Lessons in overkill! Welded steel, fixed gantry router

[mcentric]

It's more motivating when the mock-up is starting to look more and more like the final product.
I see clearly now that the 25mm hiwin rails were not too wimpy for this machine

[mcentric]

Making some plywood templates for the side walls until I can get the steel ones drilled and counterbored.

[mcentric]

More mock-up. Starting to look like something

[mcentric]

I spot drilled the location of the mounting holes in the steel side plates on the CNC router at work.



I then drilled and countersunk the holes on my manual mill.



Test mounting



Another mock-up of the entire machine so far



I bought some 25kg bags of sandblasting sand that will be used to fill the frame when done.



Getting the router used to what it's going to be making

[papp101]

Looks great! Will be following this one.

[mcentric]

Starting to drill and tap the holes for the linear rails. My mill is way too small to do them all in one shot, so I am drilling 6 holes, moving the tube, indexing off the last hole and then drilling 6 more





I've done a bit more work on the CAD file to visualize my goal

I'm adding LED strips to the inside of the cover

[mcentric]

Looks great! Will be following this one.

Thanks

[smit155]

what controller and software are you using.

[mcentric]

what controller and software are you using.

UC300ETH controller card
UCCNC software

[wizard]

Starting to drill and tap the holes for the linear rails. My mill is way too small to do them all in one shot, so I am drilling 6 holes, moving the tube, indexing off the last hole and then drilling 6 mor

I've done a bit more work on the CAD file to visualize my goal

I'm adding LED strips to the inside of the cover

Nice! If it doesn't work out as intended you can always repurpose it as a barbecue grill!!!!

Sorry couldn't resist the humor there. I actually like the idea of totally enclosed machinery so I'm not knocking this, I just couldn't help myself thinking about some slow cooked barbecue coming off that platform. Maybe it is time for supper.

[mcentric]

Nice! If it doesn't work out as intended you can always repurpose it as a barbecue grill!!!!

Sorry couldn't resist the humor there. I actually like the idea of totally enclosed machinery so I'm not knocking this, I just couldn't help myself thinking about some slow cooked barbecue coming off that platform. Maybe it is time for supper.

Glad other people saw it too, and it wasn't just me getting hungry

The "grate" is definitely up for design revision. Not really sure it has any significant effect either. I'll need some sort of mesh underneath the table to stop larger pieces from getting sucked into the dust extraction at the bottom.

I'm going to make some kind of brush system to keep dust of the linear rails and ball screw, but I think I will figure out how that's gonna work when I get the machine up and running.

[mcentric]

Back from winter holiday, and back to work on the project!

The holes for the first X rail are drilled and tapped.



Initially I was planing on having the mounting surfaces on the steel tubes ground or milled flat to deal with the slight concave deformation. On closer inspection, the deformation is surprisingly consistent and centered on the face, and the linear rails straddle the center of the concavity, so I'm going to try them as they are.

[mcentric]

hey!

Progress has been slow, but updates here have been non-existent. So I guess it's time to catch up:

* A quick preliminary test to see if my X and Y axis are close to being square.



* Using 3D printed brackets to mock up the X axis



* Getting the Y axis components in place



* Filling the lower frame with sand using an old oscillating sander to compact the sand. The joints are only stitch welded, so bondo was used to fill the gaps so the sand wouldn't run out.

[mcentric]

Movement! 😊

[louieatienza]

Looking good!

[mcentric]

Looking good!

Thanks

[mcentric]

Well, it's been a while and frankly not much has been done since last I posted. What I did realize though, was that the steppers weren't gonna cut it, but not for the reasons you'd expect.
The speeds were as expected, but nothing more. The biggest issue were some weird resonances that I just couldn't get tuned out. I played around with micro stepping, speeds, motor mounts, damping etc but it was still there to an unacceptable extent.
This is my first full steel frame build, so these could be common issues that are known, just not to me 😉
Some of the upper tubes haven't been filled with sand yet because I am still taking it apart regularly, and it would just make a mess. This could obviously be some of the reason for the resonance.
So I've decided to try to solve both the speed and noise issues by throwing some money at the project, and getting it to the stage I was eventually planing to get it to... just not this quickly 😁
Meet the latest additions:


ClearPath servos from Teknic
I'll post again once I get them installed.

M.

[1Jumper10]

That oughtta do it!

[Mercuryv8]

Any updates?

Nic

[mcentric]

Any updates?

Nic

Sorry for the really slow reply!

Yes, the servos are in and work great. Definitely worth the investment. I had made a temporary 3D printed Z motor mount that ended up causing me a lot of grief with resonance in the servo that just couldn't be tuned out. The solution was of course as easy as just machining an aluminum mount and that has solved the issues.

The dust shoe is loosely based on the one on the MultiCam Apex router I have at work. It's 3D printed, has a built in camera and works great!

I'll post a video soon. Meanwhile here are some pictures I just took of it while making a test neck for a series of guitars I'm making.