertain myself. Maybe I will ba able to squeeze a part or two on the mill before next weekend.

[Jay C]

Any updates?