Norwegian MDF router - Proto-M

[Mick40]

Nice job Clever way to turn down the screw, will remember that!

[mcentric]

Thanks guys!

I got X and Y up and running today. Still quite a bit of tweaking needed in Mach3 but I'm getting there. There is enough whipping in the Y axis to cause the whole machine to vibrate when jogging at around 65ipm (1650mm/min). I have an idea of how to at least partially solve this, but I'll get back to that. More info to come.

Mikael

[mcentric]

I'm working on a more thorough post about the status of my build, but I haven't really had time to work on it lately. This weekend also brought a major setback in that I managed to kill two computers while beeing hooked up to my controller box.

On friday I had a really good session of tuning and running a few g-codes with a dremel mounted. Saturday I come back and my dedicated CNC computer is completely dead. After some measuring I come to the conclusion that the power supply is fried. It's an old pc so I didn't really have a problem with that. I get my other computer with mach3 installed and I hook it up. Everything works perfectly and I run the router for a couple of hours. Come back on Sunday and this computer also refuses to come to life!! The only common denominator is the HCNCPRO board and it's power supply (in fairness to HobbyCNC I have not used the recommended power supply, but instead a regulated one I ordered on eBay). I don't have any sort of optoisolation between the board and my computers as I got the sense that this really wasn't necessary.

As of now I really don't have any idea what killed my computers, but I hope a bit more searching tonight will hopefully find the culprit. In the meantime I'm considering ordering the C1 break out board from CNC4PC with optoisolation. Anyone have any experiences with this?

On a brighter note: Before computer death and destruction set in I got my machine tuned well enough that, at least according to Mach3, I was rapiding comfortably at around 3000mm/min (118ipm). I haven't gotten to testing my cutting speeds yet for obvious reasons

Here is a short clip of my machine drawing a few shapes:

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1wHQxPmNPY"]YouTube - Proto-M CNC router - test run

[CarveOne]

That machine's looking good mcentric!

If you don't have one on it yet, add a surge protection power strip to run the computer and controller board just in case it's a line voltage surge problem.
Congratulations on a successful build,

CarveOne

[mcentric]

That machine's looking good mcentric!

If you don't have one on it yet, add a surge protection power strip to run the computer and controller board just in case it's a line voltage surge problem.
Congratulations on a successful build,

CarveOne

Thanks CarveOne! Disregarding this weekends costly failures, I'm very pleased with the outcome of the router itself.

Great tip about the surge protection! I actually think I have one lying around somewhere, but I didn't think about using it here. The problem though is that on each of the occasions that the computers fried my procedure was:
1. shut down the computer
2. turn of the power to the HCNCPRO board
3. unplug all of the power leads

The next day when I came to turn it back on the computers were dead. So my guess is that something has spiked in the printerport connection on the HCNCPRO board when its power supply was shut off, and that this has fried my PC motherboard. Obviously I could be mistaken and the computer failures could be completely random... though it seems a little unlikely. I have run all the electronics in exactly this way several times before without incident, so honestly I am a bit stumped.

Mikael

[CarveOne]

Thanks CarveOne! Disregarding this weekends costly failures, I'm very pleased with the outcome of the router itself.

Great tip about the surge protection! I actually think I have one lying around somewhere, but I didn't think about using it here. The problem though is that on each of the occasions that the computers fried my procedure was:
1. shut down the computer
2. turn of the power to the HCNCPRO board
3. unplug all of the power leads

The next day when I came to turn it back on the computers were dead. So my guess is that something has spiked in the printerport connection on the HCNCPRO board when its power supply was shut off, and that this has fried my PC motherboard. Obviously I could be mistaken and the computer failures could be completely random... though it seems a little unlikely. I have run all the electronics in exactly this way several times before without incident, so honestly I am a bit stumped.

Mikael

I always turn off the ac to my Xylotex controller's power supply before I shut down the computer. The computer and the Xylotex power supply are connected to a surge protected power strip. This prevents having ground loops by keeping the ground paths localized to the power strip and relatively short. The power strip plugs into a wall outlet. The parallel port in my computer and the Xylotex controller are not buffered or opto-isolated.

You may be back-powering the parallel port interface device with a damaging voltage from the HCNCPRO board when the computer is powered off first. Maybe, maybe not.

CarveOne

[mcentric]

I feel a little stupid as it would appear that I over dramatized the situation. After the last computer died yesterday I took them both into the house from my workshop. When I started looking for possible causes this afternoon they had been inside for 24 hours, and more importantly........ dried up! It didn't occur to me before now that the extremely wet weather we've been having had raised the humidity in my workshop much too high for the computers. Obviously my router can't be loving the humidity, but there isn't really anything I can do about that other than put on a heater, turn up the ventilation, and hope for the best. Luckily my computers are still alive and now I can get back to cutting

Mikael

[mcentric]

Thanks for the feedback CarveOne. I'm defintely taking your advice on the surge protection strips. Luckily it would appear that my problems are not electrical, ie. not fixable by hammer so I'll hopefully get back to fine tuning tomorrow.

Mikael

[mcentric]

It's been a good while since I updated this thread unfortunately, but a viral infection put me out of commission for almost a month. Back now though and ready to start cutting!
I've added a picture of what my cnc workstation looks like in my little workshop. Please disregard the slightly "un-finished" wall in the back

I also added a picture of a sign I made for my son's bedroom door. It's a bit rough, but I'll sand that down by hand. I learned a bunch about generating toolpaths from this one project, and I'm positive if I was going to cut this again I could reduce machining time by at least a third.

A few things that I need to address:
1. I definitely need to box in my X carriage with some sideplates as I had originally intended to. It is by far the weakest structure on the machine as it flexes way to much. The rest of the gantry and the main table are very rigid
2. None of the bolts or other fasteners are loctited. I'm wondering if I should go over the entire machine, removing one at a time, and apply some loctite. I really can't see any scenario where my machine WON'T vibrate itself to bits if I don't do it.
3. I need to reduce the whipping of my X and Y leadscrews. It's not extremely bad, but I'm sure that if I could dampen it a little and maybe lubricate the screws I could rapid consistently at 150IPM without stalling. Now I can do about 120IPM but I worry about occasional stalls, so I have it set at 80IPM just to be sure. Anybody know if I shouldn't lubricate the leadscrews with for example automotive grease when using Dumster CNC's plastic AB nuts? Don't want them dissolving on me

This weekend I will definitely shot some video so I can show the machine in action!

Mikael

[CarveOne]

Grease will collect dust and turn into a goo. It's ok to use some spray on "dry" lubricant of the kind used on garage door tracks. It goes on wet and then dries to a thin film. Any excess will get cleaned off by the "fingers" of the Dumpster nuts and will look like a soft wax. Delrin is impervious to most of this kind of lubricant.

Nice looking sign.

CarveOne

[mcentric]

Thanks for the comment CarveOne!
I have some PFTE/Teflon spray that should work like you mentioned. I'll try that. Now I need to get to work on my leadscrew damper.
Mikael

[CarveOne]

Thanks for the comment CarveOne!
I have some PFTE/Teflon spray that should work like you mentioned. I'll try that. Now I need to get to work on my leadscrew damper.
Mikael

I have a can of it made by Dow (or Dupont, I forget which) and a can of the garage door lubricant that I don't remember who makes it, but there are many suppliers of it out there. PFTE/Teflon spray is what I was alluding to. Temporarily put some cardboard behind the screws, if you can, to keep from spraying everything that doesn't need it.

CarveOne