Build - 3 axis engraver

[Tankdude]

Senior project for Mech eng. undergrads at UNB. Design and build a 3 axis engraving machine. Z and X axis are linear bearings on precision shafts and the the y is drawer sliders. The spindle is a high speed air spindle. Lead screws are 3/8 acme precision threads with matching precision nuts.

I'm in charge of the design and building of the machine. A second group member is doing the electrical and the other two are handling the paper reports.

Drawing was done in Unigraphics and is about 80% complete at the time of this picture. So far I'm two days into the build. I only have a few hours in the afternoon to work on this. Should be done by end of next week.

I'm taking pictures as I go so I'll update this thread until she is done.

[High Seas]

Very Solid for a "mini-footprint" machine. Its a TANK-Dude!

[aladin]

i am realy interested to build a 3 axis on my own but no idea how to start

[Tankdude]

It's alive!

[zephyr9900]

Wow, I didn't realize EMC2 looks so much like CNCPro!

Very nice looking machine. I've seen full-on mills that weren't built so solidly.

Randy

[Tankdude]

It is CNC pro, we are having a hard time installing EMC2 on the computers we have.

[zephyr9900]

I kinda thought that it was CNCPro. I used it for several years before switching to TurboCNC. You probably know that CNCPro is open source now, and several people are working on developing it further (or at least implementing some stuff that Doug never had quite right...)

Your electronics look interesting. It looks like there is a breakout board and you are using single-axis drivers. Is that self-designed too?

Randy

[hesham morsy]

[Tankdude]

The electronics. One breakout board with three relays and 4 axis. Each axis has its own driver board. The boards are from 2001 and are pretty rare, the only info we could find is some stuff on the newer types.

The company closed and they are no longer made. But we can reverse engineer the boards no problem and find out which pin does what. There was a flaw somewheres on the break out board, the 5 volts that it takes to enable the chip was being cut down to 3.6 and the chip needed at least 4. We made a direct connection and the problem was solved.

The stepper motors are slower then I expected, but what can ya do, our budget is already used up.