First Router - The Saga Begins

[dighsx]

Well about a year of thinking about it I decided to build my own Jgro router. I started around at the begining of August and have picked at it ever since. Yesterday it made its first pencil plot so I figured it's time to post some pics. And document the saga of building this thing (I need to name it yet, am I the only one who names their machines?)

I started out by pre-cutting all the parts. Like a fool I didn't look at each drawing and later found out that the parts list isn't a 100% match to what the parts should be. Let that be a warning to all others. The first pic is a stack of some of the parts waiting to be drilled. Then I made my torsion boxes. I then decided that I would layout each part as I went cuz the idea of sitting there marking where holes should go seemed pretty boring. Pic 3 is a shot of my base ends. Pic 4 is a close up of the bocks for the pipes. I got some Derlin off Ebay and used that. It's easy to work with and seems like it's pretty stable (time will tell). Pic 5 is the blocks before they were cut up.

Jumping ahead a bit the last pic is a shot of it coming together. I was an 1/8 of an inch too skinny on my gantry so no matter how far in I moved my Y axis pipes my bearings wouldn't make even contact with them. I've got some pics of that for the next post.

[dighsx]

So I was more like a 1/8 inch off on each side (which was pretty disappointing) Pic 1 shows my seeing if a shim would work. I went out and got some flat 1/8th inch Al (pic 2) and it solved the problem nicely.

I then got my 1/2-10 ACME rod and noticed in one of them I had a pretty nasty bend it in. I went sniffin on the web to see how you get a bend out of a rod. And found a few sites that gave some tips. Pic 3 shows the bend. It was almost 3/8ths. I was just praying I didn't have a spiral bend, which I figured I'd be cooked trying to get out. Pic 4 shows my sad attempt at trying to get it out. This kinda worked but not real well. I have the feeling you need a lot more force then a quickgrip can give. Then I had a brainy idea. I made a channel for the rod to lay in Pic 5. Then clamped it in so the bend was being forced out, (now for the brainy part) I hooked my drill to the end of the rod and started turning it. I had to do it a few times but this actually got most of the bend out. Then after all of that I realized that the bend was at a point in the screw that I could cut on either side of it and just not use that part. I like to think of it as a good learning experience (sad attempt at justifying 2 days of monkey around with the bend). It's one of those deals where you get so caught up you stop using you head.

Pic 6 shows it really starting to look like something. As a side note I had never cut Al before so I was a little worried about it. But it was easy, I used my miter box for some of it and a jigsaw for the smaller parts I was too chicken to try on the miter saw. But you could use a hacksaw if you had too.

[dighsx]

So I started to mount the motors on the Y axis and realized that the couplers didn’t have any way of locking together that couldn't be pulled apart. I got 2 washers and made a little rig that'll keep them from coming apart Pic 1.

Pic 2 is one of the first plots. Pic 3 is a close up of the final plot. I was shocked how good it did on the circles. Once I figured out how to clamp the pencil so it didn't bend all over it did amazingly well. And for a machine that is being held together with clamps and has only been squared up by eye. I can't wait to see how it does once it's dialed in.

One side note about motors: I got the xylotex motor and board kit. When I tested them the spun fine but what I thought was pretty slow. Then when I hooked them to router I tried running the program steptest just to see if I could get something to happen. They would spin really fast then stop then spin again. I thought I had really messed something up. But when I ran Mach 2 and jogged the motors things worked great. Now I realized that I was spinning them way too fast. I never really thought about how slow 30ipm is until I did my first plots. I now see why you need to be able to control you routers speed. At 30ipm you could start burning wood if you're going full tilt with the router.

So next on the plate is to get all X and Y axis motors bolted down. Then hook up Z and then dial it in and hope it does something cool.

I'd like to thank Jgro for the plans and everyone on this site for all their posts. With out this site I could have never done this.

Random Thoughts:
- The one thing I've run into over and over again doing this project is reading a post on this site then a week later trying to find that post again. One would think I'd make a link but not me....
- Taping all the holes wasn't that bad. And it's nice to be able to take stuff apart.
- You can never have enough clamps
- You can never have enough pencils or tap measures
- Don't drink and layout parts. Don't talk on the phone and layout parts.
- You're plans never work out. I'd start the day saying I'm going to get this, this and this done. But half way into the first this something blows up and you spend the rest of the day on that.
- I want to be able to get frequent flyer miles for all the trips to the hardware store.

Take it easy
Jay

[gmfoster]

Its looking good!

Garry

[Jason Marsha]

Congrats you are off and running. The workmanship on the machine is good.

Jason

[dighsx]

Time for an update: I got the Z-axis all hooked up and the top bed on. I spent the better part of yesterday getting all that done and everything squared up. I understood why people liked Al for these machines but you don't really understand it till you hook a dial indicator to the gantry and drive it around on the bed. If you put something mildly heavy on the bed you see a change. But I'm hoping a few thousands (or hundredths) for wood working won't show...?? I've included two pics. First one is a better look at my coupler fix/rig. The second is everything put together. Today’s job is making a rig for getting the router attached.

I've got a couple of questions:
1. How is everyone hooking up their wires to their motors? I've got some wire nuts hooked up right now but I'd like to come up with something that looks a little nicer. And that will hold up long term.
2. I've been trying out Mach2 and I can't figure out where I put in how many turns/inch my screws are. I'm assuming I need to do this?
3. I'm running things with the Xylotex kit. Will this work with Mach3? I figure before I really learn how to us Mach2 maybe I should just skip ahead to Mach3, if it'll work with my setup.

Thanks for the encouraging words.

[ger21]

2. I've been trying out Mach2 and I can't figure out where I put in how many turns/inch my screws are. I'm assuming I need to do this?
3. I'm running things with the Xylotex kit. Will this work with Mach3? I figure before I really learn how to us Mach2 maybe I should just skip ahead to Mach3, if it'll work with my setup.

Thanks for the encouraging words.

Start with Mach3, the settings are not transferable from Mach2.

You need to enter the steps per inch in the motor turning. 10 tpi x 8 microsteps x 200 steps/rev = 16000.

The Xylotex will work fine with Mach3.

[dighsx]

I got router mount made and installed (see pic 1) it's not the best-looking mount but it works. Had a bunch of derlin left over so I used that. I then ran a few Spiro test cuts (pics 2 and 3). Which came out pretty good, only problem was I forgot to slow the router down so it wouldn't burn the wood. But that's not a big deal and the burning wood smelled nice...? I then tried an inlay test (pic 4). The first test I did I forgot to overlap my cuts when pocketing out the center. But the one in pic 4 came out all right. I'd like it to be a lot tighter fit but I'm hoping with some tweaking I can get a closer fit.

I can see how this hobby can get out of hand. I was thinking about what to try and do next and found myself thinking about how it would be cool if you had a 4X8 cutting bed. And then wondering where I could put a machine that size in the shop.

Next up is more tweaking, more testing and maybe rigging up an estop. My only question about an estop is where do you put it so you can get to it quick. It seems to me like it'd be better to rig up like 4 estops at different places around the machine. Maybe I could hook a clapper up as an estop? Then you just clap if something goes nuts. Ok maybe that's not a good idea.

Oh, I forgot I had one question. Can I use a regular router bit to cut copper or brass? It would be thin plate stuff that I'd use for inlays. And if I can or can't what is the best bit to use?

[ViperTX]

I would use a carbide bit.

[dighsx]

Well I've spent the last few days getting the machine as level and square at I could be. I made a rig for my dial gauge so I could drive it along the bed. This worked pretty good I set 6 points on the table and got them all to read 0 when moved to them. Or I should say as close to zero as I could. I'm about .002 off over all. If I had to do it over (and I might at some point) I think I'd fiberglass the torsion boxes, and maybe the gantry too. I also sanded my gas pipes and waxed them. I noticed that it was a little rough in spots and I thought I could see the gantry shake at those spots. I've also been thinking about adding some weight to the bottom of the gantry (the part under the cutting bed) the thinking would be lower the center of gravity. Might really smooth out all the gantry movement. I've got some lead shot laying around in the garage so it might be interesting just to see what it does.

I've been trying to decide on what software to get. I was dead set on Mach2/3 and Deskcnc. But then I ran across Vcarve, so I've been testing that out this week. It's a pretty slick program. It's also not real cheap. The last two pics are shots of a demo file you get with Vcarve demo. I used this file as my test file for seeing if I had the table adjusted level. This was my third test and I think it came out pretty nice. In fact I was shocked it did as well as it did.

If you're ever driving a dial gauge around your table and want an easy way to move the machine and watch the dial. The joystick control in Mach2 is really handy. I plugged in a cheap USB joystick I had and was able to stand at the machine and move it from point to point.

Up next is deciding on what software to get (I'm about 95% set on Vcarve) Then once I get that all figured out I'll start cutting things that aren't just test runs. I'm really itchin to try one of the dinosaur models.

On a side note I’ve haven’t done CAD work for along time. The last time I did serious CAD work was when AutoCAD 14 was just coming out, if that gives you some idea of how long it’s been. But I picked up a copy of AutoSketch 9 off ebay and I really like it. If you want a cheap CAD program that’s not overwhelming to use and has a very AutoCAD feel, I’d get yourself a copy.

[Jason Marsha]

Jay,

That sign came out good. What wood did you use?

Jason

[dighsx]

Jay,

That sign came out good. What wood did you use?

Jason

It's maple plywood. I had some left over from building my machine so I've been using if for all my tests.