Ultra basic machine now running

[routalot]

For quite a while I have been working on a simple machine.I didn't want to commit to an "ultimate" machine without the assurance of knowing my capabilities would get me there.For both ease of construction and cost I went with a moving table machine built of MDF.Against some opinions I used high load drawer runners to permit movement but I did add a third across the X and Y axes to limit lateral movement and for my current purposes they are OK.For the Z axis I went for 12mm supported round rails and that works very well.

For moving things around I bought a Nema 23 230 oz/in kit from Long's Motor and the hardware is good.I bought ballscrews with a 5mm pitch and if I did it again I might go coarser.The painful part was getting the Longs breakout board to move the motors and I have to thank several posters on various forums and contributors to youtube for guiding me through this part of the process.

For turning the tools I already had a Rotozip that wasn't doing much and made some mounting brackets to secure it.I moved on to the control software and after a bit of looking at Arduino based systems I decided Linuxcnc was best for me.The stepconf part of things was shall we say interesting but I got the axes moving only to be mystified by the test run of +/- 15mm travelling 30mm-it seemed odd to me that a plus and then minus move of the same distance didn't result in a return to the starting point.Having worked out what they intended, I reset the number of steps/mm and all has been well.

I have tried two ways of generating toolpaths.For engraving or v-carving I have found f-engrave very good,even if I don't totally understand how to get it to v-carve in stages that don't work the Rotozip too hard-more practice needed I suspect.For other toolpaths I am finding the Path module of Freecad amazingly good and it has a built in post processor for Linuxcnc.

In conclusion I am glad to have undertaken the project and would make many of the same choices again.In fact I may well go for a bigger and better machine using some of the knowledge I have gained along the way.

My seasonal greetings to all those of you doing the same sort of thing.



From an outline turned into a toolpath by f-engrave.

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[cyclestart]

It feels like half the posters showing up here with plans of 'ultimate' machines in the end build nothing. You have something running. Congratulations.
The problem is now you've got the bug and build 2 won't be far behind

re F-engrave: As you suspect it can set v-carve depth-per-pass to whatever you want including a light finish pass. The software was written by
some kind of mad genius in the best meaning of that term.
.

[wizard]

Congratulation! It is always nice to hear about successful builds that do what the builder wants.

[fretman_2]

Show us the machine and congrats on finishing it!

[routalot]

With the temperature hovering a degree or two above freezing and 95% humidity,I am spending less time in the workshop than I do when conditions are more pleasant.I did take a camera with me and hopefully,the attached images will appear.I'll be happy to answer any questions and intend to learn what I need to do to make a reliable homing system with LinuxCNC.

[fretman_2]

Cool...and thanks for putting up the pics. My machine is MDF too...it works for me!

[imbaine13]

You didn't get that many shots but it seems like a great machine. I like the simplicity and how you used 3 linear bearings on the table instead of the seemingly conventional two. How did you cut out the MDF parts?

[routalot]

With a bandsaw and then I cleaned them up with a sharp,finely set plane.The bearings are actually the best high load drawer runners I found and I used three to minimise unwanted movement.I used supported round rail on the Z axis and have some replacements intended for the Y axis sitting on the shelf.I have a couple of other refinements in mind too.

[imbaine13]

Do you plan to disassemble the whole machine and paint it?
Also, what is the cutting area?
Have tried serious work on it (cutting plastics, wood or any other material for use else where)?

[routalot]

I do intend to apply a coat of sealer when I switch the guides on the Y axis and (hopefully) add homing switches.I'm not too bothered about the appearance and regard the performance as being more important.The work area is about 350mm X 235mm which may be odd sizes,but I started form a wish to cover at least the area of an A4 sheet of paper which is 297mm X 210mm.I have cut several wooden projects and one or two pieces of plastic so far and mainly need to learn more about the software to generate toolpaths.I have used Mastercam and Rhinocam when working for a couple of different companies and would like that kind of capability,but without the price tag.I have been exploring Freecad and the Path workbench.It is evolving quite quickly and does quite a lot of the things I would wish for-if only I could understand the logic of where the various features are located.I am hoping that the almost finished 3D surfacing module will be available soon.For V-carving or engraving I have been using F-engrave and it does a nice job although nobody seems to know hoe to get the app for adding true type fonts to work.

[imbaine13]

Ahhh!.... I had forgotten about the software bit if things! If I'm being honest, I haven't bothered thinking that far ahead! I'll get to it when I get to it! As for the drawer slides go, I one time came a cross someone's design where he used 2 pairs of slides per axis. His principle was, as the axis moved, one pair would be extending while the other retracting. He claimed it made for a solid linear bearing system. It's unfortunate I lost the link, would've loved to refer back to it. I guess your set up works just as well.

What size of motors are you using?

[imbaine13]

and (hopefully) add homing switches.

Are you saying you can operate a machine without homing switches? I kind of had a feeling it is (setting that home manually around the central point and programming the cut area around that point, so to speak), but I wouldn't leave it unattended! Are the switches necessary at both ends of each axis or just one?

[imbaine13]

I'm not too bothered about the appearance and regard the performance as being more important.

I in general meant something to seal the MDF and it's good to know you have it planned. I really don't care about colour either. Whether or not it does it's intended job is more important to me as well.

[routalot]

To clarify,I intend to apply a coat of sanding sealer in due course.The steppers are 230 oz/inch Nema 23 's and have far more power than I can use but I don't think I would want to go smaller.I am operating without homing switches and it works quite well as long as I don't do part of a job and then go back another day after switching off the computer.To make it a bit easier I have placed pencil marks on the machine to indicate where an approximate home position is and when I activate LinuxCNC it insists that I enter a home position before allowing me to do anything.By making sure the marks are in place it is normally quite close.I then use the workpiece to determine a job offset.I have run items that were modelled at a point in space that would be outside the machine's working envelope if the home position was used as a zero datum.By using the "touch off" facility and entering a suitable global coordinate,it all works unless the dimensions of the workpiece exceed the values entered in the machine parameters.

I do have both inductive switches and basic roller actuated physical switches to choose from and intend to use one or the other once I have grasped enough of the necessities of the homing parameter setup and then located the switches and their operating mechanisms.

I strongly recommend downloading some software for engraving and other operations and starting the learning process.F-engrave has been a very useful find for me and I am working at learning more about the Freecad path module.

[imbaine13]

The steppers are 230 oz/inch Nema 23 's and have far more power than I can use but I don't think I would want to go smaller.

I'm likely to go with 170 oz-inch motors. Joe used 200 oz-inch motors on his Joe's2006 machine and he can cut at 80 ipm with it. His gantry is definitely much heavier than mine will be, and my work area only 1/4 of his, so I'm sure anything above 150 oz-inch will do for me.

I strongly recommend downloading some software for engraving and other operations and starting the learning process.F-engrave has been a very useful find for me and I am working at learning more about the Freecad path module.

You are right about that. I'll try FreeCAD and see how things turn out. Fusion 360 seems to be most people's favourite in the open source arena, but I think it's online based, so I'll steer clear of it. There's also a lot of debate about it's developers slapping a price tag on it once it's deep rooted into the CNC community.

Isaac.

[skrubol]

You are right about that. I'll try FreeCAD and see how things turn out. Fusion 360 seems to be most people's favourite in the open source arena, but I think it's online based, so I'll steer clear of it. There's also a lot of debate about it's developers slapping a price tag on it once it's deep rooted into the CNC community.

Isaac.

Fusion is definitely not open source, just free to use if you aren't making significant income in the work it's attached to ($100k/yr the last I knew.) Fusion data is online, but the software itself is installed to the PC.

[imbaine13]

Fusion is definitely not open source, just free to use if you aren't making significant income in the work it's attached to ($100k/yr the last I knew.) Fusion data is online, but the software itself is installed to the PC.

I stand corrected.
Quick question(s)...how do they know that you're not using it commercially? Does it (the software) generate some kind of log or report on usage and send over to the developers or something? Also, what qualifies as "significant income" to them?

[wizard]

Fusion is definitely not open source, just free to use if you aren't making significant income in the work it's attached to ($100k/yr the last I knew.) Fusion data is online, but the software itself is installed to the PC.

I see a great deal of Fusion promotion online, often by people that are obviously being compensated for the use of the software. That unfortunately biases people and they gloss over the online problem. I have zero desire to store anything online but more so anything that might result in grief if I sudeenly can't access that data. I've downloaded Fusion before and frankly it left me with a poor opinion because dof the way user data is handled.

By the way I have nothing against backing up data to online stores. Critical data really needs to be held locally, actually any data I generate be it a note or a set fo CAD drawings needs to be stored locally first. I've just had had issues over the years with data loss and frankly don't trust networks be they internal or managed by somebody in the cloud. It is a bit of a shame as Fusion has considerable potential.

[routalot]

One other reason I went with Freecad is that it is being developed by enthusiasts who decide to pursue a solution to a real world situation that they encounter.Consequently there are such things as FEM to play with and I have been fascinated by that in particular for a long time.The toolpath capability isn't perfect for all machining operations but it does keep progressing and I can't wait to see what new strategies are close to being perfected.I have installed both the stable version and the daily update version and enjoy exploring the possibilities of both.

[Black Forest]

I see a great deal of Fusion promotion online, often by people that are obviously being compensated for the use of the software. That unfortunately biases people and they gloss over the online problem. I have zero desire to store anything online but more so anything that might result in grief if I sudeenly can't access that data. I've downloaded Fusion before and frankly it left me with a poor opinion because dof the way user data is handled.

By the way I have nothing against backing up data to online stores. Critical data really needs to be held locally, actually any data I generate be it a note or a set fo CAD drawings needs to be stored locally first. I've just had had issues over the years with data loss and frankly don't trust networks be they internal or managed by somebody in the cloud. It is a bit of a shame as Fusion has considerable potential.

Just so you know, you can store files locally also with Fusion 360. You can work offline to an extent. They will get stored in the clould also but can be stored locally. The biggest problem people have with Fusion 360 is the fact that files are stored in the cloud. No way around that and it won't change. People are afraid of having their intellectual property stolen because it is on the cloud. Whether that is a real threat or not is up to the individual and their customers.