Bought parts for my machine

[eternauta3k]

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[eternauta3k]

I won 3 ballscrews and 2 linear guides on ebay. I'm working on learning the software to design the machine.
Also, my dad bought a very cheap xy positioner with steppers.

ballscrewpro rocks!

[eternauta3k]

Ok, I now have 3 ballscrews, 3 pairs of linear guides and 6 steppers (although I'm only using 3 for this). What I'm missing:

• Software
• Aluminum extrusions & other parts of the frame
• Controller boards (building them at the moment)
• Power supplie(s) (building them at the moment)
• Router

BTW, I'm reading the whole DIY routers forum to see what I may learn :P

[eternauta3k]

Here is a simple 3d drawing (not to scale) of how I could do the gantry. Heavily based on balsaman's and beezer's routers.
Hint: the long prisms are extrusions, and the cylinder a ballscrew. The blocks on its ends came with it and I'd rather not take them apart. The red thingies are rails.
Suggestions? (besides getting some real cad software

Edit: about the colors, I can't figure them out in blender so I couldn't colour things correctly.

[eternauta3k]

Today arrived:
2 Iko rails
1 DEL-TRON slide
2 Thomson ball bushings (not for this machine)
6 steppers (nema 23 95oz.in)

Rails and slide are smoooth (specially when pressing down on them)


I'm working on a serious CAD drawing of the gantry.

[buscht]

It looks like you are doing a good job.
Keep it up.
Trent

[jeffs555]

Are you planning a moving gantry, or a moving table under the gantry? Either way, you will need more cross bracing on your gantry. Like it is shown, you will get a lot of side to side deflection. A rectangular flat plate bolted to the back of the gantry, and to both top extrusions would help a lot. What are you making the side plates for the gantry from?

[eternauta3k]

Moving gantry, planning to do it in aluminum (but I'm open to suggestions). A back plate would be great, because I could use it to stiffen it up as you said, and mount the ballscrew (you can see in my picture that it comes with 2 big bearing blocks).
Still, I'm stuck at what be a dumb question: how much clearance between gantry and table? The linear guide I'm planning to use limits me to 16", but I expect to make it shorter so it's rigid. What do you suggest? Thickest thing I'll mill will probably be 2/3 inches. I'd also like a 4th axis later on.

Edit: Another question: how much separation between the Y rails?

[eternauta3k]

Serious cad might take a while because I don't know the part number for the ballscrew support blocks. Therefore, I can't download the 3d drawing. However, I hope things to arrive soon.
I'm looking for national extrusions like the ones made by Bosch. I'm not sure wheter www.micro.com.ar 's are national but, if they are those peu bought, they seem waaaaaay expensive.
I want to design it so there is a minimum of parts to custom order or make (for example bolting rails directly to extrusions if it's accurate enough). My rails are aprox. 20mm longer than my ballscrews, so that's how deep I plan to make my gantry.
I found an interesting design somewhere which made the Y-axis adjustable in height. That would let me make Z-travel depend solely on the depth on my cuts (rather than depend on bit length, 4th axis, etc.)
I've got to lift my ass and go get the wood for JGRO cut... someday

[eternauta3k]

The project's not dead (yet )
I've decided to stop struggling and use what most people seem to use: solidworks.
While I look for a place to buy it (and for the loong time it'll get to finish the design) I'm finishing the stepper controller boards. One is finished and two are almost done, but all of them miss the 3977, which I haven't ordered yet. It's nice to finish the day feeling you actually did something
Will ruber tube couplings do for a machine with the precision I'm shooting for?
Finally, I hope having

• the extrusions face planed (whatever it's called)
• the plates machined
• any last minute buys

wont cost much... At least the cost of this project commited me to finish it (specially because I'm not the one paying )

As a side note, my dad is considering buying a lathe for work. I'd like to have a manual XY positioner and machine stuff myself. I guess I could put handles on the one bought in ebay ($120 for a XY positioner with ballscrews, linear guides and steppers )

[vacpress]

You can download demo version of many good MCAD 3D CAD programs...
Most are full versions, including save, for 30 days... So you can do the stuff you need...

Software Worth Learningchoose one, just learn it and use it as a tool)

Solidworks (this is what i use..)
ProE
Alibre Design
Catia
Etc.

Any of these would work. And i am not advocating stealing software, but i think i heard somewhere that alot of commercial CAD software can be gotten with bit torrent and a fast internet connection...

[eternauta3k]

Yup, I'm going with solidworks. I guess that it should do both for designing the machine and for making parts (then I can use ace converter and turboCNC, which I believe are free).
I better start learning solidworks.

Edit: TurboCNC is shareware without limitations, but for practical purposes it's the same.