My Solsylva CNC Router Step-By-Step

[thkoutsidthebox]

Hello all,

There was another Irish guy on the zone once who had a 'Step-By-Step' thread, but he seemingly moved to Alaska, and no-ones heard of him since. So I have decided to continue the 'Step-By-Step' tradition on his behalf!

In this thread there will be copious amounts of photos and undoubtedly CNC-Admin will be tearing his hair out wondering where his bandwidth went....but what ya gonna do, gotta have pictures!

Anyway, I will surely need some help with this at some point, and hopefully it will help someone else at a later stage thinking about the Solsylva plans. It'll be a slow start because Im waiting on parts from the good 'ole US of A, but I'll cover in the next posts where I am at the moment. Good luck to me!

NOTE: All info contained within this thread is my own personal opinion and may not be entirely accurate. ......but I'll do my best.

NOTE 2: I won't post any scans of the Solsylva plans or other material which is Copyrighted or otherwise protected because, well, it'd be wrong. So dont ask and save me the trouble of having to refuse.

[Hyrum R]

Hey, good idea. I got done with my Solsylva router about a month ago, and now I'm either going to build Joe's or the new Solsylva. If shipping isn't too much, I could cut out all the small wood parts for you. I already did this for someone else, so it'd be real easy for me to just lay down some more pieces and tell it to go to work.

Here's a picture of mine and the parts I'm talking about:

[thkoutsidthebox]

Hyrum are you hyjacking my thread to try and earn some cash? Only kidding m8 , the offer is appreciated but my trusty jigsaw and new Bosche drill will hopefully do me good service!

Ok,
So I have to begin somewhere, and some people may not know this info when reading this for the first time, right?

I'll just do a short review of the plans. They are from http://www.solsylva.com/ . When I bought my plans they were $20, and included designs for 3 machines. They are now $40, and now include a design for a fourth larger belt driven machine, which I dont have.

The plans are simple yet comprehensive and even give web links for the sources of some materials. I initially bought the plans unsure if I would build from them or just use them as a referance to help me get my head around the various components of a cnc machine. There seems to be a lot at the start, and Im certainly not one to talk because you could fit my experience on a needle, but the basics are actually not that difficult once you begin.

One point to note is that its probably slightly more difficult for Europeans to build the Solsylva, not only because the plans are in Imperial, but also because its simply more difficult to get parts in Europe. David Steel does include some imperial to metric conversions, but these (Although I could be wrong) seem to be done using a regular calculated conversion, without knowing what measurements parts are readily available at within the EU. Anyway, they are an excellent set of plans for a beginner and I believe they are good value at $40. Only time will really tell how easy/difficult they are to put together for me!

The plans do leave a lot of scope for individualisation. People have built them out of hardwood, softwood, and metal.

Thats basically the review. Good value. Good for a beginner to read in order to understand the concepts even if not to build the machine.

[thkoutsidthebox]

Locally thus far I have bought:

1 @ 8'x4' 3/4" Sheet of MDF. I cut it in half for transport. (Pic1)

1 @ 15' 4"x1" Length of White Deal planed. (Pic2 - 2x4Rough is in the background...if you've never seen 2x4 before I can't help you! )

1 @ 15' 2"x4" Length of White Deal rough.

12' of 3/4" EMT.....I have a confession about this see below.... (Pic3 - I bought 1@8' and 1@4')

Note on White Deal: I was going to buy it all rough and plane it myself but they didn't have any 4x1 rough so thats why I bought the 4x1 planed. No special reason.

Note on EMT: The closest I could get to EMT locally was curtain railing so Im going to try this. It looks the same except more shiny, and more shiny can only be a good thing for my bearings to run on it....right? I couldn't find any 1/2" 'curtain railing' locally so see the next post.

[thkoutsidthebox]

Ok, so among the many joys of being a European is that its much more difficult to get 'stuff'.

I bought the HobbyCNC Pro Package with 200oz/in steppers from the states http://www.hobbycnc.com and its all put together.

Today I went shopping for many pieces from far away.....

I bought a set of 96 Skate bearings from a UK e-bay seller for £48UK including shipping. I know I dont need so many, and I probably should have bought closed ones for the dust when the routers running, but they look cool (Pic 1) , and they were good value (He was going to sell me 41 of a differant bearing for £30). Also, spares wont go astray.

I also bought a variety of bits from McMaster Carr http://www.mcmaster.com/ outlined here:

Line	Part Number	Description	Quantity
1	94400A155	Astm A193 Grade B8M 316 Ss Threaded Rod 5/16"-18 Thread, 6' Length 3 each are expected to ship today.	3 each
2	90264A447	Grade 2 Zinc-Plated Steel Coupling Nut 5/16"-18 Screw Size, 1-3/4" Length, 1/2" Width 12 each are expected to ship today.	12 each
3	7126K11	Thin-Wall Rigid Steel Conduit (emt) 1/2" Trade Size, 0.62" Id, 0.71" Od, 5' Length 1 each is expected to ship today.	1 each
4	6408K122	Flexible Spider Shaft Coupling Hub Hub, 5/16" Bore, 1-23/64" Od, Without Keyway 4 each are expected to ship today.	4 each
5	6408K73	Buna-N Spider For 1-23/64" Outside Diameter Flexible Spider Shaft Coupling Hub 4 each are expected to ship today.	4 each

My McMaster Carr order excluding shipping and all the taxes/import duties I have to look forward to came to $86.42c which I think is great value. Wish I lived in the USA and didn't have to pay more than that!

(Edit: I no-longer bought the McMaster Carr supplies. See Post 12 below.)

I also bought the belt and gears from http://www.sdp-si.com/

I still have to buy an actual router spindle to mount on the machine but theres no rush on that until I have it all built.

I was originally going to go with all Oak for my cnc router, but what I bought was cheap and easy to get, and since this machine is only a precursor to a larger and more permanent model, it should be fine to learn on. How can I learn about backlash if my first machine has none!!

[thkoutsidthebox]

Pic 1 shows (You can just about make it out) the initial marking on the MDF for the parts which I will cut out with my almost new DeWalt jigsaw that needs to see some more use. I have all the MDF parts marked out that I can, because one or two parts require you to measure from what you've already built for accuracy. I also have my 1x4 marked ready to cut. The 2x4 is waiting to be planed before marking.

Pic 2....well pic 2 isn't really relevant......Its my new Bosche 36V SDS Plus drill that SWMBO gave me for Christmas, and I just wanted to show her off! Isn't she nice...I call her 'Bosche'!! My tool purchases are coming along also! (But I will be using it to build the router if that counts.... )


So thats it for now. My McMaster Carr stuff was supposed to ship today. If it does great, but I wont hold my breath for it to ship before early next week with Christmas and all.

Watch this space!

[Al_The_Man]

Originally Posted by thkoutsidthebox .....Its my new DeWalt 36V SDS Plus drill that SWMBO gave me for Christmas, and I just wanted to show it off!

You must have been a good boy

BTW if you are shipping McMaster from the US, have you checked out Misumi? They have an outlet in the UK - No. 1, The Courtyard, 76-78 High Street
Staines, Middlesex TW18 4DP UK MISUMI UK LTD
Tel: +44 (0) 1784 465530
Fax: +44 (0) 1784 466695
Their free catalogue is Huge, it might be cheaper than US shipping.
I know their N.American service is great.
Al.
(Deal is Pine over here).

[thkoutsidthebox]

oops...too much brandy for Christmas!!....its not DeWalt at all.............I edited the offending post.

Misumi...argh!! Now why didn't I know about them already? I have already placed my order with McMaster Carr so its too late, but good to know for next time. Thanks Al. Just Googled them and for reference heres their website: http://www.misumi-europe.com/

Thats strange, over here we have White Deal, and Pine. Two different ones and Pine costs more. Maybe they use the better grained boards and call them Pine, and sell the crappy cheap stuff with the knots as White Deal to the building industry. Or maybe the builders suppliers have been taking the p#$s out of me for years when I went in to get Pine Can anyone clarify this?

[Al_The_Man]

From OED:
In the timber trade, in Great Britain, a deal is understood to be 9 inches wide, not more than 3 inches thick, and at least 6 feet long. If shorter, it is a deal-end; if not more than 7 inches wide, it is a BATTEN. In N. America, the standard deal (to which other sizes are reduced in computation) is 12 feet long, 11 inches wide, and 2 inches thick. By carpenters, deal of half this thickness (1 inches) is called whole deal; of half the latter ( inch) slit deal.

The word was introduced with the importation of sawn boards from some Low German district, and, as these consisted usually of fir or pine, the word was from the first associated with these kinds of wood.
Evidentally in the UK it now can originate from Norway Spruce.
Al.

[thkoutsidthebox]

[Hyrum R]

Haha, not trying to make any money here, just help if anyone wants it.

Looking real good on your progress, and yes, that is one fine Christmas present you have there.

[thkoutsidthebox]

Oh no...I guess the rumours were true after all. I just got this in my e-mail:

"Thank you for your order. Unfortunately, due to the ever-increasing complexity of U.S. Export regulations, McMaster-Carr can no longer accept orders for private individuals outside of the United Statesl. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this causes you.
Please be assured that your credit card has not been charged.
Molly McGrath"

Nice that they have so much business they can afford to refuse business from the entire planet outside the USA. Did they never hear of expansion and Globalisation???? We'll see whose laughing when we're all ordering from China instead and they have to shut up shop!!! ARGGGGG!!!!!


Sorry....had to vent. These are the joys of building cnc systems in Europe.

Guess I gotta check with the other crowd after all....oh well....only delays me by a few days.

PS: No problem Hyrum. I hope the offer still stands for anyone else viewing this thread who might want to take you up on it?