New machine on line

[rippersoft]

I just got my machine on line and tested the driver, motors, and powersupply. What a hoot to be able to play with the new toy.

I am using TurboCNC on a P3 500mhz machine. Runs very well. The driver is a 3 axis HobbyCNC board driving an odd collection of unipolar motors. The axis are set to 1/4 step.

I am using a 70oz on the Z axis, a 100oz on the X axis and a 113 oz on the Y axis. The drive screws are 3/8x16TPI and have run the nuts up and down the length several times to smooth the screws out.

I have decided to use Dremel's Advantage mototool. This is about equal to a 1HP router and can mount 1/4" router bits with a collet. The speed is adjustable and it has plenty of torque.

The gantry of the unit is fixed with a sliding table. The router moves along on drawer slides set at 90 degrees to each other and the table rides on gaspipe and bearings. I wanted to experiment with as many different ideas as possible.

The "ballnut" is borrowed from a foam cutter design I saw last year where the nuts were held in surgical tubing to give a twist and prevent binding. One nut on either side of the mount. I up'd this by using garden hose and putting some PVC tubing in between the nuts so that the mount can bite into the tubing and hold it in place.

I have jogged the motors at high speed and there seems to be no binding yet. Nuts and screw rods are well greased and broke in prior to initial use.

I would like to say that Dave Rigotti (HobbyCNC) makes a really good product and TurboCNC is really a good product as well.

You will see by the pictures that the machine is constructed from aborted attempts at a gantry and the base of the unit is a pallet. I have named the machine "Butt Ugly Router".

[Jason Marsha]

I like the innovative use of materials. What was the approximate cost minus electronics?
Send us some pics of your cutting results.

Jason

[CNCRob]

Originally Posted by Jason Marsha I like the innovative use of materials. What was the approximate cost minus electronics? Send us some pics of your cutting results. Jason

I do also

[joecnc2006]

Good Job, of the Parts on hand, Yes i have to agree the HobbyCNC board is a good one, I have two of them now just got the 3axis kit with power suplly parts, 200oz motors, and controllor board, I will be building a new machine just like my present one, except in HDPE, and able to run two at once.

Just wondering what did you use to fill the pipe rails? (wood dowels) and did you notice any improvement? I use 1" rails on my X Axis and works great.

Joe

[rippersoft]

Thanks for the posts about the machine. I think that the overall cost is less than $50 not including the electronics. Most of the wood is scrap and the pallet was free.

The gas pipe is mounted to the pallet using decking screws that bite into wood dowels inside the pipe. Most of the pipe is on the pallet so I think that flexing is not an issue. The table is pretty light weight and should not create a problem.

The center of pressue created by the router will always be at the centerline of the gaspipes. Extending beyond the edge of the pallet allows a larger table and movement.

I hope to have some cuttings soon and pics too. I want to get some detailed pics of the drive nuts to show how simple they are.

All of this will help me make decisions about the next machine which is a DIY wood lathe and will have a router for CNC operations. The frame is built and most of the parts are on-hand.

[joecnc2006]

Ok, so the dowels inide the pipes are only, for mounting.

Joe

[rippersoft]

Yup. The fit is really good, so there is no movement of the pipes.

[rippersoft]

I did test cuttings this weekend using DeskEngrave to produce the gcode file. I did some adjustments to Deskengrave parameters first.

I set the decimals to 4 and the precision to 16. This produced more code lines and also increased the accuracy. There were no jagged lines. Later cuts were set at precision of 24 which produced very smooth cuts.

The more gcode lines added, the longer it takes. So it is a tradeoff as to what you want. Here are pics of the first test cuts.