my Multicam project

[Boltz]

The original prox sensors on my machine appear to be ABB with the following part number:

SIF2-M12N-C1-PC

Completely unavailable, of course. It looks like ABB has exited the proximity sensor business.

The most available sensor I've found is the Omron, here's the number:

E2E-X2F2-M1

Sensors with "break" action (normally closed) are a bit rare.

-Jim Hart

[Boltz]

Here are a couple pics of my new dust collector.

I'd been looking for a small cyclone for months on ebay. After Bill Pentz's scathing criticism of pretty much all the consumer level small cyclones, I'd decided I wanted a Torit, but the prices even for used ones which had fallen over several times and been badly repainted in ugly colors just weren't making sense.

So, when I saw this one on the local Craigslist for $300, I pounced on it. I figure I bought the 2 horse Baldor motor and Allen-Bradley starter and got the sheet metal, angle iron and bag for free. It's a model 19.

The bag looks pretty decent, so I guess I'll run that until I get a HEPA cartrige filter solution engineered. Torit rates the bare cyclone at 90% efficient for 1 micron particles.

There's another one just like this, same price. You can email Brian Naslund at b31naz@yahoo.com. It's in the Minneapolis area, not sure if he'll crate and ship.

Back to work...

-Jim Hart

[Boltz]

I've made a lot of progress.

I was lucky enough to get some manuals on the computer which came with the machine, and I discovered there are software switches set in the MX32 shortcut used to open the program.

I am some what dismayed at the blank fields which show up when I do get to the parameters screen, and have not yet entered anything. Confirmation that this is normal would be reassuring.

Still missing some documentation in regard to terminal mode. The current init and loader listed have different numbers from any of the versions I have copies of on the host PC. I know there must be a way to download and back up these files before I start tinkering with them.

The more I work with this machine, the more I like it.

-Jim Hart

[Boltz]

I've been running test cuts on 2 by 4's lately. Why? Because they're cheap!

The first picture shows the starting warp in this random piece of SPF lumber, roughly a quarter inch!

A 3 inch spoilboard cutter quickly straightened that out.

The second picture shows the progress from my first to second attempts. The walls of the letters are pretty fragile. If I keep going with this I'll likely substitute a straight o-flute for the 30 degree upcut bit I've used for these.

-Jim Hart

[Boltz]

Big sigh of relief yesterday. I took apart the z-axis to see what parts I might need to tighten it up, and was pleased to see that there was a knurled nut to adjust backlash. Tightened it up a little and voila!

-Jim Hart

[CNCMAN172]

Wow, Looks like your making great progress on your machine. It really looks nice and seems to be running. All my machine are hand built but it would be great to get something this nice. What kind of speeds can you get for feedrates? What size spindle did this have?

What kind of parts do you plan on cutting? I know how that goes getting over 50 and having the job disappear. Best of luck on your new business.

Russ

[Boltz]

Hey, CNCMAN, thanks for stopping by! I'm open for business here in snow-clogged Minneapolis!

I've roughly divided my prospects into 3 areas I plan to explore.

1. cabinetmaking and woodworking (wood, melamine, MDF, etc.)

2. signs (wood, HDU, acrylic, aluminum, etc.)

3. machine parts, gizmo's, stuff for mad scientists (aluminum, phenolic, UHMW, anything but steel)

I've attached photos of a recent project. I started with the drawing, traced it in Inkscape, blurred it with the GIMP, then brought it into Blender 3D (all free software!) to create the relief. The toolpaths were done with Meshcam ($175 and well worth it!).

Slowly working my way up with the speeds. Running a lot of stuff at 3-4 IPS lately. I keep hoping somebody who really knows the H-board controller inside and out will stumble on this thread and help me edit my acceleration profiles. The servo motors rapid at about 20 IPS. When things are running right it's fun to watch.

-Jim Hart

[CNCMAN172]

Jim,

Wow that part looks good, you already jumped into the wonderful world of 3D carving. I cut some wood but a good deal more aluminum for clients who build R/C helicopters that carry HD cameras for aerial photography. Same boat you were in hard to land a great job in this economy especially if your over 50.

I have played a little with cutting some wood signs but my machine is limited to 18" x 20", so nothing very big. I am building a larger machine in the garage that is 60" x 60" on a steel frame with a 3/4" aluminum top. These type projects take forever when you have limited funds and limited access to precision tools to get everything aligned. Anyway cutting the aluminum stuff for those mad scientists usually pays better. haha

Keep up the good work. Glad you got your machine up and running so quickly.

Your feedrates seem pretty good, at first it sounded slow but most of us get rapids of 150 IPM. On your machine 20 IPS = 20*60 = 1200 IPM which is really fast. Wow I am totally jellous. haha

I can cut wood about 100-150 IPM depending on the depth of cut but aluminum is limited to 8-15 IPM with a depth of cut about .030" so I am sure your machine can do much better. My spindle is currently a Bosch Wood router and I recently purchased a 3KW - 4HP water cooled spindle. I have it almost ready to install as soon a a few cables get completed and then at least the noise level will drop.

I have heard a lot of good things about Meshcam. For the sign I did for my brother-in-law I went to a friends house who has a program called ArtCam he is in the sign business and he helped me post code for my sign design so it would run on my little machine. I can not remember what he said that program cost but it was not cheap. The sign I did took forever because it had a great deal of detail and used about five different sized cutters so it became real clear that I was not going to make any money cutting those kinds of signs. haha

Russ

[Boltz]

Hey, nice carving! I've never worked with Artcam, but it's a powerful software package. I've read that it has some pretty good "rest machining" capabilities, meaning that you can cut everything but the superfine details with a 1/4" bit, then come back and sharpen up the detail in a few small areas with an 1/8" or smaller.

I spend quite a bit of time over on the Vectric forum, since I also have VCarve Pro, and the RC chopper crowd there uses a lot of glass epoxy (garolite). You may have already experimented with it and decided aluminum is superior, but if not it could give you a leg up on your competition.

I knew this career transition was coming, so I saved up some money in advance to buy the Multicam. I shopped pretty hard and looked at all the options. I thought about building one from scratch, but if your building something you plan on running all day everyday you can easily spend several grand for parts and materials, then 2-3 months all day everyday to put it all together and work the bugs out.

I looked at the shopbot/techno/shopsabre class machines, and the stepper motors just didn't seem like they'd be fast enough. And the machines themselves are so light that if you pumped up the motors they'd be jumping around the floor.

I looked at some serious big iron: Thermwoods, CR Onsruds, and Motionmasters and drooled all over my keyboard, but the thought of starting out with that much debt terrified me, so I settled for "big iron lite" with the Multicam. I think used MG's are the best value out there. Mine has a 50" square table, servos, a 4KW spindle, and came with a 5HP Becker vacuum pump in excellent condition and I got it shipped in for $6300 total.

-Jim Hart

[CNCMAN172]

Jim,

thanks, it took me about a month to design that sign because I did not know that software and my friend let me use his computer after working hours to experiment and finally got something that looked kind of cool. My brother-in-law loved it as it was for their vacation cabin up in Michigan.

The helicopter guys that I have made some items for have requested a few parts in G10/Garolite and it works fine and is light and strong but wow that stuff is really expensive. I can get aluminum at a scrap dealer much cheaper than the G10. The G10 is used on many of the R/C helicopters and all the guys doe love that stuff because it is really light.

Most of the stuff I design and cut is part of my vibration reduction system so when you shoot HD video from a helicopter it actually looks like watchable video not a camera mounted to a speed boat going across a rough lake. haha

You are completely right about spending lots of money and time to build your own. I have a small fortune invested in 1KW servo motors, drivers, sensors, cables, power supplies, and steel table, thick aluminum top, six foot long linear rails and bearings, and two five foot NSK ball screws, 3KW water cooled spindle and VFD, etc. I kept thinking I would be able to do it much cheaper because I could design and fab lots of the smaller parts on my little machine in the process of making the big machine. I have seen machines go for around $5K that would really be nice. I have also looked at Techno, Multicam, Motionmaster, Thermwood(love em), the Chinese knock offs (No way, after a friend got one and it was pure trash), ShopSabre, etc.

I did find a multicam machine for really reasonable about $4500 that was huge, 8' x 16' in PA, which is pretty close to Ohio, the problem is you need special permits to move the machine by freight because of its size, the second issue is that it is way bigger than I want as I have to run everything from my third car garage. I am still looking because it is freezing here right now and I can not really work in the garage, which is another long term issue. I think I will wall off and insulate the third car area and install a gas furnace because my lathe and other steel items always rust over winter due to the humidity from all the cold. Really stinks, so all those costs add in a hurry.

I figure I could sell all the stuff I have right now because almost all of it is brand new and have close to enough to move to a real machine. I built a phase converter for my 7-1/2 HP Columbo spindle and it is a new spindle never used that I picked up on ebay a couple years ago for just over $1K. It is amazing when I spin it up it is so quiet and powerful I was thrilled, but it is not mounted on my machine yet because I am still design a gantry that can carry a 80# spindle motor. The base I have is very heavy probably better than 2000 pounds so I am not worried about it moving around if I can get the beast finished.

If I get the big one going and start to get some real customers I will probably pickup some nicer software packages. When you get into this CNC stuff you don't realize how much you need to invest on the software side. When I purchased MACH3 and their CAM program I figured I was done. Wrong, you quickly find out those are really nice but are also limited. You also find out on a large machine you need a faster pulse engine than a PC because it takes forever to get from one side to the other on a large table. I then purchased the Dynomotion KFLOP controller which is amazing and can pulse very fast and their is a MACH3 plugin, so like I said I spent all this money and still can not use it to make any money.

I like reading all the stuff on the zone because lots of people are in the same boat and you learn a great deal following some of these threads. I have a friend who just got into this about six months ago and he went with a Chinese machine to avoid all the hassles of getting something to work. I got a call right after it arrived it was damaged in shipping because of very poor packing and when we fixed the problems and put it all together we realized those guys built the entire thing using a drill press, a hammer, and probably a few screw drivers. Nothing was square even the holes for the linear bearings. They made all kinds of slots because when they drilled they did not have the holes in the right places. Just unbelievable that they did not cut all the aluminum on a CNC machine so they would go right together. Anyway, he redesigned the entire thing and purchased all new aluminum and had a local machine shop cut it on a Haas. Now he has $5K invested on a small machine that is 24 x 48 and he is just sick, just another lesson along the way. Anyway just love your machine.

I am always nervous on these older commerical machines because they hit the secondary markets for multiple reasons. Many have problems and are no longer true or have outdated controllers, etc. Some are good machines just limited memory, size, etc. Some are great machines that hits the markets due to foreclosures, etc. The big problems is when you buy one of these online you are taking a huge risk. Most you can not get schematics for unlike your situations and many others there is no support available at the manufacturer. I have seen some stories on guys that got used Fadals and now that that company is out of business you are forced to find used spare parts on ebay or other places and you need to find secondary support.

I think your IRON is great it looks very stable. I have seen other Multicam systems that do not look as robust as yours. I would love to find a system that also had a tool changer. I see guys get really nice units from time to time and they show up on the zone and it is amazing what they can do when they have good iron. One guy picked up a surplus machine from Boeing out in Seattle think his handle is DIYengineer and he has spent a small forture getting his machine in shape. He had a bad ballscrew which would have cost more than his entire machine to get replaced. This is the kind of thing that is so risky on these used machines. I have seen other guys get nice looking machines and find out the bearings in the spindle were bad and it was only going to cost them $4500 to get them replaced after spending $6K on the machine. So it would be great to get to check out a machine before I invest that kind of money.

Great talking to you. Keep up the good work and show us some more of your work. Good luck on your new venture, hopefully we can both make something happen.

Russ

[Boltz]

I recently ran some parts for a custom cover for the base of some columns supporting a stair in the atrium of the building my shop is in. The top piece required blind holes for dowels on the bottom, and a bevel on the top. The part is about 2 by 5 inches.

I could have used double-stick tape, but intead I decided to try a removable fixturing idea I had. It looks like a winner for cheap, fast custom vacuum workholding for 10 or fewer small parts.

Photo 1 is a piece of half-inch MDF which has had 2 coats of shellac and aluminum locating pins installed. The pins engage the phenolic grid on the Multicam. The perimeter is sealed with strips of closed-cell neoprene foam inserted in the grid.

Photo 2 shows the protruding pins and how the factory surface of the MDF has been milled away to improve airflow.

Photo 3 shows the part mounted in a .030 deep pocket milled through the shellac. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the dowel holes used to locate the part. If you look closely you can see the hot melt glue around the perimeter. I was able to pull 28"HG of vacuum with this setup using my 5HP Becker.

Photo 4 shows the bevels machined on the edge with a miterfold bit. The heat gun easily removed the hot melt glue.

Remaining pictures show construction details and how it would be installed. Hoping to get the go-ahead tomorrow.

-Jim Hart

[CNCMAN172]

Jim,

Nice work, I like to use jigs myself and like to use either pockets or dowl pins to align parts for machining as they always get held correctly and the results are usually winners. I do not have a vacuum pump but that was a great idea to build a jig so you could use your vacuum system to hold everything.

Looks like your keeping busy.

Russ