OPTIMUS-4G

[Khalid]

None of my DIY parts get such a nice finish. I cover up the mess with a heavy coat of textured paint. Now you know one of my secrets.

CarveOne

Hmm.. If i knew earlier i would not ground the plates..By the way thank you for this tip as i have lot to do... But really i liked that hammered texture of your machine..
tomorrow i will receive the gear racks with hole drilled... Now the next posts will be mostly consists of the actual hardware rather CAD files...

Oops.. my machine is still incomplete... going to assemble some more parts in CAD...

[CarveOne]

I put paint on all of my bare steel parts to prevent rust. For the places where paint is not allowed, as in the edges of the rails where the ball bearings roll, I put a few coats of automotive carnuba wax on it, buffing the wax after each coat has dried a few minutes. The wax will prevent rust for months and does not add significant build-up.

Rustoleum has apparently stopped making the textured silver paint that I used on my smaller steel machine but the hammered silver that I used on my big machine is still available around here. Hopefully, you can find the hammered paints (or something similar) near you.

Surface milled steel looks good but it rusts easily and I really don't like the looks of rusty steel. If you want to keep the milled steel look, you can paint it with clear lacquer paint.

CarveOne

[Khalid]

Hi CarveOne,
I will follow your good suggestions throughout this build. I hae received the packages from CNCROUTERPARTS. Although i have purchased the two Anti-backlash nuts however i have made a small tap from a small piece of 5-start screw. The tap works great in the Teflon material.

The Anti-backlash nuts are very tight and screw is not getting inside. I have to debur the cut-ends of the screw and make a small taper on the end so that screw get inside the Antibacklash nut.
I am still puzzled how this Antibacklash nut will work? It has slots and O-ring. So far i have seen variety of Anti-backlash nuts with springs that keep pushing the end against the threaded screw.

[CarveOne]

WOW! An eight axis CNC machine?

Ahren's anti-backlash nut design is a little different from the DumpsterCNC nuts. I had purchased all the nuts I needed before Ahren started selling those, so I haven't used them so far.

DumpsterCNC nuts are coil spring loaded against the sides of the ACME threads. Ahren's design appears to squeeze down on the top and sides of the threads. They both will keep fairly constant pressure against the ACME rods until the nuts wear out.

You can lower the friction by putting some dry Teflon spray lubricant on the ACME rods every month or two. It helps prevent rust on the rods and will reduce wear.

If your ACME rods have rough edges on top of the threads it will help to polish the edges smooth with 400 grit sandpaper and then use 600 grit final polishing. The rough edges will quickly wear out the plastic nuts.

The low cost one-start rods I got from enco.com for my first machine had that problem. They work fine now. The five-start rods I got from McMaster-Carr were already polished smooth.

CarveOne

[Khalid]

WOW! An eight axis CNC machine?

Wel someday if possible..

You can lower the friction by putting some dry Teflon spray lubricant on the ACME rods every month or two. It helps prevent rust on the rods and will reduce wear.

I have a good experience with molykote in the past.. I don't know where i get the teflon spray as i am living in the location where i do not find any suitable store with such good stuff...

If your ACME rods have rough edges on top of the threads it will help to polish the edges smooth with 400 grit sandpaper and then use 600 grit final polishing. The rough edges will quickly wear out the plastic nuts.

The low cost one-start rods I got from enco.com for my first machine had that problem. They work fine now. The five-start rods I got from McMaster-Carr were already polished smooth.

CarveOne

I will try to smoothen the edges of the 5-start threaded rods.. I am very happy with the quality of these threaded rods..I do not know why people moving toward the expensive ball screws...These threaded rods are shiny and seems extremely accurate...

I have started to work on the CAD and added the carriages and Anti-backlash nut.. The carriages i will receive from the contractor in the next Thursday...

[CarveOne]

I'm sure that it is worrisome to you that the products we seem to get so easily is unavailable or are cost prohibitive to you. There may be other alternatives that work well and are available. Any lubricant that sprays onto the ACME rods and leaves a mostly dry feeling surface will help. Garage door track lubricant can be used if you can find that.

Your 5 start screws, being polished, probably don't need any additional work put into them to make them smooth. The ones I sanded and polished were very low cost 1 start ACME thread utility grade rods. USE-ENCO.com sold them for $7usd for each 72 inch rod a few years ago when I ordered them. The threads were very roughly ground. Not precision finished at all. They work OK now on my wood framed machine but the accuracy per 12" is unknown. I won't use those on another CNC machine again but they will work fine for making a DIY drill press vise.

CarveOne

[RomanLini]

I like the bright colours on your renderings Khalid! Machines would look great in bright colours like that.

[DonFrambach]

Any progress?

[Khalid]

Any progress?

Hmm.. I was busy in this build, that is just completed a couple of days ago..


http://www.cnczone.com/forums/genera...hine_into.html

Optimus-4G plans are going to be changed as i do not find a perfect Press to get the part bended in Accuracy.. So this time new plans will be made and the construction material shall be 2inch x 4inch x 1/8 inch Rectangular pipes...

[Khalid]

Pretty disappointed for loss of my hard disk. All the plans went into hell including Optimus Prime-4G.
On the drawing board with new ideas...

[CarveOne]

Oh my, that is not good news Khalid.

I did a full backup to a portable hard drive of my main computer two days ago. One other computer has had trouble booting up and loading all of the usual icons. It finally booted up correctly recently, so before anything else happened I made a backup of that one also.

Now that computer can be flushed of data so the operating system and a new hard drive can be installed in it for CNC machine uses. It's old enough that it has a built-in parallel port.

[Khalid]

I started machining different components of the Optimus Prime4G again. The whole thing is a mess of Aluminum and Besnd Steel. Aluminum machining just started. Soon i shall be able to post few pictures.

I hope this time i shall be able to complete the machines (02Ea) timely