Scrounging

[juzwuz]

Hi! I'm in the reading and scrounging process right now (haven't started building anything yet). I managed to find 4 HP Laserjet II/III printers and got their 100 oz-in stepper motors. I was just wondering if anyone knows what I should be looking for if I wanted larger stepper motors (what brand of printer, copier, etc)?

Also is US $2 / pound for Bosch aluminum extrusion a good price?

Is anybody else in the Seattle area ?

juzwuz

[wizard]

Hi Juzwuz

I'm in scounging mode also. Frankly it is the only way I'm likely to get the majority of this machine.

As to motors do look for pen plotters and similar devices. Old band printers might do the trick also, you are just as likely to find worn out components in the band printers though.

I would have to say the price that you are mentioning for the aluminum might be OK. I don't know as I was lucky enough to scrounge a little bit for some machine ideas I have.

Unfortunately I'm in the Rochester NY area so I cna't help out there.

I'm thinking though that you have a huge opportunity if you are near the Boeing facilities as I though at one time they had a public sales area for used stuff. Of course that is $$$$$ but you neve know what you might find for cheap. At one time they also where associated with DoveBid.

In the city itself you might find one or two electornics "junk" sales organizations. That is places that handle old stock and discontinued stuff. Still a $$$$$ issue but often very good bargains to be found.

The only other option is to get access to industrial junk. That may or may not be a problem.

thanks
Dave

[juzwuz]

Hi Wizard.

I actually work at Boeing and I go to the surplus store every once in a while. My main problem in scrounging is that I often don't really know what to look for and if I found something that looks interesting, I don't usually know if it's a good price or not. One time (when I first got interested in making a CNC router) I went to the store and saw a large tub full of linear guides and blocks (at least 16 guides and lots of blocks) for $200 but I didn't buy them and the next day when I went back to get them, they were already gone. I see the aluminum extrusion for sale there for $2/lb but usually it's pretty dinged up. Other stuff that always looked good are the aluminum plate, plastics, polycarbonate sheets, endmills and just about any kind of drill bit you could every imagine.

I got the old printers from a pc recycling place for $2/printer. Boeing wanted $8/printer.

I'm still wavering between the jgro free router plans or a router using extrusions like the campbell designs. Have you decided on what style of router you are planning on making? Out of curiosity, is Kodak in Rochester a good source of "stuff"?

Thanks!

juzwuz

[wizard]

Hi Wizard.

I actually work at Boeing and I go to the surplus store every once in a while.

Ooh man you got it made!

My main problem in scrounging is that I often don't really know what to look for and if I found something that looks interesting, I don't usually know if it's a good price or not. One time (when I first got interested in making a CNC router) I went to the store and saw a large tub full of linear guides and blocks (at least 16 guides and lots of blocks) for $200 but I didn't buy them and the next day when I went back to get them, they were already gone.

All depends if they are new or used (badly used). If the stuff is at all decent you could always recoup some of your "investment" by selling off the bits you don't want. Generally you want ot find old stock when it comes to linear guides as opposed to heavily used hardware.

I see the aluminum extrusion for sale there for $2/lb but usually it's pretty dinged up. Other stuff that always looked good are the aluminum plate, plastics, polycarbonate sheets, endmills and just about any kind of drill bit you could every imagine.

I don't know what the scrap price for aluminum is at the moment, but that is what you want to compare it against. Call your local metal scrap yard for estimates. Dinged up extrusion can be an issue depending on how bad it is dinged up. You can always recoup some $$$ at the scrap yard. You can also go to 80/20's site to see what the stuff cost new. As it is it is probably a good deal.

I got the old printers from a pc recycling place for $2/printer. Boeing wanted $8/printer.

Here in NY computers are considered hazzardous waste, large companies have to handle them from cradle to grave. In any event I would not pay the $8 for something that is worn out, which is often the case with printers.

I'm still wavering between the jgro free router plans or a router using extrusions like the campbell designs. Have you decided on what style of router you are planning on making? Out of curiosity, is Kodak in Rochester a good source of "stuff"?

Nope haven't decided as I'm severly constrained with funds. Thought I would get to it this summer but then the water heater went, along with part for the truck and other issues. Getting beaten down this year by "incidentals".

What I may do is to make a very small router or maybe a small mill like the Rick-O-Matic, I have materials to handle something in this size range. What I would love is a unit large enough to do sheet goods. JGRO is not a term familiar to me. In any event I will likely use extrusions as I picked up some of those recently, unfortunately not really what I need cross section wise.

Kodak could be a very long discusion, I never worked there so all info is second hand. Apparently Kodak at one time was a good source of stuff, but people took advantage of it and the program was dropped. Interesting stories to be sure. I imagine everything is handled via scrap dealers now.

Unfortunately Kodak locally has been hit very very hard. Digital is wipping out film sales faster than the management team realized. Many of the people that did work there no longer do. There is a question as to Kodaks ability to make it through the digital transition. At this point they are the local buggy whip manufacture. Of course the bad thing about this is that Kodak use to be a major employer in the area.

The funny thing is that 22 years ago when I came to Rochester, the goal was to get a job at Kodak. Now I'm glad I didn't put much effort into that!

Dave

Thanks!

juzwuz

[juzwuz]

The guides and blocks were in a big tub which was covered in plastic so I couldn't actually handle them and see if they were in good shape or not. Next time I see some I'll probably just get them though.

I was hoping to get a machine up and running before Christmas so that I could use it to make wood signs and crafts as presents.

JGRO is the ID of the author of the stickyed CNC free router plans that you can download from this site.

Thanks for the advice about the extrusion. I'll check out the scrap prices.

My brother used to work in Rochester for Kodak before his group got bought out by ITT Industries and now he is in the Washington DC area.

[wizard]

The guides and blocks were in a big tub which was covered in plastic so I couldn't actually handle them and see if they were in good shape or not. Next time I see some I'll probably just get them though.

I was hoping to get a machine up and running before Christmas so that I could use it to make wood signs and crafts as presents.

Cool!

JGRO is the ID of the author of the stickyed CNC free router plans that you can download from this site.

I'm a bit new here, so not familair with the entire site. It is likely that I will go my own way. Often the design and build process is as much fun as the actual use fo the machine. Believe it or not my first interest in building came from reading the Gingery series of books. That didn't keep me from buyiing a 9x20 though.

After finding out abotu EMC and some of the other CNC programs it became pretty clear to me that some sort of router would be nice to have and would offer the best payback for my time invested. Thus the interest here.

Thanks for the advice about the extrusion. I'll check out the scrap prices.

My brother used to work in Rochester for Kodak before his group got bought out by ITT Industries and now he is in the Washington DC area.

Yeah it is a shame but Kodak is shrinking faster than popsicle in the desert. It will likely only be a couple of years before film is not profitable for a comapny of that size. If I'm lucky maybe they will have a big auction that might lead to some excellent scrounging!!!!

Dave

[damae]

Thanks for the advice about the extrusion. I'll check out the scrap prices.

Scrap prices for aluminum in my area are about $1.80 to $1.60 per pound. That is the price if you're buying; they pay far less when you're selling, of course =)

So $2/lb for aluminum framing doesn't sound too bad. The scrapyard I go to lets me buy it for the regular aluminum price of $1.60/lb and they don't distinguish between useful aluminum and scrap... it's all just by the pound.

[2muchstuff]

Here in the Midwest scrap aluminum is going for $1.00 a pound no matter what it is. If the guy at the yard is in a good mood then sometimes I get it for a little cheaper.

As for large stepper motors, look for the old printers that used tractor feed paper. The ones that large companies used are the ones you want, like Hitachi, not the consumer versions. Plotters generally used servo motors. Also large commercial copy machines like Xerox and IBM had some large steppers in them.

My theory on scrounging up stuff is if it looks interesting them it's worth taking because if you don't someone else will.

[juzwuz]

Well, I've been scrounging for the past couple of months. I managed to acquire a nice pile of mostly Bosch and some 8020 extrusion and some variable dc power supplies (0-40VDC and 0-10Amps, 0-40VDC and 0-5Amps). As a birthday present I convinced my brother to get me the hobbcnc 4axis board (which I still haven't put together yet). I haven't had much luck with finding bigger stepper motors though so I might have to just buy some. I did scrounge what I thought were some large Bishop Wisecarver rails. Hopefully I've managed to attach the image correctly. The one on the left is 3 feet long and the one on the right is 8 feet long. They are stainless steel and about 3 inches wide. Of course I couldn't find the carriages. These are pretty heavy duty but when I got them home, I noticed that the smaller one is not very flat. When I put it on the concrete floor, it can rock back and forth a little bit. Am I out of luck in using this as a 3 foot rail? The 8 foot rail is a lot flatter but it still might have a little bend in it. Should I just cut the rails into shorter and flatter sections? How do I cut stainless? Anyone know of a cheap source of the vee groove bearings?

I also found a couple of pieces of 3/4 inch nylon sheets and some other plastic. The unknown plastic feels fairly slick and it seems heavier than the nylon. How would I tell the difference between delrin or some other plastic?

I also got a pair of 27inch Star linear rails and 4 blocks off of ebay. The seller let me know that one of the carriages lost it's bearings but now that I'm looking at them, I've noticed that the other 3 carriages seem to be missing bearings. These carriages use roller bearings (not ball bearings) and they seem to not slide very smoothly on the rail. When I look at the bearings, there are sometimes gaps where maybe 5 or more bearings could fit in. Is this normal or do I need to somehow put more bearings in? I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow. I do have a bag of bearings that the seller sent. I tried for about half an hour to stuff some bearings in but it was a bit too tricky for me at 1am. Is there a trick to packing the bearings in?

Thanks!

[juzwuz]

I've finally started hitting ebay for parts and got some 43" linear rails, a small z-axis with 1.75" of travel, a y-axis with 24" of travel, and 3 steppers (2 approximately 400 oz-in and 1 at 200 oz-in). I started messing around with the various parts and came up with the layout shown in the first two pictures. Overall cutting area would be around x-38", y-24", z-1.75". The x-axis consists of the 2 43" rails sitting on fairly thick aluminum I-beams. I hope they are strong enough and won't deflect very much (I might have to actually dig out the old engineering structures book out to figure out the deflections). I'm mainly interested in cutting thin materials, engraving pictures, or lithophanes right now in addition to cutting out parts for a larger z-axis with around 6" of travel. The plan is to use a dremel on the small z-axis and then a Porter Cable 690 router on the larger z-axis

Comments would be welcome....

I haven't been able to determine the orginal manufacturer of the small z-axis. I could only find a symbol "Micro Slide" and the numbers 118-4. It uses a crossed roller type bearing, a small lead screw with .1" per turn, 4" by 3.8" table, anodized aluminum construction. Anybody have a guess on the manufacturer?

I didn't find any words or numbers on the y-axis. It has an API Gettys Stepper Motor 23D-6306Z 3.4V 2.9A with 150 oz-in, 3/8" diameter ballscrew, 24" of travel, anodized aluminum, end of travel sensors of both ends and a rotary encoder between the ballscrew and motor coupler. There are 2 cables. One has to be power to the motor and the other must have something to do with the sensors but I was hoping somebody might have a guess on the manufacturer so that I could get some wiring or hookup diagrams. If I can't get those diagrams, is there a way to figure out how to hook up the stepper motor and sensors?

I forgot to add I'm still looking for a lead screw or ball screw around 40" to drive the gantry down the x-axis. I do have some extra 0-40VDC, 0-10Amps adjustable power supplies if somebody is interested in a trade for a ball screw?

Thanks!