Fecn's Drawer Slide + MDF machine.

[Fecn]

Hi all,

I thought you might enjoy seeing my homebuilt CNC router. It's a drawer-slide+MDF solution which I knocked together in my spare time over the last few weeks. I've wanted my own CNC router for a while now, and seeing some of the MDF based machines on this site was the final kick I needed to get me building.

I'm afraid I've already done a long and involved write-up on a different (woodworking) site which I regularly post to, so rather than repeat myself, I'll just post a link for you all to see.

Hope you all enjoy it.

http://ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19561 (edit: URL was wrong when I first posted which explains the next post)

Cheers,

Fecn.

[jhowelb]

WHAT A PERFECTLY HORRID PLACE TO POST ANYTHING!!
No pictures at all, of any thing. Your article is nowhere to be seen and there is no way to look for it! Cheeeezzzz!!

[armstrong360]

Try this url instead:


http://ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewt...561&highlight=

[jhowelb]

An absolute work of genius!
I will download your photos and examine then closely so as to copy and try to improve on your methods. (I already have cnc lathe and cnc mill/drill)
Thanks for sharing and inspiring us!
John }:-D

[Fecn]

Originally Posted by jhowelb WHAT A PERFECTLY HORRID PLACE TO POST ANYTHING!! No pictures at all, of any thing. Your article is nowhere to be seen and there is no way to look for it! Cheeeezzzz!!

Well.. that's fighting talk where I come from.. however, it appears to be all my own fault.

My apologies - It appears that in my haste, I somehow missed the last character off the URL. (I've now fixed the original post). - Thanks to Armstrong360 for working it out whilst I was at the pub.

[Fecn]

Originally Posted by jhowelb An absolute work of genius! I will download your photos and examine then closely so as to copy and try to improve on your methods. (I already have cnc lathe and cnc mill/drill) Thanks for sharing and inspiring us! John }:-D

If you want any more pics, or any dimensions etc, just say the word... I'm more than happy to pop to my shed and take some more pics or measurements. - i'd love to have others build the same thing so I've got people to swap ideas with.

[jhowelb]

Some way the subscribed threads never sent anything my way after post# 4.

You bet I'd like to see pics especially close ups of the drawer slide install and details about the arrangement.

Also any after thoughts or snags you've run across.

Great video, by the way!

(switch, change trade....ANYTHING other than fight!! )

[Fecn]

Originally Posted by jhowelb Some way the subscribed threads never sent anything my way after post# 4. You bet I'd like to see pics especially close ups of the drawer slide install and details about the arrangement.

OK.. let's see if I can explain this properly

Each axis is made from two U shaped sections which fit inside each other. We'll call them Inner-U and Outer-U. The larger of the two U sections is Outer-U and the smaller is Inner-U which fits inside. We start off with inner-U screwed together (that's why it was in the clamps), but outer-U has no screws to hold it together yet.


The large sheet of 35mm thick MDF on the workbench is assumed to be flat. Starting with the Inner-U section, lie it face-down on a flat surface and butt-up a drawer-slide against each edge and put some screws in. There's no fiddly alignment to worry about because the side of the slide just butts-up to the Inner-U section.

Next, turn the inner-U section so it's face-up and slightly extend a drawer slide until the first screw hole is accessible. Butt-up one of the sides of outer-U against the slide, and put a screw in, then extend the slide all the way and put the rest of the screws in. Repeat the same procedure for the other side. Once all the screws are in the slides, it's time to screw the face of the outer-U to the sides... and hey presto, a working slide axis...


I pretty much the same fitting technique for axes which had 3 slides. First I did the two as before, and then butted-up a third slide to the inner-U's inside corner.

Originally Posted by jhowelb Also any after thoughts or snags you've run across. Great video, by the way! (switch, change trade....ANYTHING other than fight!! )

In no particular order...

The amount of play in the drawer slides increases the further that they've been extended and I've not yet tried any really large workpieces which would approach full extension, but I suspect that the drawer-slide-jiggle could become a factor.

I recently used the machine to cut a rebate into the lid of a box I made. The box is around 300mm long, but the depth of the cut from one corner to the other varied by over 1mm. I think I need to spend some more time shimming the sacrificial table surface to correct for this... or possibly it was just the wood cupping.. or maybe a problem with clamping.

The biggest snags I've hit so far have mostly been due to bad clamping and forgetting to change the laptop from ACPI-PC to Standard-PC to give Mach3 better control of the parallel port.

Which video are you referring to? There's 8 of them so far.

Cheers,

Fecn.

edit: BTW - Are capital letters banned on this forum?

[jhowelb]

I don't know about the caps, the do seem to be tricky.

Thanks for the pics, I may have dreamed up a counter measure but I'll have to demonstrate it rather than describe it.