[gacrwell]

Have thought about this for awhile; first saw Joe's CNC last summer and was pretty sure that was the one. Now the cash is in hand and I've been reading all weekend. Joe's is still the one. I went out and bought the Hitachi router today just to show the wife that I'm serious.

Now, I'm just waiting for an email response from Joe to know where & how much money to throw at him. I sure hope he's got the time to cut at least one more - looks like everyone's building one. Once I get a confirm that a kit is in the works, I'll get on line for the rest of the hardware.

I'd like to use the HobbyCNC controller, largely because it's a kit & I'd enjoy building it (dozens of Heathkits in the past). ...Unless there's a particular advantage to the Xylotex? I've read about both used here.

I'd also like to go up to the 269 oz-in motors that I've read others are using. The one offered by Xylotex is 4-wire and I understand that won't work with the HobbyCNC controller. Are the Keling motors any good? - perhaps the KL23H276-30-8B? - with the HobbyCNC? Three of those and the HobbyCNC kit would cost about the same as the HobbyCNC package with 200oz. Keling gets a good rep in this thread: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25185

Dang I missed a good set of motors on ebay, but someone sniped them away - probably for the best; think the price was getting too high.

Gary

[gacrwell]

I had looked around here a bit last summer, and at that time Joe's CNC looked like the way to go. Now I've got the cash in hand and it still looks like the one. I went out and bought the Hitachi router just to show the wife I'm serious.

Now I'm just waiting on an email response from Joe to find out where & how much cash to throw at him. I hope he still has time to cut one out for me - it looks like everyone's building one. As soon as I can get that confirmed I'll get on line and get the rest of the hardware ordered.

Gary

[joecnc2006]

I had looked around here a bit last summer, and at that time Joe's CNC looked like the way to go. Now I've got the cash in hand and it still looks like the one. I went out and bought the Hitachi router just to show the wife I'm serious.

Now I'm just waiting on an email response from Joe to find out where & how much cash to throw at him. I hope he still has time to cut one out for me - it looks like everyone's building one. As soon as I can get that confirmed I'll get on line and get the rest of the hardware ordered.

Gary

Welcome, and hope you enjoy the reading here on the Zone, There are many talented and knowledgable people here. I take it since last summer you have read quite abit on the machine and seeing more people built them, and The Modifications people have come up with (that is enjoyable to me).

Gary i do not think i recieved an message or e-mail, i do have to clear my messages daily so if it was 100% full it will not work, you can try e-mail, I have caught up and have no kits on the bench so to speak. mailed out last one end of last week.

let me know if you need the link to the files or you have them, to review and look at the machine in 3D.

Joe

[David Da Costa]

Welcome to the club Gary.


David

[jspencer]

Gary-

Welcome and it looks like we are not too far away, I'm in Meridian. I'm just finishing up mine and can't wait to start using it.

Good Luck!

James

[bp092]

Look forward to seeing your build. If you need any help, feel free to ask anything, advice, questions, that's what we're here for.

[DougO]

Weclome Gary. I think you can see from the zone I haven't seen anyone unhappy with their Joes CNC. Some of us had problems getting them running correctly but you are probably going to have that with any homemade build, but once it gets going it is sure a nice machine.

[bp092]

Well put dougO, I had a rocky assembly, but now I'm cutting really well, it's a challenge and a journey, but it's not rocket science, if you have the ambition to get it done then that's all it takes.. and a little capital (not much really)

[gacrwell]

Silly redundant posts of mine, the first one vanished for awhile after I posted it & I thought I'd deleted it somehow; hence the second.

Thanks guys, I've hooked up with Joe and the parts kit is on the way (well, a few weeks away, 'on-the-way', that is). Plenty to do in the meantime.

James, by putting Boise in the thread title I was hoping I might ferret out someone local. I'd love to eyeball what you've done with it.

The plan now is to get the motors & controller, and get them running on the desktop before the cut parts arrive. I'm still leaning towards the HobbyCNC controller and Keling motors.

Gary

[DayneInfo]

Welcome Gary, its alot of fun here and the people are great. I hope you get this thing going soon. You will spend hours just watching it run.

Dwayne

[gacrwell]

Progress Report, 1-week post CNC commitment:

• Purchased Hitachi router, $119, local Lowe's.
• Ordered Joe's full kit, ~4 weeks delivery.
• Ordered HobbyCNC PRO 3-axis controller, $79.
• Ordered Keling steppers: KL23H286-20-8B x3 $54 ea.
• Ordered bearing sets from vxb.com, $45.
• Did my taxes, two months early!

I had pretty much decided on the HobbyCNC PRO controller, but I wanted to look at user's experiences with it on their Yapoo user's group. But, you can't find that group on Yapoo by searching: it's literally invisible. I finally did find the group via a link posted here on CNCZone: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hobbycnc/ Wasn't surprised to find out it's members only, so I asked to join. Twice. Denied. Twice. What kind of brain-dead marketing is this? It turns out that only after you place an order, are you given the above link, and then your membership will be approved. Oh well, it was still the controller I wanted. After ordering, applying (3rd time), being blessed, and reading through the group, I found that someone had good luck with the Keling motors, so those were what I ordered.

On the bearing sets, one was $5 more than the price listed in Joe's instructions, and one was $5 less, so that was a wash. However, upon checkout, on orders over $30 there was an offer of 8, free, 8x22x7 bearings, so I've got those extra FWIW.

Some of the other stuff on hand:

• Plenty of old assorted PC's, monitors, keyboards, parallel cables and stuff.
• An old industrial rack mount PC case that I'll stuff one of those PC's into.
• A monster of a surplus switching power supply.
• An old metal equipment cabinet that should house the power supply and controller.
• I also just picked up a nice little 100MHz oscilloscope for $75; a steal - the guy I got it from had paid over $200 for it on ebay, and that wasn't a bad price. Might come in handy for troubleshooting.

That old power supply has three 15V outputs and one 5V, all at least 16A. Combinations of those should allow output choices of 15, 20, 30, 35, 45, or 50V (I’m thinking 35 would be a good place to start with the HobbyCNC.

Before the motors and controller arrive, I need to stuff a PC into the industrial case, get it set up, and test the stepper power supply. Then I'll be ready to test the controllers and motors on the bench when they get here. Have to get the software downloaded and set up too.

Still waiting on a couple of shopping trips to check out local availability of the rest of the hardware before making an order to use-enco, and the nuts&bolts place. I'd like to have the bearing angles fabricated before Joe's kit gets here.

After reading about the dozens of rattle cans that some of you have used for painting, I think I'll pick up a cheap (costco/harbor freight) spray gun and try that. Wally world has Kilz primer in gallons for $10, and Rustoleum colors for ~$7 a quart. I really liked the white/grey/blue color scheme that I've seen here.

Also looking at cable and connectors, expensive. Might have to pass on what I want for now. ebay wasn't any help. Haven't looked at surplus places yet, they might at least be good for the limit switches.

I don't have a shop-vac yet either; I'm open to suggestions.

I went out to James' house this afternoon to see his Joe's. (Hmmm, put that way, it sounds vaguely dirty.) Learned a lot and it was very enlightening to see one in the flesh. (Oops, still sounds dirty.) You guys should get yourselves in the pictures more often (like - at all - I don't think I've ever seen an actual person in the build photos here), to provide a sense of scale of the thing. I described it to my wife as "a big FoosBall table".

Turns out James and I only live about 10 miles apart and have very likely met before; our respective employers do business with each other.

One other task before stuff starts arriving - I have to make a Joe's CNC-sized clear space in the garage somewhere. The stack of blue astroturf may have to go (James knows what that is; I should take him a piece.)

Gary

[ccsparky]

Hello Gary,

Welcome, looks like you've got a pretty good jump on it.

That's really great that you and James live so close to be able to check out his build. Like Dwayne said, the people here are really great.
I have read each persons log several times and still get a kick out of what everyone has done... very creative people!

Enjoy, and look forward to seeing your progress!!!

Bob

[gmfoster]

[QUOTE=I had pretty much decided on the HobbyCNC PRO controller, but I wanted to look at user's experiences with it on their Yapoo user's group. But, you can't find that group on Yapoo by searching: it's literally invisible. I finally did find the group via a link posted here on CNCZone: [URL]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hobbycnc/[/URL] Wasn't surprised to find out it's members only, so I asked to join. Twice. Denied. Twice. What kind of brain-dead marketing is this? It turns out that only after you place an order, are you given the above link, and then your membership will be approved.



The group is not for marketing. And I for one sure wouldn't call Dave brain dead. The group is for customer support, he seems to get about all the customers he can handle and limiting his support forum to customers makes a ton of sense.

Garry

[Jay C]

Also, if you wanted user feedback, there is a HobbyCNC forum here too Do tell more about this monster power supply though. And a 4U rack case is huge! You ought not have any issues finding space

Pictures please

[pen25]

[QUOTE=gmfoster;259818]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hobbycnc/[/URL] Wasn't surprised to find out it's members only, so I asked to join. Twice. Denied. Twice. What kind of brain-dead marketing is this? It turns out that only after you place an order, are you given the above link, and then your membership will be approved.



The group is not for marketing. And I for one sure wouldn't call Dave brain dead. The group is for customer support, he seems to get about all the customers he can handle and limiting his support forum to customers makes a ton of sense.

Garry

I think the issue is or would be not being able to see if others had used the motors like he has ordered. doesnt hurt to set the group to read all users and limit who can post

[gacrwell]

Here's the rack mount PC chassis. It was intended for a test equipment station at work, but they finally went with 1U server-type PC's and this case was up for grabs. The reset, power switch, and disk drive bays are behind the latching door. The white square sitting on the door is the cleanable, replaceable fan filter. The pity of it is, I also had a 19" half-rack that would have held this and the controller box & power supply, but I tossed it last Fall.

The power supply is an old Power-One, with plug-in modules. The first is the AC front-end. The second has dual 15V, 16A outputs; the third is 15V @ 33A, and the forth is 5V @ 80A. I'm pretty certain all of the outputs are floating, so I should be able to wire those up in the combinations I mentioned earlier.

Sagan says hi.

Gary

[gacrwell]

Progress - 2 weeks in:

• The Keling motors arrived
• The HobbyCNC Pro arrived
• The vxb bearings arrived

Though the HCNCP arrived almost a week ago, it took awhile to get around to building it. My interest in it was the SLA707x drivers that it uses - I'd like to fiddle with some driver ideas with them myself, so I first took the time to back out the schematic, and it's easier to do that off the bare board. Turns out to be not much different than the SLA706x driver board at pminmo, or what's on the data sheet for that matter. I may use the empty 4th axis of the board as a breadboard site. I also ordered some extra SLA chips.

The HobbyCNC PRO assembled with no problem, checked out and set the reference voltages, but haven't hooked up the steppers/PC yet - will get to that this week.

I didn't like the idea of having to template off the board to drill the heatsink holes, so I made up a dimensioned sketch of the board and HS... but my CAD program crashed when I saved it, so I get to redo that tomorrow. I'll post it here when done. I figure that the reason Dave doesn't supply a drilled heatsink or a drawing is that the driver positions can vary too much depending upon the installation. But that's easy to fix. Fabricate the heatsink first, then insert the drivers in the board without soldering, screw them to the heatsink, - now everything's aligned without stress - and finally solder the pins. The driver positions can also vary because the pattern of the driver pin holes in the board are 25 mils off - makes them harder to insert than necessary. The board was laid out well for kit assembly though - the orientations of all the polarized components were identical.

Haven't had much luck finding hardware and other materials locally, so I'll be ordering that and the acme stuff this week.

Gary

[gacrwell]

Here's the sketch of the heatsink dimensions for the HobbyCNC Pro. This also includes the board outline and its dimensions.

Edit: BTW, I have found a finned heatsink extrusion that would be excellent for the HobbyCNC PRO; smaller and more effective than a solid bar. I'm getting a quote to see if it's cost effective.

My extra SLA7078's arrived today, and I'm working on a schematic of a power supply to replace the linear regulators on the CNC PRO - I've always thought it should have a 12V output so you could use a regular PC fan.

Gary

[gacrwell]

Progress – 3 weeks in:

• ordered the nuts & bolts
• ordered the acme rods & angle aluminum
• ordered cable
• bid on limit switches
• locally purchased glue & vinyl hose

The nuts & bolts I ordered from www.BoltsDepot.com using the list of hardware that appeared in the original Joe’s thread. The full order is shown in the attachment below. The only changes were that some of the prices increased (naturally); for about fifteen cents more I changed the quantity of 1/4" flat washers to a 100/box, and I included U-bolts, that I think are the right size. These U-bolts are more expensive than the Amazon link that someone mentioned, but the shipping there is a killer.

The www.use-enco.com order is also attached below. It's also the same as what was listed in the Joe’s thread, except that I added the aluminum angle, two 48” pieces @ $10 each. I never ran across that size locally.

This guy: jcoenterprises, on ebay, seems to have a lot of various cable for reasonable prices. I bought 115 ft of 18 gauge, 6 conductor for about $30 plus $15 shipping. I’m sure that’s three or four times what I’ll use, but I may resell the rest. Still looking for some light, shielded, 2-conductor cable for the limit switches.

I’ve bid on a 50-count lot of micro-switches on ebay, that’s why I can’t post this until it closes, else one of you fine fellows might snipe it away. Actually it’ll probably get outbid anyway, ‘cause there’s not much margin and I don’t want to go higher. If that doesn’t work, www.allelectronics.com has several roller switches that look good in the $1.50 each range. Also, this guy: carolbrent (dba Hubbard CNC Components) on ebay, has switches in sets of three for $3.29 and reasonable shipping, They also have some reasonably priced 6-pin connector sets that look pretty good, but I’m still looking around.

About all the local hardware stores were good for was the 16oz bottle of Titebond III (wondering if that’ll be enough), and the vinyl hose. I’ll probably wind up buying the ¼” allthread and gas pipes at the local Lowe’s or HomeDepot too. Also picked up a couple of corner clamps (I’m sure I’ll need more) and a cheap palm sander at Harbor Freight.

Preparing to hook things up to try spinning the motors. I knew I had a box of parallel cables, but when I opened it, sure there were cables, but all Centronics printer cables. I'd completely forgotten those used to be the 'standard' parallel cable type. Not a DB25M-to-DB25F in the bunch. (I have noted that at least one motor controller uses a Centronics connector, but I've also noted why most don't: expensive connector.) Stopped at the local computer store - I could have bought one there for $10, but they had a solder cup DB25 and hood for $2 - I needed the soldering exercise anyway; so I cut off the Centronics connector and with a little soldering, now I have a cable. (Yeah, I've seen those cables on-line for $3-$4, but there's the wait, and shipping.)

Put a line cord on my power supply, and checked it out: all the voltages are there. Tried putting the two 15V outputs from the same module in series, but it didn't seem to like that, no output, so apparently those two aren't floating with respect to each other. But, it didn't appear to have hurt anything. Using one of those 15V outputs in series with the other 15V module gave 30V OK. I could also use the third 5V module to get up to 35V. I notice I'm going to need a line input module and switch for this thing. Still haven't hunted down the cabinet that I think is in the garage, that should be large enough to house the power supply and controller.

Ordered some sample parts and did some schematic sketching on the controller that I'll build to replace the HobbyCNC PRO. For the moment, I'm calling it vCNC. The HCNCP runs the signals from the PC straight to the driver ic's, which also have the motor voltage on them. I don't trust things that much, so I'll at least buffer those lines with a cheap sacrificial chip, sort of a mid-way compromise between opto-isolation$$ and running naked. Easy to make that 3.3V compliant too. The switch lines back to the PC are also 'naked', and that's asking for ESD damage to the PC, so I'll buffer those too. The 'charge pump' gadget is also easy to add.

Well how 'bout that; nobody sniped the switches. Got them for about 70 cents each, with shipping. 'Course that's about 5x more than I need. Hoping they're usable.

Gary

[ccsparky]

It's like the home shopping network around here

Thanks for the info. I just ordered some cables and need to purchase some two conductor also.

Any pics of your progress?