LC50B , my first CNC router

[arrio]

I do have a few dead gell-cell batteries. But did not have them at the build location. I forgot about them anyway. Will have to remember that next time.

Couple more hours this morning yeilded some light sanding on the table and its first coat of Clear. the wood darkened up niceley. looks a lot like Luan wood instead of Birch. It has a redish glow to it. Still looks nice though.
Also glued up the the stepper motor stand-offs. Will sand and clear finish them tomorrow.

[BobF]

arrio,
Nice looking build.
I use titebond III for all my woodworking now. I like it better than any of the alternatives.
I have used the iron on technique that carveone mentions to apply veneer. Works well. I used titebond I for that.

[arrio]

Things are getting close to being able to assemble the whole machine. This last bit of painting and I can set up the mechanics. Though, It will take a few days to get through this painting sequence. One coat per day per side. I have one coat on the bottom and two on the top right now. Three to four coats is what it will get, and of coarse razor scraping and sanding in between coats. The sanding takes longer than the painting.
I bought a computer system for the Router on eBay the other day. Its a 3.2 Ghz P4, Dell Optiplex GX620, small format system. Got the whole system, 19" monitor, keyboard, mouse etc for $321 shipped.

Going to have to start thinking about a dust collection system. Several options out there to concider.

[arrio]

BobF, thanks for the feedback. I appreciate the comments.

Moving along on the build. The table is finished with painting, and the tube rails mounted. I have meant to take some pics this morning, but forgot to bring my camera again. Thankfully Gene was taking some pics of his own stuff and snapped a shot of the installed gantry/table.
I'm having some difficulty similar to the issue with the gantry Y axis drive screw/nut alignment. Its like the the parts were drawn in Cad but perhaps a later revision was not fully accounted for in the bearing rack offset. The mounting provisions for the Dumpster nut is off to one side by about 3/16". nearly the depth amount of the grooves that the bearings Alu angle stock rests in to maintain alignment. I'll have to either shim out the the bearing racks or re-do the dumpster nut mount holes. I know, pics would great here, but I'll get some during my next session.

Alfred

[arrio]

Well, The router structure is about done. What I have left to do now is install the motors and controller.

A couple pics here of the assembled machine, less electronics. and a couple pics of the gantry and table bearing assemblies. I had to make provisions to move the gantry over a bit to get the acme scews to align with the predrilled holes in the table. You can see the gantry Z-box is not aligned very well on the acme rod. But it just clears the hole and new mount holes were made for the Dumpster nuts.

Now working on wireing up the motors with connectors and assembling the controller box.

[CarveOne]

It's looking very good arrio. You're going to have fun with that machine.

CarveOne

[arrio]

Thanks CarveOne, I'm looking forward to cutting out lots of radio control stuff.

Just a little update. I've had some health issues that took me away from the project for a while. Feeling a lot better now, so its back on.
Finally got all the electronics installed and functioning. Using Mach-3 and Vcarve Pro5. Still sorting out the programs though. Just have the steppers jogging manually so far.
Had an incident which burned up my cnc controller and Computer. One of the connectors for the stepper motors had the wire positioned incorectly and the 34v stepper power was fed back into the computer. We smelled smoke eminating from the back of the computer and quickly shut down the system. But it was too late. A check with a multimeter at the parallel port found the 34v pin.
I had another cnc board from a mini mill project with its computer, to finish testing the system, after correcting the cable connector pin-outs.
I have another computer like the original on the way from eBay at a resonable price. Its the complete computer box less perifials. So I will be ready to run some sample cuts very soon.

Alfred