Cutty Shark I

[LeeWay]

Originally Posted by CanSir LeeWay, how much would you charge to make up one of those router holders for me? I love the quick release design!

Cansir, I'm really not setup to do that stuff yet. I can mill thin aluminum with the router, but I wouldn't want to try thick stuff. I did make a one off the old fashioned way. Lots of work. It does, however work extremely well. I'll bet there are guys on here with a CNC'ed mill that will make it for you. I am in the process of converting my mill and if I were done, I'd gladly make it for you. All I really used was a bandsaw and an edge belt sander to get the profile. Drilling them was the easy part.


Viper, you take after my own heart. I like seeing pics too.
Here is a link to a photo.
http://www.leestyron.com/cnc/big1.jpg


Here is a video clip that is rather large. Just to hear the steppers. These are running at 60 IPM. Don't even click the link if you are on dialup. It's a flash file and took me about 20 seconds on DSL.

http://www.leestyron.com/cnc/cuttyshark.swf



I have another photo's of the parts for my mill that I won on Ebay. I am liking these.

http://www.leestyron.com/cnc/millpics/slide4.jpg

[CanSir]

Originally Posted by LeeWay Cansir, I'm really not setup to do that stuff yet. I can mill thin aluminum with the router, but I wouldn't want to try thick stuff. I did make a one off the old fashioned way. Lots of work. It does, however work extremely well. I'll bet there are guys on here with a CNC'ed mill that will make it for you. I am in the process of converting my mill and if I were done, I'd gladly make it for you. All I really used was a bandsaw and an edge belt sander to get the profile. Drilling them was the easy part.

Well, I have a bandsaw and a belt sander so I guess I'll go down the "lot's of hard work road" once again. So where can a person buy the cam-clamp thingies (y'know - the blue lever do-hickies in your photo's) ?

Cheers!

[LeeWay]

I get these cam clamps from Rockler. They are available elsewhere also. They have two sizes. I used the 5/16" on the router mount.

[CanSir]

Thanks for the link LeeWay! Much appreciated!

[LeeWay]

A little more progress.

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showth...873#post170873

[LeeWay]

Okay, Guys.
I have had to use a belt drive on the x axis after I found out that the little Lovejoy coupling just wasn't beefy enough and also allowed too much backlash. The belt and geras are because once I installed a solid coupler I made of brass, I had some issues with the motor alignment to the screw. I turned these screws myself and they aere not perfect. Belt and cogs should take care of this issue and let me speed it back up some.
The pulleys I got are 14 teeth on the motor side and 21 teeth on the screw side. Isn't this a 1 to 1.5 ratio?
I currently have the motor set to 8000 steps per inch. Would the new configuration be like 12,000 SPI? It just can't be that simple can it?

[LeeWay]

To answer my own question, yes, it is that simple. That is the right amount of steps for the gears I used and the ratio of 1 to 1.5.

[LeeWay]

Thought you might be interested in an upgrade I was forced to make this past week. I was having some computer issues with the case I built. I have had another complete drive system sitting here waiting until I get time to finish my plasma cutter. You can see that thread here.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34626
Here is an image of the basic machine controller and a closeup of the Gecko's.




Anyway.
I was really amazed at the difference between the two control systems. I was getting 50 IPM with the Xylotex and I can go over 300 IPM with the Gecko's. Wow! What a difference. 28VDC with the Xylotex and 62vdc with the Gecko 201's. These are direct drive.

I bought three 203v's yesterday as a backup. I did figure out what was messing me up on the first computer. It was a bad ram chip. I replaced the bad one and it is good to go now as well. After seeing the gecko's in action, I am probably going to sell the original as a plug and play setup. Computer, PS, Xylotex 3 axis driver, fans, case, motors and all wiring. The ram chip is the only thing that has ever failed on it the way it is setup, so I am pretty confident that it would make a good starter system for someone and save quite a bit of time and frustration. You may eventually see it on Ebay. If someone here is interested, just make an offer.

[LeeWay]

A little video update. Had the video for a little while now, but just finally uploaded it to YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzrzBXLWaz8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzrzBXLWaz8

[LeeWay]

I can't seem to edit the last post. That video link went dead.
Here is the new link.