My third build, all steel this time!

[Fluxion]

The linear rail manufacturer, Hiwin, recommend a NLGI #1 grease without high pressure additives. The ball screw is a no-name Chinese off eBay and the seller said grease was fine, so who really knows. I used Mystik JT-6 #1 grease, it's what Onsrud recommended for the router we use at work. If its good enough for that $350K router it should work for me. If the ball screw fails I'm not out all that much and I'll buy a better screw to replace this one.

[Fluxion]

It's very evident that a lot of time, planning, and skilled fabrication went into the construction of your machine. You're lucky to have the tools, ability, and capital to do so. I like that you went with orange, there are more than enough boring coloured machines out there. What vehicle does the air filter to your enclosure fit? 2000 IPM is very quick. You're on the home stretch, good work.

Thanks!

I don't really know what vehicle it fits, I was in Walmart late one night with a tape measure and this one was about the right size for two 120mm fans. It was cheap and since this Walmart has it in stock it must be a very common filter. I can get the number off the box if you want.

[Fluxion]

It's been awhile since my last update, seems to be my SOP these days.



This first pic shows my new tubing end cap on the gantry. I made these out of some solid surface scrap from work, I fabricate countertops most of the time. I made these caps for both ends of the gantry and all four open ends of the frame. You'll see them in some of the next pictures.





This pic here shows a grey tube screwed to the wire chase. When pulling the cables I discovered that I never had a pathway for the stepper power cable and X-axis limit switch cable. I made this up from an off the shelf conduit bend from Lowe's. I need to get some paint on it but I can't easily remove the conduit for painting. I guess I'll be doing a lot of masking or maybe even painting with a brush. I have a dozen or so nicks and chips to touch up as well.




The next 3 pictures show the limit switch mounts and the blocks mounted to the frame that trip the switch. I routed the slots into some leftover 3/4" thick Mic6 aluminum and cut them to size on my table saw. I have a blade for cutting thick aluminum and it does a pretty good job, sure makes a mess though.










Here is a pic that shows my temporary cart for the computer and monitor. It's a touch screen monitor by the way. I could use some suggestions on which Mach3 screen set works best for the touchscreen. I don't think I can put the effort into making my own custom set.




I now have a table mounted up, its just two layers of MDF. I am still hoping to get that phenolic sheet from work that I mentioned earlier in this thread but the MDF lets me start cutting some stuff at least. You might also notice the table surface hanging over the end of the frame by 1-1/2". This is for vertical work surface so I can machine the end or side of larger parts. I may also dabble with a 4th axis again someday, I have a rotary headstock I built years ago for my first CNC router, its belt driven and has a 495 in-oz NEMA 23 stepper. It won't be big enough for very large works but I might get it out and play with it someday.




This is the control for the router at work. I am wanting to build a mobile stand of sorts for the monitor and CPU. I would like some sort of a keyboard, maybe a slide out tray with room for a mouse. The stand will need to contain the CPU and maybe somewhat of a modest control panel for a E-Stop button and a few other controls here as well, I really haven't decided what I need yet. I want to keep my control small and kind of unobtrusive, I don't want something as big and bulky as this one in the pic. I already have a piece of 3/8" steel plate about 20"x24" with wheels mounted up for the base, I would like any suggestions here. I am still wondering what controls I really need such as power switches for the ESS and breakout board. Also, does anybody use the motor disable on the Gecko drives? I could see having a way to power up the stepper drives, ESS and breakout board from the control stand. I have had to shut down and restart the whole package a few times due to the ESS running out of data during a cut. I have no idea what is causing this but I suspect the slow ass Pentium4 computer might be part of it so I am planning on building a new computer to run this machine.

[klaas123]

I bought this screenset for my touchscreen and like it a lot:

[wsnake]

Awesome to see your project ready to start throwing chips! Great stuff

[agadir]

nice and fast very good job

[micke h]

I building a big steel machine also and need to level it for the hiwin rails. When you did your epoxy pour, did you treat the Wood in some way? And how did you fastened it to the frame? glue? or just pressed fit it?

[Fluxion]

I building a big steel machine also and need to level it for the hiwin rails. When you did your epoxy pour, did you treat the Wood in some way? And how did you fastened it to the frame? glue? or just pressed fit it?

I covered the wood forms with clear packing tape and I used 100% silicone caulking to glue the forms to the steel. The silicone is fairly easy to cut when its time to remove the forms and what is left on the steel was sanded off with a flap disc on the angle grinder.

[micke h]

Thanks for the help fluxion!

[marchudson]

Fluxion, your PM message box is full, can't send any message to you until you delete a few.

Thanks Marc

[difalkner]

I'm just getting into CNC and your build has provided a lot of info for me - thanks! That is one very nice machine you're building. I'll be getting the frame and rails soon but won't be building from scratch, though I will be sourcing my electronics, motors, cabling, etc., so I really appreciate your detail on this build.

David

[louieatienza]

Fluxion, great work! I too had problems with the SmoothStepper, and I suspect you may be right. Still, even a slow P4 should send out pulses fast enough unless you have the microstep resolution cranked up high. It's been a while, but you have to toy with the lookahead settings and buffer size in the SmoothStepper tab IIRC. At the time I had one there was no documentation on this an I had to do so by trial and error.

[A_Camera]

I am also following with interest and envy for the work you have done already. I can't really help with anything useful in your progress, mine is just a simple and light (around 70-80kg now) fixed gantry aluminum machine, which is tiny compared to yours, but I was wondering one thing...

Aren't you worried about the final weight and those tiny bolts you are using as feet? I mean, the steel frame is huge, but shouldn't the actual feet touching the floor also be very strong? I would be afraid that the whole thing would collapse or start to wobble with those feet, but I have no experience with such heavy machinery, so maybe I'd rather overdo it than taking chances. Or perhaps you plan to do another type of final feet when you are ready?

Edit: The last pic I saw shows the same feet, so I recon you have not done anything about the feet. Perhaps I am overly cautious. Anyway, it is a very nice machine and I hope you will get good use for.

[Fluxion]

I'm not really worried about the feet, the threaded end is 5/8"-11 thread and they are rated at 4500 pounds each. I estimated the total weight of the machine at a little under 1500 pounds.

On another note, I quit my job a few weeks ago and have partnered up in a new business venture. I have made some progress on the router and it is usable but not quite complete. I will be posting up some new pics this weekend to bring this thread up to date. Oh, I might be building another router in the not too distant future. The next router will probably the same design but with a longer frame at least 8 feet long maybe even 12 feet.

[A_Camera]

It sure is a nice machine, very well build, good looking as well. Keep up the good work.

Good luck with your business.

[Fluxion]

OK, Time for an update. The next few pics show how I built the dust collection hood.

The first pic shows the outer skin of 20g sheet steel wrapped around a couple 1" thick plywood formers that were cut on my CNC router. Next to it is a tube I rolled out of the same sheet metal that will connect to the dust collection hose.



This pic shows the inner side of the dust hood, it is formed to closely wrap around the router spindle. The flange that is formed by the inner and outer skins will be fastened to the Z plate with machine screws.



Here the hose adapter is temporarily held in place with some sheet metal screws and a random piece of aluminum angle to hold it straight. This horseshoe will hold the brush strip for my pneumatic dust shoe.



This is the poster board pattern for the filler piece to connect the hose adapter tube to the other two skins of the dust hood. For some reason I don't have a pic of this assembly welded up on the bench.



Here is a tool I made up from some scrap phenolic sheet to bend some aluminum angle into a horseshoe shape.



Here is the finished bend, sorry I don't have any action shots. This thing worked great! The aluminum bent with very little distortion and was relatively easy once I smeared it with some grease.



Now I am onto building a control cabinet. This next few pics show the two end caps I hammer formed and the start of the welding.











More pics to come but right now I have to get ready for a family dinner.

[ger21]

Somebody has some serious metalworking skills....

[Fluxion]

Thanks Gerry! Woodworking is my day job so metalworking has become my hobby.

Here is a pic that shows the dust hood with the brush attached. I still need to get it painted.




Here is a couple pics of the control station I am building without the sheet metal cabinet installed. The bottom plate is 20"x24" 3/8" thick steel plate and the upright is 0.120 wall 2x3 tubing. The base is heavy enough that I can push it around without pushing it over. Laying on the base you can see my new control computer, its a Lenovo Thinkcenter M53 that I bought off Amazon. Its a tiny little thing, only about 7" square and 1-1/2" thick. This new computer fixed my issues with losing communications with the ESS too.

[difalkner]

This is all very cool stuff! It appears that you're using pneumatics to raise/lower the dust hood - is that correct? I'm just curious if you open a ball valve to activate or is that solenoid controlled?
Thanks!
David

[mcphill]

I don't know if I missed it, but what vacuum source are you using to power that collection beast?! I would imagine that will take tons of CFM to get the dust moving? Just curious what you have in mind as I would like to do something on a similar scale...