Jayson's #2 Machine

[Jayson]

Well here we go. About 6 years ago my first machine was completed and I have been planning my second machine for about just as long. Like many here all ideas are my own and none have been taken from other places The design of this one was governed by the steppers that I have on hand. This may be a long process as I am not renowned for getting things done in a hurry but we will see how we go. Here are a few pictures to start off. The first is an overview of what I hope the machine will look like and the second is of the motors that I will use on it.

That’s it for now.

Jayson.

[Jayson]

Well I got a pile of 6mm aluminium plate cut up along with a heap of MDF on a friends table saw. I used the principal that aluminium is softer than some hardwoods, so the table saw should cut it just fine. This was the case. The plan is to make each part from MDF first to make sure everything is ok and then proceed to the aluminium. For the rails I have decided to use flat cold rolled steel with bearings running on the flat surfaces. The 2 top bearings will be on plain straight shafts and the 2 bottom ones will be on cams so that they can be adjusted to allow for inconsistencies in the flat bar and or workmanship. The 2 bearings on the side will have plain shafts on one side of the gantry and cams on the other side. This will allow adjustment sideways also. I will require 6 bearings per slide and there will be 4 slides of this type on the machine. This will result in 12 plain bearing shafts and 12 cams. I guess I will learn how to use my new lathe better by the end of this project. That’s it for now.

Jayson.

[hugo carradini]

Got my attention.
Wish success and keep posting.
Hugo Carradini

[blfuller123]

Yes, the table saw will cut aluminun. I cut some for the first time today. I was really pretty nervous about doing it, but I didnt have any problems. Keep posting progress.

-Brett

[txcowdog]

Are your steppers gearhead motors? It looks like the left end has a pulley offset an inch or so.

[Jayson]

Hi again,

txcowdog, yes the steppers are gearhead. The shaft is offset by 1/4 of an inch. These steppers are only 1 inch square by 2 1/2 inches long in the body. The specs state 0.072 degrees per step so I imagine that it must be a 10:1 reduction on the output shaft. There is a small amount of backlash due to the gearbox but I'm not going to worry about that until I am closer to completion. With such a fine resolution in the stepper this thing may take a week to traverse the 500 mm from one end to the other, but we will see.

I have made a little more progress. I have machined all the bearing shafts to roughly the same dimensions and also done a test cut of the first slide in MDF. The shafts fit the MDF part just fine but the aluminium ones may be a different story. The slides are going to be 12 mm thick but since I only have 6 mm plate I will have to cut out twice as many and bolt 2 together for each slide. I have taken a light cut on each side of the slide that will hopefully give me 2 parallel edges for aligning things. Next thing to try is a slide in aluminium, this could get interesting. I love working with aluminium in my other router but I don't really have much to show for it except lots of chips.

On well back to the nice cool shed, its only 33 degrees Celsius here today so its still cool enough to work.

'Till next time,

Jayson

[Jayson]

Well got a little more done today. Managed to start on the aluminium slides and they machined great. I machined them by placing a piece of Perspex in the router and making a pocket the same size as the aluminium pieces. I then super glued the aluminium to the Perspex and machine them. This is the way that I do most of the machining on my router. It is the one way that I know things should be in the right location. I still have to bolt these together and drill the other 2 holes for the remaining 2 bearings. I am going to do this with a friends milling machine when I get the chance.
I also got the 2 end plates machined today. I am glad that I have decided to machine the MDF parts first as my toolpaths had errors in them. Once I fixed that and tried a second time everything seemed fine. I didn't run the drill cycle on the second test run as I knew that it would be correct Needless to say that when I machined the aluminium and ran the drill cycle, some of the holes were in the wrong place. Lesson learned, if doing a test, test everything to avoid little surprises! Easy enough to fix as I just manually drilled the holes in the correct place but it was annoying.
Stay tuned, more to come

Jayson

[Jayson]

Made up the x rails today. Wasn't all that much to do, just make up 26 nuts to fit the extrusion, drill a few holes then bolt it all together. The rails were then bolted to the end plates made previously which basically completed the base. I also went around to my friends place and drilled the extra holes in the slides. I still have to drill a few holes for grub screws but so far things are looking great. I will post some pics of the slides hopefully tomorrow if I get the chance.

Jayson.

[Mike F]

I trust you will be taking a break on 25th so that Santa can deliver that all singing, all dancing spindle you've always wanted? LOL

Mike

[Jayson]

Hi Mike,

I'm not sure that Santa knows where I live... but I will take the 25th off anyway (just in case he does )

I managed to get a couple of photos done of one of the slides today. I still have not completed it but you will get the idea of where I am trying to go with it. This thing is so smooth... I am extremely happy with the results so far.
I also made the gantry sides today. The one that is made from MDF keys in perfectly with the slide made from MDF. The aluminium ones are a tight fit and could do with a little releaving, but this should only take a couple of wipes with a file or dare I say a Dremel. I placed the sides onto the sides or the slides onto the sides??? and took a picture for you all. Still a long way to go but its slowly taking shape.

As Mike has suggested I will take a day or two off but after that I will have another burst of energy and post some more updates.
Merry Christmas to all and a safe holiday season.

Jayson.

[Jayson]

Well Christmas is over for another year. Santa did not find me once again maybe it has something to do with the naughty or nice clause. I will have to work on that for next year.

Didn't get a whole lot done today but still made a little progress. I machined the Y rail support in MDF and Aluminium and also drilled plus tapped the Y rails. It is taking twice as long to do everything by making the MDF and aluminium parts and since I have not had any further problems with my toolpaths I may forgo the MDF parts in the future.
Like the x axis rails the Y rails also uses 5mm cold rolled steel. I am very pleased with the accuracy of this steel. I thought that I may need to invest in ground flat bar but after initial testing I'm certain that this will not be necessary.
Here are a few more pics.

Jayson.

[Jayson]

I managed to get the lower gantry brace machined out today. This simple part took over 40 minutes to machine. I was taking cuts of .25 mm with a 3mm end mill at a rate of 500mm/min and using kerosene as a cutting fluid. I am not sure what the speed of the router was, I will have to put the tacho on it and test it, but I would think it was somewhere around 14,000 rpm. It is set just a tad above minimum.
I have only just started using kero as a cutting fluid, before this I cut everything dry. I thought I was getting reasonably good results until I tried the kero. There is simply no comparison. The cuts are wonderful and the parts are far more accurate than previously.
While ratting around in the shed I found part of an old photographic machine that I had stashed away thinking "I might need that one day” well today is that day. There are 2 small linear bearings on this assembly that I think should work well for the Z axis. They use 8mm rod which by chance is the size I had designed for. I was going to just make up some 8 mm bushes but the bearings will be far better.
I hope people are enjoying reading this at least half as much as I am building it.

'Till next time,

Jayson