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    Quote Originally Posted by wmgeorge View Post
    My suggestion from months ago.... add a piece of CR steel plate 2.5 inches wide .375 thick and as long as needed to the top rail and remount the linear rail on top of that. That plate can have slots cut in the top for mounting adjustment, ground true and shimmed as needed to make it level or on the same plane as the other. No it would not be perfect enough for some folks but it would work and the cost would be less than $300?
    Or as I and Gerry suggested just build a new one using either 80/20 or CNCRP and transfer the controls and everything over.
    He uses the same parts to built as CNCRP as far as I can see anyway from when I did mine.
    I think more or less we are basically doing the same thing?



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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Erik F View Post
    I think more or less we are basically doing the same thing?
    Hey Erik do you have a welder or a friend with one? If so and the tube is off to much to square up with shiming the rails or something similar. You could always grind off the welds or cut the whole tube off get it squared up and reweld it. It would be basically free and just cost you your labor for a few hours of work. Just a option since I agree with you on not putting any more money into the machine it sucks but it's a option. Another way would be to remove the liniar rails fill the holes and tap new ones that are parallel once again just going to cost you some time and some welding supplies. If it's not on plane you can just shim the low side of the gantry where it attaches to the bearing blocks. It wouldn't be very difficult to do even though you shouldn't have to do anything if the machines were built properly from the beginning. Don't yard sale it yet the machines work really well once you get them dialed in, I still need to address some of the same things but I don't think mine is that out of spec. The main issue with mine is the flatness or lack of flatness where the liniar rails mount to the square tube same issue I think you're having. For me the short term fix was loosening up the bolts to the bearing blocks under the gantry. Fortunately I was able to get my steel gantry replaced with the old aluminum one he had, my gantry was way out of whack and swapping the components over to the extrusion made a big difference.



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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Eric I posted my suggestion as I thought you wanted ideas, I did not know you were doing the same thing? Please let us know how it comes out. Where are you located, I might be interested in purchasing to rehab and sell locally. I have welders, dial indicators and grinders I know I can fix it.

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    Quote Originally Posted by wmgeorge View Post
    Eric I posted my suggestion as I thought you wanted ideas, I did not know you were doing the same thing? Please let us know how it comes out. Where are you located, I might be interested in purchasing to rehab and sell locally. I have welders, dial indicators and grinders I know I can fix it.
    I am near Raleigh NC. I am looking for ideas and thank you for shooting them in my direction. When I have the rails loosened up from the table the gantry rolls pretty freely. It's when I tighten the rails back down the gantry has a bunch more rolling resistance.



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    Quote Originally Posted by Ntl View Post
    Hey Erik do you have a welder or a friend with one? If so and the tube is off to much to square up with shiming the rails or something similar. You could always grind off the welds or cut the whole tube off get it squared up and reweld it. It would be basically free and just cost you your labor for a few hours of work. Just a option since I agree with you on not putting any more money into the machine it sucks but it's a option. Another way would be to remove the liniar rails fill the holes and tap new ones that are parallel once again just going to cost you some time and some welding supplies. If it's not on plane you can just shim the low side of the gantry where it attaches to the bearing blocks. It wouldn't be very difficult to do even though you shouldn't have to do anything if the machines were built properly from the beginning. Don't yard sale it yet the machines work really well once you get them dialed in, I still need to address some of the same things but I don't think mine is that out of spec. The main issue with mine is the flatness or lack of flatness where the liniar rails mount to the square tube same issue I think you're having. For me the short term fix was loosening up the bolts to the bearing blocks under the gantry. Fortunately I was able to get my steel gantry replaced with the old aluminum one he had, my gantry was way out of whack and swapping the components over to the extrusion made a big difference.
    I am pretty mechanically minded but just don't know enough about linear motion to know what is acceptable. With the rails loosened from the table the action is much smoother and the gantry will actually roll a bit with pushed by hand. When the rails are tightened down, I can get things so there is no binding per say but the action is much less smooth and has fair bit more drag. This is probably what you mean when you are saying they frame is not flat? That the rails can be parallel when looking from the top down, but the rails when looking down them from the end are mounted such that they are not perpendicular to the gantry. I'm sorry for my terminology being very basic. How much of this extra drag will damage the bearings and or rails is I guess my question. Thanks again all.



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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Quote Originally Posted by wmgeorge View Post
    My suggestion from months ago.... add a piece of CR steel plate 2.5 inches wide .375 thick and as long as needed to the top rail and remount the linear rail on top of that. That plate can have slots cut in the top for mounting adjustment, ground true and shimmed as needed to make it level or on the same plane as the other. No it would not be perfect enough for some folks but it would work and the cost would be less than $300?
    Or as I and Gerry suggested just build a new one using either 80/20 or CNCRP and transfer the controls and everything over.
    He uses the same parts to built as CNCRP as far as I can see anyway from when I did mine.
    A CR Steel plate is not flat enough to mount linear Rails on with out being machined in place Rail mounting needs to be within .0005" in both planes to be of any use for Linear Rail mounting of this kind

    Mactec54


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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Quote Originally Posted by mactec54 View Post
    A CR Steel plate is not flat enough to mount linear Rails on with out being machined in place Rail mounting needs to be within .0005" in both planes to be of any use for Linear Rail mounting of this kind
    In your haste to "be right" you must of missed the " ground flat" in my reply.

    Please show us the pictures of the machines your making, selling and exporting so we know how to do it right.


    Oh and BTW my machine was not heated and stress relieved and it works fine.

    ADDED: So Gary GME is building a new machine from 80/20 aluminum extrusions, as have been thousands of others done. I am sure they do not meet the .0005 in all planes criteria above. So are all these machines therefore junk? I am looking forward to see the machines your making, please post pictures. Thank you.

    Last edited by wmgeorge; 06-17-2019 at 03:47 PM.
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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    80/20 Spec's from their website.

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!-screen-shot-2019-06-17-3-05-a  
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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Just because people mount linear rails to extrusions, doesn't mean it meets the standards of the rail manufacturers.
    The Hiwin catalog I have specs a max parallelism tolerance of .01mm, and a height deviation between rails of .01-.02mm.
    Extrusions most likely do not meet their specs.

    Gerry

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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Quote Originally Posted by ger21 View Post
    Just because people mount linear rails to extrusions, doesn't mean it meets the standards of the rail manufacturers.
    The Hiwin catalog I have specs a max parallelism tolerance of .01mm, and a height deviation between rails of .01-.02mm.
    Extrusions most likely do not meet their specs.
    I think almost everyone understands that Gerry, thanks for clarifying.

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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Erik F View Post
    I am pretty mechanically minded but just don't know enough about linear motion to know what is acceptable. With the rails loosened from the table the action is much smoother and the gantry will actually roll a bit with pushed by hand. When the rails are tightened down, I can get things so there is no binding per say but the action is much less smooth and has fair bit more drag. This is probably what you mean when you are saying they frame is not flat? That the rails can be parallel when looking from the top down, but the rails when looking down them from the end are mounted such that they are not perpendicular to the gantry. I'm sorry for my terminology being very basic. How much of this extra drag will damage the bearings and or rails is I guess my question. Thanks again all.
    I would like to know the same as far as what type of damage will be caused by the mounting surfaces not being flat or parallel.

    As far as your statement on your rails not being perpendicular to the gantry but parallel to each other, can you clarify?

    I was under the impression that if you measured the rails from side to side on one side of the travel you got a measument of X and at the other end of the travel you got the measument of Y instead of having the same measument of X.

    If you are getting the same measument in between the rails throughout the travel ie: rails are parallel and your gantry isn't perpendicular ie: square with the rails, then you need to loosen up the ganrty bolts and square up the gantry to the main drive motor side (master liniar rail).

    You might have the same issue I had where the steel gantry tube was warped and had mounting holes that weren't tapped in the right places. Try getting the rails aligned properly to each other and then loosening up the gantry to get it as square as possible. You will probably have to shim the gantry bolts where they attach to the bearing blocks as well as the gussets that attach to the ganrty plate. I ultimately had to replace the steel gantry with a aluminum extrusion since it was so warped from the end caps being welded on as well as the holes not being tapped properly. All those things created a major preload on the bearing blocks when everything was tight.

    Let me know if you need me to clarify anything I wrote it sounds like you are having the same issue I had, I just realized I had the issue right away because I was using very high rapid speeds 1000ipm per the machine specs. After making the changes that I mentioned I'm running 940ipm due to my high resolution and it's working great, I just need to shim out the liniar rails to get them flatter and it will be close to perfect.

    For now I have a wave of sorts going on with the rails of 0.01-0.03 through out the travel with one rail being worse than the other. This is not good but I'm compasating for it by leaving the bearing blocks loose so they can essentially float and not reintroduce the preload.

    I know it's not the right way of doing it but it's working for now and since the bolts are covered by the gantry they can't get any looser than I have them set to. Also it hasn't had any noticeable affect on any of the parts I've cut, everything is coming out to spec. I was worried that I might have a issue with cut depth variance but I haven't seen any yet and I believe it would show up when cutting through the material. It doesn't touch spoil board when I cut through material zeroing off the spoil board so I'm OK with it for now. I also was able to get the spoil board surfaced with only a 0.001-0.006 variation through out the surface. My plan is to either do what I mentioned before or try to get it flatter using shiming material.

    Dan



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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    I am going to try to upload the PDF manual for the rails and blocks Gerry mentioned. I do not see anything saying the "world will end" if the tolerance is not +/- .0005? Dan it sounds like you've got it working fine? Oops to big to Upload you can download here.
    > https://www.hiwin.com/downloads.html#manuals

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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    I have mounted linear rails to numerous surfaces. I have seen few cases where linear rails mounted to aluminum extrusions without machining them first works well. Same goes for most any "mill product". Aluminum or steel, they need to be machined. And it will say so in the linear rail mounting guide. If you read the specs for mounting linear rails and then look carefully at the extrusion mfgr's production specs, you can see that aluminum extrusions are not made to accept linear rails.

    It's easy to tell.... Loosen the bearing block bolts, if it rolls easier, then you need to machine the surface, or shim under the rail.

    Gary Campbell GCnC Control
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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    So what your saying Gary if the Linear rail system is binding up your machine then it needs to be redone. That seems to be the issue with a number of the FLA machines. I got lucky on mine I guess.
    We were in Michigan last summer, I visited my old SAC AFB Wurtsmith at Oscoda.

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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Bill...
    I cant speak for others, but I wont mount rails on a non-machined surface. I know there are a lot of DIY kits, some OEM's and probably a ton of DIY guys that do that mount them direct to linear rails, what I'm saying is that I wont. And I will repeat... if loosening the block mount bolts makes it easier to remove, they are improperly installed (on a non true surface)

    Gary Campbell GCnC Control
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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Gary I think 80/20 offers a machining option would that be an good option for a DIY builder?

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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Bill...
    Yes it would, but few if any would pay for it. Besides, you still end up with an extrusion. For the most part they are used because they are 1) Low cost, 2) lightweight and 3) easy to bolt to. Extrusion machines are no where near as rigid as most branded machines, even the Chinese.

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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Quote Originally Posted by islaww View Post
    I have mounted linear rails to numerous surfaces. I have seen few cases where linear rails mounted to aluminum extrusions without machining them first works well. Same goes for most any "mill product". Aluminum or steel, they need to be machined. And it will say so in the linear rail mounting guide. If you read the specs for mounting linear rails and then look carefully at the extrusion mfgr's production specs, you can see that aluminum extrusions are not made to accept linear rails.

    It's easy to tell.... Loosen the bearing block bolts, if it rolls easier, then you need to machine the surface, or shim under the rail.

    I guess I got lucky, although I took an extraordinary amount of care in prep and assembly. I know it's highly unlikely that my Hiwin assemblies meet the published specs, but I can say that everything moves the same, whether individually, loose or tight. I know, because I checked it as part of my assembly setup checklist. Movement was the same in all circumstances. Stiff, but consistently smooth. Perfect? Probably not. Close enough that I cannot detect any difference? Yes. I attribute some of my success to my design and the care I took milling the extrusions for square ends and for length. I would have milled rail mounting surfaces, but my mill isn't even close to large enough for that. Also, there is no practical way to take a bolt together machine to an industrial mill. Too many opportunities going and coming to knock the frame out of alignment. Too much to go wrong. Welded steel is a completely different matter.

    Morale of the story: If you can afford it and are willing to part with the money, buy a welded, stress relieved and milled CNC. I can afford it, but am not willing to part with the money at this point in my retirement. So, I either accept the compromises inherent in my decisions, or I forego a CNC altogether. I chose the former, which is apparently a choice you would never make. Good for you for being able to stick to your principles. I wish we were all so lucky.

    Gary




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    Quote Originally Posted by Ntl View Post
    I would like to know the same as far as what type of damage will be caused by the mounting surfaces not being flat or parallel.

    As far as your statement on your rails not being perpendicular to the gantry but parallel to each other, can you clarify?

    I was under the impression that if you measured the rails from side to side on one side of the travel you got a measument of X and at the other end of the travel you got the measument of Y instead of having the same measument of X.

    If you are getting the same measument in between the rails throughout the travel ie: rails are parallel and your gantry isn't perpendicular ie: square with the rails, then you need to loosen up the ganrty bolts and square up the gantry to the main drive motor side (master liniar rail).

    You might have the same issue I had where the steel gantry tube was warped and had mounting holes that weren't tapped in the right places. Try getting the rails aligned properly to each other and then loosening up the gantry to get it as square as possible. You will probably have to shim the gantry bolts where they attach to the bearing blocks as well as the gussets that attach to the ganrty plate. I ultimately had to replace the steel gantry with a aluminum extrusion since it was so warped from the end caps being welded on as well as the holes not being tapped properly. All those things created a major preload on the bearing blocks when everything was tight.

    Let me know if you need me to clarify anything I wrote it sounds like you are having the same issue I had, I just realized I had the issue right away because I was using very high rapid speeds 1000ipm per the machine specs. After making the changes that I mentioned I'm running 940ipm due to my high resolution and it's working great, I just need to shim out the liniar rails to get them flatter and it will be close to perfect.

    For now I have a wave of sorts going on with the rails of 0.01-0.03 through out the travel with one rail being worse than the other. This is not good but I'm compasating for it by leaving the bearing blocks loose so they can essentially float and not reintroduce the preload.

    I know it's not the right way of doing it but it's working for now and since the bolts are covered by the gantry they can't get any looser than I have them set to. Also it hasn't had any noticeable affect on any of the parts I've cut, everything is coming out to spec. I was worried that I might have a issue with cut depth variance but I haven't seen any yet and I believe it would show up when cutting through the material. It doesn't touch spoil board when I cut through material zeroing off the spoil board so I'm OK with it for now. I also was able to get the spoil board surfaced with only a 0.001-0.006 variation through out the surface. My plan is to either do what I mentioned before or try to get it flatter using shiming material.

    Dan
    Sorry for the short reply...but I'm exhausted. Im saying even if the rails are parallel to each other...if you look down the table...like you might look down a 2x4 timber to see if it's straight...the rail could possibly be toed in or out vertically like if you were to draw a line from floor to ceiling through each rail those would not be parallel even though the rails lengthwise were.



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    Default re: Fineline Shutdown or Perpetrating a Fraud!!

    Quote Originally Posted by wmgeorge View Post
    Gary I think 80/20 offers a machining option would that be an good option for a DIY builder?
    Bill, I do not believe 80/20 offers surface milling (like for linear rails) as an option. Misumi does, but not 80/20.

    Quote Originally Posted by islaww View Post
    Bill...
    Yes it would, but few if any would pay for it. Besides, you still end up with an extrusion. For the most part they are used because they are 1) Low cost, 2) lightweight and 3) easy to bolt to. Extrusion machines are no where near as rigid as most branded machines, even the Chinese.
    I agree with Gary. Even if 80/20 offered surface milling, probably no one would pay for it. Remember 80/20's cut tolerances, .002"/inch for square and .015" for length. If that's the closest they can get for cutting, you have to wonder what the tolerance would be for surface milling. As much to the point, the cost would probably drive off most folks. If money was no object, you'd buy a GOOD branded machine every time.

    At the end of the day, CNCRP/Avid may provide a good case study for extrusion-based CNCs. 80/20's cut tolerances are pretty loose. Yet, the owners get them put together. The other tolerances are way below what they are supposed to be for linear rails, yet most have little problem getting them to run smoothly. Even more remarkable, given Avid's instructions for rail mounting - placing a jig at each end of the rail and simply tightening down the rail bolts from there. If the rails aren't perfectly straight, and there's no guarantee they will been, there are many opportunities for things to get off a little. Heck, just the act of tightening down a mounting bolt can cause more than the acceptable amount of deflection. Still, they run and folks are happy with them. Owners sing their praises. Are they as stiff as welded machines? No way. As heavy? Nope. As accurate? Maybe; maybe not. Do they do what owners bought them to do? You bet. Do they cost as much as a branded welded machine? Not in this lifetime.

    My machine, except for the gantry, uses profiles twice the size of the kits. I also used the heavy stuff, versus the lite variety the kits use. Safe to say, given my design, mine is about twice the weight of the kits. Not the weight of a welded steel machine, but pretty heavy. All-in-all, way more stout than the usual kit or DIY.

    Gary




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