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    Default Jonathan's Build Thread

    I saw a few other build threads and thought I'd start mine as well. I won't post pictures of every step since I'm pretty much doing what has already been done. I'll post pics of things I do differently, mods, etc. as I go.

    Today marks Day 1 of the build. Over the past few days, lots of boxes have been arriving at my door and I've been collecting things from Home Depot (mostly tools). Today the metal came from speedymetals.com. Cost was about $145 shipped and it took 6 working days to arrive. I had ordered all the parts custom cut to length. Custom cut parts have a length tolerance of +.125/-.000, while stock lengths (12", 24", 36") have tolerance of +/-.25. I didn't want the parts coming in short, so I paid a few extra bucks to have them cut to length and save me time.

    First, I unpacked all the metal and wrote down the part numbers on each of the pieces. Almost every single piece came in at the high end of the tolerance (+.125), with the exception of one part (Momus part number 16), coming in .125 short (less length than what I had ordered). I was going to call and have this replaced, but after looking at the plans it seems that I'll be okay with a shorter piece. The other piece for Part 16 came in at the high end of the tolerance. So right now, the two pieces for the two Part 16's are .25" different in length.

    I was kind of bummed that I got material on the high end of the tolerance. I'm now going to have to review the plans and figure out which pieces are critical to keep the lengths as stated in the plans. More importantly, if there is more than one piece required for a particular part number (such as part 16), I'll have to determine if it is okay if each piece is slightly different length than the other(s). I think this will save me time from actually being a perfectionist and cutting each piece to the exact length stated in the plans.

    Another note about the metals from speedymetals: It seems the thickness of each piece is slightly thicker than as stated. For example, .25 thick stock is measuring approx 5 to 10 thousands thicker. I don't think this is a big deal but thought I'd mention it. It is definitely not a close tolerance on the thickness as the metal is mostly extrusion. Also, be ready to get your hands dirty as the metal is not cleaned prior to shipping (again, no big deal to me, I think this is typical).

    That's where I left off tonight. If anyone here can think of which parts are critical in length, or which parts MUST match in length, please post.

    That's all for now. I'm pretty excited to get going with this project.

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    Jonathan,

    Most of the parts will tolerate a fair amount of variance in length.

    When you do your layout, mark one end and one face of each piece and reference all of your measurements from these points. This will keep the relative position of all of the holes accurate from part to part - which is critical. You do not want to be making measurements from both ends of parts that are not identical in length!

    Bob - now that I've written that down I am reminded that having running dimensions from a common reference point on each part would be a nice upgrade to the plans.

    Good luck!

    Randy



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    Quote Originally Posted by groswald View Post
    Bob - now that I've written that down I am reminded that having running dimensions from a common reference point on each part would be a nice upgrade to the plans.
    Yes, I thought about that too when I was measuring out hole locations. It would be nice to have all the dimensions coming from one datum so we don't have to keep moving the ruler around and resetting our "zero". I bet you drew it up the way you did because of certain tolerance stack-ups, but I don't think anyone is really measuring with that in mind. I know that I just set the ruler down on the part and put a tick mark at each hole location. I'm pretty sure this is what everyone does. If you have extra time when updating your plans, my other suggestion would be to identify which holes could be matched drilled with holes on another part. That way we would only have to mark up one part and then we can just drill through it and another part at the same time and have perfectly matched holes. That's what I'll be doing, but it will take a little time to figure out which parts get matched.



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    Bob - now that I've written that down I am reminded that having running dimensions from a common reference point on each part would be a nice upgrade to the plans.
    Yeah, my ideal situation would be to have them coming from a scribed "centerline" datum line on most parts, as a lot of them are symmetrical end to end. But I thought that might be confusing for some people, as they would be measuring from something that isn't actually there. In fact, if you look closely at some of the photos in the plans, you can see that I did lay the holes out that way on some of my parts. You can just see the scribed line in the middle of some parts.

    The current possible accumulation of measuring error bothers me too. But then again, there is lots of tolerance built in, so nothing is too crucial. All of the really crucial dimensions rely on the thickness of the material itself.

    -Bob



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    I mis-spoke when I used the term "running dimensions". That would indeed lead to possible accumulation of errors issues. What I would like to see is the dimension for each hole specified from a common reference point. For most parts that would be one end and one edge for each face.

    Regards,

    Randy



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    More info on the metals from speedy metals...

    While measuring out more parts last night, I noticed that many of the pieces did not have square edges. What ever band saw or cutting device they used to cut the extrusion was not square with the cutting fence. The cut ends are about 1-2 degrees off from perpendicular. While this doesn't really affect the function of many of the parts, it is mildly annoying because I'm using a speed square to make my measurements and it's not very easy to do that when your edges aren't square. I also have to spend a little extra time reviewing the function of the part in the overall assembly to decide whether or not I must have a square edge on the part.

    I've never ordered metal in the past so I have nothing to compare to, but so far I'm thinking I'll try a new vendor next time. When I bought my miter saw, table saw, scroll saw, drill press, etc, the first thing I did was set them all up so they were either perfectly parallel or square to the cutting fence or table as this is pretty important. I don't know how I got aluminum parallelograms when I ordered rectangular bars. I probably should have just cut the pieces myself itstead of having them precut for me.



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    I got mine from onlinemetals.com and the edges are not square eighter but the tolerance is allways with plus. I prefered to get long bars and cut myself.



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    Filing edges, inking, interpreting, measuring, marking, center punching, labelling. Filing edges, inking, interpreting, measuring, marking, center punching, labelling. Filing edges, inking, interpreting, measuring, marking, center punching, labelling.... (this is just the short version of this story).



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    Jonathan,

    If by "filing edges" you mean filing the ends square, then yes, it's a hassle. I don't think you'd see much improvement with another source unless you paid for precision cuts. I could be wrong though.

    I cut my own, and even then the ends need some work to get good measurement results. I put a 10" sanding disk in my table saw and used it and a good miter-fence to square up the ends. Just make sure to clean out most of the sawdust first, and leave your dust-collector off if you have one!

    Randy



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    You can square up the edges with your miter saw too - get a 60+ tooth carbide tipped blade, and use some candle or toilet gasket wax as cutting lube. I cut almost all of my aluminum stock to length that way. Shaving off 1/32 or so to make a true edge would be child's play.



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    I saw a few people mention in other threads that they found they had drilled a few set screw holes on the wrong side of the parts. I thought, "How could they have interpreted the drawing wrong?" The views are standard 3rd angle projection. Anyway, I found tonight that I had also drilled a few on the wrong side, lol!

    After reviewing the drawing, I guess I am to blame, but the views are very confusing. Take part 16 for example:

    The view on the bottom calls out the two 10-32 threaded holes, but fails to mention "Opposite Side" as you would normally see. Yes, the holes are shown in hidden line font, so I guess you can say the drawing is correct, but after doing CAD drawings for a living for the past 6 years, I don't think I've ever seen a dimension pointing to a hidden feature (I don't think it is standard practice), unless it is specifically called out as "opposite side" or something like that. I guess if I really paid attention and compared it to the top view, I would have caught this, but I assumed to put the hole into the face where the leader line is pointing. I'm pretty sure this is where others got confused too. Bob, I know you read these messages. Perhaps incorporate this into your next list of fixes just to prevent confusion (even though the drawing is correct as is). That's just my suggestion to your already awesome plans. The same goes for the two counterbored holes in this part. I almost put the counterbore into the wrong side. Pointing to the hidden feature without specifying "opposite side" occurs on several parts.

    Other than that, everything is going smoothly. I am enjoying my new drill press and getting lots of use out of it. It's amazing to see/feel the difference between a $2 drill bit and a similar $25 bit. Worth every penny, but I'll go broke fast if I keep buying the good bits even though I don't really need them for the soft 6061.

    I'm match drilling as many of the components as I can to ensure proper hardware alignment later on. Going deeper into the aluminum is easy, just requires more cutting fluid and clearing out the chips more frequently.

    I also found it to be much quicker to set up my vice under the drill press so that (for example) I can put a hole right on the centerline of the .75sq parts, and then drill all the centerline holes for all the .75sq parts first, and then coming back and drilling off of the centerline (such as in parts 16, 22, 23, etc). Setting up your piece under the drill press takes the most time (at least it does for me since I try to be a perfectionist), so reducing the amount of set ups really does save a lot of time. Try to group parts with similar features together, especially parts that have holes the same distance from a given edge, that way you can pop the part in the vice and you'll know that you'll always drill the same distance from the edge.

    I still have a long way to go...

    I need to start thinking about electronics soon. I haven't chosen my system yet. My budget for the electronics is $500-$600. I prefer quality over cheap Chinese items. I prefer a plug and play system, but don't mind wiring and soldering if I have to (I'm pretty good at that stuff). At the moment I have my eyes set on the Gecko 4 axis package (with 3 steppers). I want something that fits and is concealed in the Momus designed base. Will this work? A 4 axis driver would be cool in case I decided to experiment with another stepper in the future. What other suggestions do you all have for me?

    Thanks!



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    Default Gecko System

    Hi GT,

    I have the Gecko 4 drive board as part of their overall 'kit'. Closest to PnP in my opinion. Randy (groswald) has same. Check our build threads for pics of the install. Yes it fits but its tight. Randy has modded his a bit since the first install to account for things like the power cord being in the way and the already installed DB9 connectors (they don't fit through a small round hole ).

    Dave



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    After reviewing the drawing, I guess I am to blame, but the views are very confusing.
    I agree, and I need to clean those drawings up so they are crystal clear to read and understand. Thanks for pointing out that there are dimensions to features on the back sides of parts. A big no-no, and it makes me cringe to see that I did that. On the parts that require an orthographic view of the rear side, some labeling of views would be helpful as well, to help distinguish front from rear. My apologies for the mis-drilled holes. I'll take some responsibility on that one.


    I also have to spend a little extra time reviewing the function of the part in the overall assembly to decide whether or not I must have a square edge on the part.
    There are very few pieces that need a perfectly square end. Again, this was intentional, as I was cutting everything by hand with a hacksaw. The most critical ones would be the nut plate block (part #27) and the four spacers (part #24). It would be nice to have the bearing blocks (parts #15, 17) as square as you can get them, but probably isn't the end of the world if they are off slightly.

    On a related note, those 4 spacers can be replaced with a purchased part. I've been playing around with an upgrade to the 4 carriage studs (increasing them from 1/4" studs to 5/16" bolts) and I replaced the spacers with ones I purchased from Quality Aluminum Spacers - Largest Selection on the Web. They are 11/16" in length, 5/8" o.d and 3/8" i.d, which works perfectly with the larger 5/16" bolts. The 11/16" length is .010" longer than the homemade spacers the plans currently call for, but there is plenty of built-in tolerance to absorb that small difference. They are nice and square and are only $1.20 each.

    Glad to hear that progress is being made with the machine build. I also found that it was fastest to set up the drill press/vice and drill all of the similar holes across all the parts. I found it to be faster to do that than to keep switching drill bit size while working on one part. I just takes some good organizational skills to keep track of everything.

    I'm actually in a similar position as you right now in choosing electronics. It seems that one of my stepper motors died. So I can either replace that one motor for $40, or take it as an omen that I should upgrade the whole system. I was in the middle of rewiring my limit switches when this happened, so it would be good timing if I want to switch drives. That Gecko 540 is very enticing indeed.

    -Bob



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    Alright, back to work. I've been stalled for the past few weeks because aluminum chips were tracking into the house and my wife didn't like that too much. I can't blame her since our 1 yr old son puts everything in his mouth. So I've built myself a cubicle. Total cost $47. I have a pair of dedicated shoes and a lab coat that never leave the cubicle. Change shoes going in, change shoes coming out, lol. Whatever it takes to make parts, lol.

    I'm about half way thru with drilling the metal components. They're all marked so it's just a matter of getting them drilled. I haven't bought anything else yet. I plan on picking up all the hardware at my local industrial hardware store when I'm closer to finishing the metal parts. After that, I'll buy the wood and get started with that, followed by the electronics and router.

    I'm pretty sure I'll pick up the G540 package, I'm just trying to decide if I want the 4 axis package in case I decide to experiment with a 4th axis somewhere inside the machine. Thoughts anyone?

    I will probably also pick up the Super PID controller. I'm into gizmos, especially anything with a PID in it. What really has me sold though is the quieter operation. My neighbors will appreciate that. Is it controllable with the G540? Has anyone here tried it yet?

    I waiting as long as possible to buy the router. Hopefully something new and better comes out on the market by the time I'm ready to buy. If not, the Colt is looking like the best option right now.

    I'm following all the other threads here, so keep posting and feel free to chime in here as well. I'll try to be more social from now on as I'm back to making parts.

    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Jonathan's Build Thread-100_2381-jpg   Jonathan's Build Thread-100_2382-jpg  


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    I'm pretty sure I'll pick up the G540 package, I'm just trying to decide if I want the 4 axis package in case I decide to experiment with a 4th axis somewhere inside the machine.

    You won't go wrong with the G540. Has lots of great features making it painless and safe to use.

    I will probably also pick up the Super PID controller. I'm into gizmos, especially anything with a PID in it.

    Oh yeah? Here's something CNC related with PID loops out the ying yang.

    What really has me sold though is the quieter operation. My neighbors will appreciate that. Is it controllable with the G540? Has anyone here tried it yet?

    I use a G540 with a SuperPID. The latest docs have instructions for using them together. You have to decide if you want Mach to control the spindle speed from the Gcode or not, or you can add a switch to do either.

    If not, the Colt is looking like the best option right now.

    I also use a Colt. The Colt runs very fast (about 30,000 RPM flat out) so its fan is quite noisy. There are two models, one with speed control (about $30 more) and one without. If you are going to use the SuperPID you will disable the speed control anyway, so save the money. Lots of info about it on Romanlini's SuperPID thread.

    "72.6 per cent of all statistics are made up on the spot." - Steven Wright


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    If you get a Colt, check the runout on the spindle. The newer ones are being made cheap and the collet does not fit correctly in the spindle resulting in unacceptable amounts of runout. A friend of mine went through two finding the spindle/collet to be too far out of true and it was causing problems with milling quality pieces. He gave up on them and bought a Ridgid 2401 and has not looked back.



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    So is the Ridgid 2401 the preferred choice for this machine? I'm not really set on a router yet, so whatever people like best, I'll go for. I like to learn from others' mistakes



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    Quote Originally Posted by revwarguy View Post
    Oh yeah? Here's something CNC related with PID loops out the ying yang.
    Ah yes, the quad copters. I'm into RC planes and helis, but never got around to the quads.



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    Quote Originally Posted by GTFreeFlyer View Post
    So is the Ridgid 2401 the preferred choice for this machine? I'm not really set on a router yet, so whatever people like best, I'll go for. I like to learn from others' mistakes
    I think most are using the Colts but the latest batches seem to have the spindle problem so I am sticking with the Ridgid. It may not be as powerful but I'll take that over the spindle issues any day. The machine was designed around the 2400 and the 2401 isn't much different. The mount in the drawings works for it. For now, I'll turn mine on and off with the switch but a SuperPID is in my future hopefully.



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    Quote Originally Posted by parallel__lines View Post
    I agree, and I need to clean those drawings up so they are crystal clear to read and understand. Thanks for pointing out that there are dimensions to features on the back sides of parts. A big no-no, and it makes me cringe to see that I did that. On the parts that require an orthographic view of the rear side, some labeling of views would be helpful as well, to help distinguish front from rear. My apologies for the mis-drilled holes. I'll take some responsibility on that one.




    There are very few pieces that need a perfectly square end. Again, this was intentional, as I was cutting everything by hand with a hacksaw. The most critical ones would be the nut plate block (part #27) and the four spacers (part #24). It would be nice to have the bearing blocks (parts #15, 17) as square as you can get them, but probably isn't the end of the world if they are off slightly.

    On a related note, those 4 spacers can be replaced with a purchased part. I've been playing around with an upgrade to the 4 carriage studs (increasing them from 1/4" studs to 5/16" bolts) and I replaced the spacers with ones I purchased from Quality Aluminum Spacers - Largest Selection on the Web. They are 11/16" in length, 5/8" o.d and 3/8" i.d, which works perfectly with the larger 5/16" bolts. The 11/16" length is .010" longer than the homemade spacers the plans currently call for, but there is plenty of built-in tolerance to absorb that small difference. They are nice and square and are only $1.20 each.

    Glad to hear that progress is being made with the machine build. I also found that it was fastest to set up the drill press/vice and drill all of the similar holes across all the parts. I found it to be faster to do that than to keep switching drill bit size while working on one part. I just takes some good organizational skills to keep track of everything.

    I'm actually in a similar position as you right now in choosing electronics. It seems that one of my stepper motors died. So I can either replace that one motor for $40, or take it as an omen that I should upgrade the whole system. I was in the middle of rewiring my limit switches when this happened, so it would be good timing if I want to switch drives. That Gecko 540 is very enticing indeed.

    -Bob
    I was going to mention this same thing awhile back but I never said anythign because I couldn't figure out if it was something I screwed up or an inconsistency with the drawings and since i never heard anyone mention it till now i figured it did it. I have two peices with set screws on the wrong side I need to re drill.



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