Last One - 4'x6' Steel, Epoxy and ClearPath servo's

[1Jumper10]

That is a great set up! I wouldn't worry about a little cable stretch. Just double check that the combined weight of both of those plates should be half the weight of your finished gantry. If those are 45# plates that means your total weight of your finished gantry would be 180#'s???? Seems very heavy. Also, while you've got it set up, you might want to adjust your weight up or down in 5# increments and autotune again and save the configuration file for in the future if you change your gantry and add or remove mass, you'll have another configuration file ready to go that you could upload without having to autotune again.

[dokwine]

Thanks for the quick feedback! LOL - no the large plates are 25's - I'm running 31.25 on each side. Hate to even think about moving my 45 lb'ers! Yeah, running a few more times with a little extra load is a good idea - I could run different configs later to see if one is smoother than the other. BTW, have you tried to look inside an .mtr ?

By the way - almost forgot to gush all over about how quiet and smooth these CPs are. Big confidence builder!

[1Jumper10]

No I've never tried to open an ".mtr" file. I'm not much of a software/programmer guy I wouldn't even know what I was looking at.
Yeah the CP's are quiet. Its almost unsettling because the machine is moving and its not making ANY noise. It could sneak right up on ya if you got your back to it

[1Jumper10]

Got the gantry back from the machine shop. They messed up one thing but it isn't a show stopper. Only charged $150 which is $100 less than they anticipated. Working on getting some primer on it before it rusts.

Ordered the Hitachi VFD from Drives warehouse off of eBay. A keileg 2.2kw spindle from automation direct. And I ordered a sensor kit from CNCRP. A few weeks ago I got the UC300eth motion controler and 5lpt motherboard from CNC4PC. Making progress...

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[dokwine]

Hi 1Jumper10,
Glad to see you moving forward. Been waiting for some machine work myself to mount my z stage. Couple things I've been meaning to ping you on:
1. FWIW - nothing magic about .mtr files you can change them to .txt and open them with anything. I think you can also choose to export .xml but I havent bothered. I did do multiple autotune runs with different loads, but havent compared the outputs yet to see what's changed.
2. I see you're getting the CNCRP sensors - have been planning to do the same. did you consider trying to use the Teknic "Hard Stop Homing" feature on the motor instead? The NYCNC guy did a demo with them (not a SD motor config though) and had great accuracy. I dont really mind the sensors, but it is another set of cables and the feature is there in the motor...

[1Jumper10]

Hi Dokwine

That is interesting to know about the .mtr files. Maybe when I get around to tuning mine I'll open one up and have a look.

I thought the same thing about auto-homing. In fact I was considering it as an option on my friends machine and I set out to try it. But for a couple reasons that are a little fuzzy right now I abandoned it. IIRC, I dont think I could get the motors to accept homing in a negative direction(?). Since X0, Y0 was the front left corner of my friends router, X and Y would have required it. Another thing that stymied me was if I didnt run the Home All function in UCCNC, some of the Macro's wouldnt work and neither would the soft limits. So there was no way around, that I saw, that I could get away from homing the machine to a home sensor. But I did end up using auto-homing on the Y axis in a manner of speaking. As its configured now, when the machine is powered up the servo's are not enabled until the software is running. I have the Y axis motors set to auto-home upon "first enable". When I first clear the start up re-set condition in UCCNC, the motors are enabled and the Y axis starts its auto home routine. It moves all the way to the far end of the table until it hits the hard stops and then it backs off the distance I specified when I set it up. This squares my gantry and according to Teknic tech support does a very good job of keeping it square. After that the machine is under software control and I can run "home all" and all axis's home.

Ref the CNCRP sensors, they're a little expensive but I am confident I'll be able to smoothly incorporate them into my machine and my motion controller. And another thing, on my first two builds the home sensors were an afterthought that I was confident I could jury rig something together when the time came. It wasnt as easy as I thought. On this build, with the sensors in hand I've already designed them into my motor drive plates. It will definitely make building it much easier.

[dokwine]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, 1J10. Good food for thought as I work on other areas. The good news is since I'm starting with a CRP frame, I'm already set for mounting their sensors. Question will be whether I punch a bunch of holes in my controller box now for them. Since I'm using Linux CNC I think I can manage the "all home" issues (l think - LCNC is nothing if not flexible).

Did you reverse your Y-slave in the teknic motor configuration or back at your controller. Maybe this has an impact on the negative direction homing issue?

[1Jumper10]

I reversed my Y salve (a axis) in the UCCNC control software. But I must have set a "reverse" setting in the firmware for homing??? Its been awhile...

[1Jumper10]

Been doing some layout with my components. My design has evolved a little bit from what I first envisioned. I found a machine shop that can fixture large pieces like this is going to be. So instead of pouring epoxy to get a flat plane, I'm just going to take the parts and the table to the machine shop and have them face mill it flat. They've already cut the gantry for me and I'm pretty confident it will be less than cost than pouring epoxy! Work won't really get going on that till it gets a little warmer outside.

Till then ive been planning out my bearings and drive setup. I'm going to mount them in/on an S 8x18.4 beam. They'll be protected from swarf and the work bed will be open at the sides. The pics are the bearings and the gearbox and the helical rack placed in a sample I beam.

Tonight I ordered a mini computer and an MB2 breakout board based on some good recommendations. I've already got the UC300ETH and with those components I can start my electrical plan/configuration. Lots of work ahead. Come on spring!

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[1Jumper10]

The weather is not bad today. Doing some layout and drilling holes.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[1Jumper10]

28 holes drilled and tapped. I was only able to work on it for the afternoon. The morning got overcome by events as we use to say in the Army when we didn't have a good answer to the particulars of this or that

The 2 pieces of 3x3x 5/16 will get welded into the I beams. Cross members that connect the sides and form the bed will bolt to them. I had to get the holes in there before that since it would be rather difficult afterwards.

I pre drilled the holes on the drill press and then tapped them with a combo drill/tap and an impact driver. Tapping a hole this way with a 3/8-16 tap took about 30 seconds! I used to hate tapping holes and avoided if even remotely possible. No longer. I highly recommend this method. And it works even better if you don't have to back the combo tap out. I just pop it out of the impact driver and let it fall through the hole and catch it. More tomorrow hopefully.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[1Jumper10]

I got some holes tapped today on the gantry linear bearing tracks and did a test fit. The top holes are just slightly off. Enough so that the heads of the cap screws interfere with mounting. Nothing that can't be corrected with a different style of cap screw. I flipped it over and did the same for the bottom rail. These fit just fine so I put about half the bolts in. I had some time while I waited on the fabricator ( Dad &#128512 so I decided to prep the face of the gantry for primer. I laid it on its backside and that's when I saw a problem. There is a decent sized gap between the flat stock that the rail is mounted on and the gantry tube! Looked closer and it is almost the entire span. In the pic if you look between the bearing trucks you can see the daylight. .

Correcting that is not so easy. I measured and it's .007" different from one end to the other. I'm thinking about scrapping this one ...

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[1Jumper10]

I forgot to ad that the machine shop messed up the shoulder for the gear rack so it was going back to have them correct that. At this point continuing with this one is more of a compromise than intentional progress. It represents less than $120 in material and $100 in machining. More man hours than money.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[CNCMAN172]

1Jumper10,
Yup drilling those holes to mount the linear rails by hand is extremely challenging, when you are drilling steel and all done by hand. That is why some people get a drawing and have a machine shop drill the holes on a larger CNC machine. I have run into fabrication errors and they are clearly painful.

Russ

[1Jumper10]

The machine shop did drill pilot holes for me, I just tapped them. I think we didn't get it tight when we welded it.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[1Jumper10]

Mock up of the drive mount and the linear rail in the I beam.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[1Jumper10]

New gantry beam. Internal X braces and end caps will keep it rigid. This one is 6x8x1/4. The first was 6x10x3/16. With the greater wall thickness it won't be necessary to weld flat stock on it to mount the rails. Will still need some for the gear rack

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[1Jumper10]

Making progress. Mounted pads on the bottom of the gantry and drilled and tapped mounting holes. The holes go all the way through the pad and tube. Should be pretty solid when they mount to the risers. The last pic of the end of the tube with the metal welded in the corners, is going to have an end cap bolted in. This tube is going to be filled with polyurethane foam just like the first one and it will need an open end to fill it. And I don't want to weld it after its full of foam.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[1Jumper10]

Got the end plate fitted yesterday. Still waiting for the machine shop to call.

I ordered some electrical components today from factorymation.com Whitewolf posted about them in my other thread. They have quality parts at very reasonable prices and a website that's easy to navigate. Thanks Whitewolf!

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[eat5hams]

Great to see progress! Watching with interest. I'm going to call some local machine shops to see about just milling surfaces as well rather than doing epoxy. We'll see how big my local guys can fixture