Designed from the ground up - including castings

[Hack]

I was reading a few threads around the zone and one that interested me was on about and "open source" mill design where the guy(s) were designing a set of mill castings and were going to build and "Made in North America" mill. Well that has gone on for over 2 years and well....nothing. I wish the author luck as I liked the design and concept, but I am tired of waiting to see if it will produce anything.

So I decided to start an adventure of my own. I am starting to build a homemade cnc mill including castings. The mill will use 20mm linear slides, ballscrews and have travels similar to a SYIL X5. Spindle will either be R8 or BT30 and should be a fun project.

I have started with the castings. I need to make a set of them out of wood and then I will take them to a local foundry to have them pour a set. Today I glued up a buch of MDF, and tomorrow I will start routing the patterns on my CNC ROuter. The base is going to be 10" x 20", The column 7.75" x 24"

Not much for pictures, but I have to start somewhere.

Dan

[mountainbarn]

I have been collecting parts for a similar project.
I have so far got the slides (25 and 30mm) a 6.5" x 21" table
(part ordered from grizzly for one of their mills), and a
machine head on the way.
I was trying to decide between castings or laser cut plate
for the base and column. My neighbor has a cnc router, so I was considering
doing castings as well. My thoughts were to possibly make a manual and a CNC
version, but that is up in the air.

Cheers

[asuratman]

Hack,
Do you have picture? Your column height is 24", is that short?

[mactec54]

Hack

This is a good build to,from scratch, with patterns, & casting, But has not posted while

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/vertic...c_machine.html

[Hack]

The column is only 24", but according to my drawings it should give me about 10" from spindle to the table along with a corresponding 10" z travel.

Attached is a PDF of the design. It is not completely detailed out, but should give you an idea of what I am working towards. Most likely I will make everything out of mdf before submitting a final design to the casting company.

I am planning on getting out into the shop today to do some routing on the blanks I glued up yesterday. I'll take some pics of the progress.
Dan

[Hack]

Well I got out to the shop and put the router to work today. Needed about 2 hours of spindle time to get these done, but they turned out pretty good. The first few pictures are of the items as they are on the router and the last few are semi finished and shown in mock-up form. Should give everyone a good visual.

I will be added a few "raised" areas on each casting for machined surfaces. Areas such as where the linear rails will bolt on and where the ball screw end supports will mount. That should minimize any machine work afterwards to those areas only.

Enjoy.

Dan

[slowlearner]

Nice and heavy, I'm looking forward to this.
Thanks

[jharvey407]

Dan,

I will be watching this thread with a lot of interest. I plan on building a CNC mill eventually. I'll be trying the epoxy/granite route for the castings, but my design will be very similar to yours.

I need to get my router finished first. The router is actually running and producing billable work, but isn't quite finished yet.

James

[Hack]

Feeling a little embarrased right now. I went back a looked at my CAD Model and realized the the back was drawn 4.5" thick, not 3.75" thick like the base is. When I glued up the material, I made them both the same.....I was wondering why some things weren't lining up just right.

Oh well, tomorrow evening, I will glue another layer on to the back and Tuesday (after the glue dries), i should be able to route it out and make it right. Wont change the design any, just make it heavier .

Dan

[PEU]

one suggestion to make it a lot stiffer, widen the base halfway to the backside and also add supports to the column, check images:




How do you plan to machine the parts after casting?


Pablo

[mountainbarn]

Just a new guy here, maybe i can not tell from the pictures, but should the
molds not have angled cuts so the mold can be pulled out of the sand without
disturbing the sand?
Looks good so far.

Cheers

[Hack]

Well I got another layer of MDF glued on tonight. I'll let it dry overnight and finish it up tomorrow evening.

PEU - Love the picture but shhhhhhh...(that's my secret second design I'm working on). Well not exactly, but using some of the concepts you suggested. That will be a bigger machine for another day. I will machine these "smaller" castings on my current mill - See pictures attached.

Mountainbarn - I was actually thinking the exact opposite, that you WANT a taper to allow the pattern to release from the mold. Oh well, that why we are making MDF patterns. I'll take them to the casting place and let them suggest changes.

Thanks

Dan