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Very nice setup you have going there, thanks for sharing-
Dave
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I'm about 80% done with my setup now. Here are some pics
Behind the lcd panel is basically a cabinet area where a small computer resides next to a 5 gallon water bottle. The bottle has pvc piped into it from the top where there is a drain for dealing with flood coolant. The top...where the taig resides is a homemade acrylic setup which is waterproof. It is housed inside the pine walls of the top. And then an 80/20 aluminum frame sits on the 4 inch height pine walls. It all sits on 4 heavy duty wheels/casters. It has a 1.5 gallon shopvac on the side where the hose connects to locline pipes. Can act as a blower or a vaccuum. The controller is geckodrive 540.
What's left is to build the enclosure front doors and install a pump for the flood stuff. Oh, also protect the wiring with tubing....and to drill some holes in the back to let the wires out. And to install some limit switches and a red kill switch. USB rubber keyboard...and maybe an area below to store end mills and stuff. I'm currently trying to get Solidcam for solidworks running on mach3. Something needs calibration because it is creating gcode that is telling the table to move way too far on the x axis.
Last edited by mavericks; 03-09-2010 at 03:51 PM.
Very nice setup you have going there, thanks for sharing-
Dave
Dave->..
Here's some more progress. Added the front door of the enclosure. Nothing fancy. two hinges... Added a fan blower at the top which sucks out the hot air. And added home roller switches as well as a handful of tooling.
Some more progress over the past two weeks. Added a shelf & door for storing raw materials. Mounted a plastic drawer bin on the side of it where all the small tooling is now stored and nicely categorized. Added a 100gph pump for flood cooling. And put in a small panel plate (.125" thick 6063 aluminum) containing switches for fan, e-stop, etc for front access. Got to use my engraver mill and cnc'ed the thru-holes for those switches.
I picked up an A2Z tooling plate and hold-down clamps but I think I'd prefer using a 3" precision toolmakers vise instead. We'll see.
I don't recall which week I put in the home switches but those are working great. Probably need to add another monitor at eye-level..but I have been using VNC on my laptop to control it instead. Another to-do is also complete the flood coolant setup....the coolant pools near the drain but not totally so it needs some more creativity.
While this is an awesome setup for wheeling around to demo....in hindsight, I should have spent the money on a bandsaw, belt sander, and drill press. LOL.
Last edited by mavericks; 04-04-2010 at 06:46 PM.
pretty wild man!
Is that a secondary monitor on the front? It seems like it might be difficult to program in that location.
I like the coolant flow you have going on there!
yeah i've been using my laptop to vnc to the machine. The lcd panel down there is really secondary. Although I wish I had it higher somehow. The whole setup is so top heavy that it is a bear to move if I have to lift the whole thing over something (eg, steps). But at least it rolls well.
How sealed and waterproofed is the interior for the flood cooling? What route does the coolant take from the tool back to the pump?
I'm adding flood cooling to my Taig next (I've given up on air-only and mist cooling) and trying to figure out the best way to route it. I have a pretty decent enclosure already, but the floor of it is not really setup with a drain and flooding in mind. I was considering just buying a tub that fits under the mill and which I can add a drain to.
Originally Posted by awetmore
It's not the greatest although it looks cool. I'd recommend against using acrylic as I had to glue alot and the vibrations from the machine loosen stuff sometimes. Also there is a small gap where the aluminum structure sits so if coolant hits the backboard... it'll leak. I'd like to do a redesign so the base is more sheet metal bent at an angle.
Go with the tray.....It'll save money and pain.
I ended up using a 24x36x8" concrete mixing tray (about $11 from Home Depot). I had to notch it in places to make it fit in my enclosure and for the Taig to fix in it, but so far things are working pretty well.
Flood cooling makes a huge difference. All of my chip welding issues are gone and I can run the mill at much higher speeds. Last night I was doing 15 IPM, .075 DOC, 2 flute, 3/16" carbine/TIN cutter. It worked great.
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