Marty's Green Machine

[MacMarty]

Hello, all -

It's been over a year since I shared any progress here.

Lots of news today!
a) The Green Machine is up and running (sort of), and has played a role in TWO paying projects! (yay!)
b) I have learned a lot of lessons.
c) I live in Pittsburgh, and the Steelers lost to Green Bay yesterday, not sure if any of you have heard that bit of news. The morning paper said it best: "Seven can Wait".

So, some lessons I have learned.

1) Building a machine around a solid tabletop is a really dumb idea. So far I've routed some slots for t-slot tracks, that gets me part of the way there.

2)Gee, these things are STRONG! Can bend a 5/16 tee=bolt right over! *sigh* Thankfully at a slow feed rate, nothing damaged other than the part I was making. (That's why I make an extra blank.)

3) You may recall that my X-axis guide rails are oriented horizontally. I've also built the gantry so that the Y-axis rail is wider than the table. this allows me to cut any stock that will fit between the goalposts, I mean gantry posts.

The BAD news here is that there is some residual slop in the x axis: with just one centerline X-axis leadscrew, I can yaw the gantry from side to side. It has also proven difficult to get the leadscrew aligned perfectly parallel to the guide rails. Any advice out there? My current inclination is to add a second leadscrew+stepper and slave them to the main. Happily I have Geckodrive G540, so I have that fourth driver available for the slave. Any other advice? (Other than move to Green Bay.)

[cornbinder23]

HEY !!!!!
shouldnt your machine be yellow and black or were you already planning a move to green bay?

Maysbe you could add another set of ahrens linear rails on the inside of the CRS for a total of 4 instead of 2 might make a difference, but it seems slaving 2 steppers is getting to be the standard for larger gantry's


JTCUSTOMS