My Solsylva Belt Drive Machine

[Hyrum R]

I figured I ought to start posting some of my progress with my new CNC router I'm building. I had at first built a Solsylva 25x37 leadscrew table, and it was a great learning experience. I started building this new belt-drive table several months ago, but only got really serious about it the last month or so (work has slowed down for us being the main reason.) The leadscrew table, while great fun, had a few challenges, so I just dismantled it (mainly for the motors) and I'm recycling a lot of the bearings, etc. into this new table.

I've expanded the Y-axis on this build to be 48" wide, so the overall table size is 4' x 6'. That leaves me a cutting area of approximately 39" x 64". As you can see, I decided that building a steel table would be much more appropriate than wood. I had my cousin weld the table together, since I don't have much welding experience yet. Then I decided that with all that work and money spent in the steel for the table, it deserved to be powder-coated. Blue seemed good, and it reminded me of ShopBot. And apparently the camera got some dust in the lense.

The table itself: (My buddy had this grand idea of using his lathe to polish the black gas pipe. )


And the gantry set on the table:



And the Z-Carriage loosely placed on the gantry:


I still have lots of work to do on it, but I'm more than excited about getting it running. I finally pulled the trigger and bought me the Gecko G540 for the drives. I'm going to see how it works with the Xylotex 269 oz.in. motors, but I may be upgrading those shortly (as in, when I get some more money ) I've already blown 2 Xylotex boards, so I figured the extra money on the G540 was well spent, especially for someone like me -- much to learn I still have about electronics.

I just can't wait to start cutting with it. I'm sure you guys have felt the jitters as well, where you can see your machine getting so close to actually moving on its own....

[diecutter]

"Well begun is half done". Looks like you are well on your way to having a sturdy machine that will hold up well. Keep us posted.

[CarveOne]

Very nice work so far. I was very interested in building a modified version of the Solsylva belt drive machine but have gone off in another direction for my second machine build. I'll be watching your build with much interest.

CarveOne

[Hyrum R]

I decided I had better come in from the shop before I get any more tired and do any stupid stuff (it's just after 11 p.m. here.) I was trying to get the bearings on the gantry and have it rolling along the rails, but I didn't quite get that far today. After forgetting to put the bearing brackets in, then putting all the bolts in backwards, I then realized that since I bolted my rails directly to the angle iron supports instead of using aluminum channel like the plans show, I will have to cut down the size of my gantry end plates by about a half inch so the bearings will even touch the rails.

I'd better just go to bed. I'll post some more pictures after I've corrected all my mistakes.

[Hyrum R]

Finally some success! I have the gantry attached to the rails now. And I also found out that you really do need the aluminum channel for the rails to sit on top of. Otherwise, there's almost no way to have enough clearance for the bearings and bolts. I'm just one step closer now. I'm hoping that tomorrow I can get all the belts attached and basically have the table itself finished.

I'm waiting right now for some shielded wire to come so that I can get it all hooked up. Other than that and digging up an old computer, I think I've got everything I need. I can't wait to start making sawdust!

[pipertom]

Looks good!
It's a lot of fun just building the darn things let alone running them.
I'm thinking about building Solsylva's new 24 x 48 Rack and Pinion Machine.

Enjoy the build!

Tom

[Hyrum R]

Even more progress tonight. I got the X belts installed, and the gantry is now rock solid. I really need to get my camera out there and take some more pictures. I really think I can have this thing moving around by Saturday. That's my goal anyway. Tomorrow I need to get the belts installed for the Y and Z axes and then get the motors mounted. If I'm lucky, my shielded wire I bought off eBay will arrive, and I might even have enough time to start hooking up the motors.

Fun, fun fun! This stuff is very addictive.

[Karlf]

I have been planning to build an enlarged version of this router.

In the instructions, it says that if the machine is made larger, then larger belts needs to be used.

Can you explain how you handled this? I'm particularly curious about beefing up the machine it's self and the size of the belts used.

I'm kicking around the idea of using steel for many of the parts instead of aluminium.

[Hyrum R]

Holy smokes!! I just had to hook up the X-axis motor and see how fast I can jog the thing. It goes over 850 IPM without any trouble at all. I've REALLY got to get some limit switches now. It could probably go faster, but that's all the faster I can get Mach3 to give me with my 4:1 gear ratio. And this is just with my little Xylotex 269 oz.in. motors. But of course, I'm running them with the G540 with a 48V power supply.

I wasn't thinking when I ordered my belts and I ordered the one for the Y axis 12 inches too short. I'm making the Y axis 12" longer than the plans show, but I didn't think to add 2' to the belt length since the Y wraps all the way around the gantry. I probably won't actually be cutting anything until Tuesday at best.

Karl,
The only thing I enlarged was the Y axis by 12". So I'm using a 48" wide gantry instead of 36". The belts I'm using don't seem to be having any problem at all yet. I guess I'll have to see how they hold up after lots of use.

I promise I'll be getting some pictures and possibly even a video soon.

Edit: Forgot to say: If anyone's planning on building this and wants some better belt idlers for the X belts, my nephew has a bunch of scraps of plastic that he lathed me some out of. The electrical PVC pipe idea didn't work too well for me. If anyone's interested, I think he'd be glad to build a few sets for a reasonable price.

[harryn]

Hi - when you have a chance to post some pictures, I am particularly interested in details of the shaft material and size, timing belt pulley attachment, and bearing setup.

Thanks

Harry

[Crevice Reamer]

You've done some nice work. Good Job!

Holy smokes!! I just had to hook up the X-axis motor and see how fast I can jog the thing. It goes over 850 IPM without any trouble at all. I've REALLY got to get some limit switches now. It could probably go faster, but that's all the faster I can get Mach3 to give me with my 4:1 gear ratio. And this is just with my little Xylotex 269 oz.in. motors. But of course, I'm running them with the G540 with a 48V power supply.

The 269 motors have best voltage of 60V, so are very well suited to 48V and will have power up to very high RPMs. These "little" motors are actually probably the BEST you could use. The 425's may be slightly more powerful at low speeds, but since they are 90V motors, would not give you anywhere near that rapid performance.

Here's a good deal on Home/Limit switches:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...%3D4%26ps%3D42

You will also need an estop switch. This one from Keling only costs 10 bucks and works fine:

http://kelinginc.net/CNCPackage.html

CR.

[Hyrum R]

I've been trying for over half an hour to upload some pictures, but something's wrong with my internet. I can't seem to upload even the smallest file right now.

Anyway, it is now cutting and doing a pretty good job at it, too. Right now, I'm just using clamps or double sided tape to hold the parts down, but I'm going to be building a vacuum table. I plan on cutting some fairly large parts, so I figure vacuum is the way to go there. I can add a little double stick tape for the small parts if needed.

For those of you who are building this, beware of buying the 3/8" aluminum rod from onlinemetals. I don't know if it was just a defective batch or what, but the stuff was oversized about .007 inches, so it wouldn't fit through the bore in the bearings or pulleys. I wasn't going to let that stop me, so I took it to the edge sander and sanded it down the best I could to get it to work. However, this left a bit of slop in the X axis which I was able to correct after I went to the local hardware store and just bought a 3/8" steel rod. Now the X axis is very stiff and the only chatter I can notice is from bit deflection, not the table.

I still need to surface the table, but I figure I'll just do that to my spoilboard once I get the vacuum table built. I also need to redo how the router wire goes. If I send the Y too far to the right, it can get caught over the pipe and cause some disastrous results.

I'm also going to rebuild the whole Z carriage using a leadscrew. The belt drive is working ok, but if the driver board loses power, the router drops down. Another reason to do it is that with the router mount I'm using, I am losing about 2.5" of Z travel. I'm thinking of just building it out with a piece of aluminum or some plastic I've got sitting around. This should make it able to clear the bearings.

Lots and lots of progress, but still lots to do. I don't know if it will ever be done. I keep thinking of more and more ways to improve it. The first order of business now is to actually install the limit switches I bought. (Thanks Crevice Reamer for the link.)

I am also using a solid state relay to control the router. I don't know why, but I can't get it to work through the G540 board. I get voltage on the parallel port pin, but I can't get it through the board. So, not being one to let anything get in my way, I just soldered a wire directly to pin 1 of the parallel port.

Wow! I didn't mean to make this post so long. Enjoy the pictures (when I can get them to post), and I'll be getting the videos up shortly.