Predator 40 x 60

Hello all.


I am starting this thread to document my Xzero Predator build. I've had all the machine parts from Xzero for a month or so. The machine is 40 x 60 x 8 with 2525 ballscrews. I opted for the back supports to minimize vibration. George has been great to work with.

For controls I went with the Eding CPU5B. I liked the Eding because it came as close as I could find to mimicking a Fanuc control, which I am very comfortable with.

For the drive system I went with the LeadShine Easy Servos and drives. Not really a true servo but good enough for this build.

For right now I have a Porter Cable 892 router motor and a SuperPid control for a spindle.

I had Lee at Vista CNC make me a custom pendant that will work with the Eding controls system. He was very accommodating and easy to work with.

I got a good deal on a Kiosk on Ebay to use as my control tower. I need to add a panel to house the spindle and feed override, as well as the feed hold button.

The electronics are going to be a serious project. I purchased a used industrial control panel enclosure. It is quite large, but gives me plenty of room to space my electronics properly plus room to grow for a VFD in the future. I have a table full of electronic components. I will put that part off until last. It is so overwhelming to think about the machine and the controls so I had to put it on the back burner to save my sanity.

I have all the components to put the machine together but all I have done to date is build the table. Hopefully I can get the mechanical part of the machine together by the end of July.

Here are some pictures of what I have to start with. Sorry the component picture is so dark. The machine is anodized black so it doesn't show up real well on the black plastic.

I'm not sure when I will have more pics but I will share as I go.

Wish me luck.
Rob

Rob,

Good luck!

Looks like a great start. I have talked with George a bit and will be watching your build.

Regards, Joe

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tinmancarving

Hello all.


I am starting this thread to document my Xzero Predator build. I've had all the machine parts from Xzero for a month or so. The machine is 40 x 60 x 8 with 2525 ballscrews. I opted for the back supports to minimize vibration. George has been great to work with.

For controls I went with the Eding CPU5B. I liked the Eding because it came as close as I could find to mimicking a Fanuc control, which I am very comfortable with.

For the drive system I went with the LeadShine Easy Servos and drives. Not really a true servo but good enough for this build.

For right now I have a Porter Cable 892 router motor and a SuperPid control for a spindle.

I had Lee at Vista CNC make me a custom pendant that will work with the Eding controls system. He was very accommodating and easy to work with.

I got a good deal on a Kiosk on Ebay to use as my control tower. I need to add a panel to house the spindle and feed override, as well as the feed hold button.

The electronics are going to be a serious project. I purchased a used industrial control panel enclosure. It is quite large, but gives me plenty of room to space my electronics properly plus room to grow for a VFD in the future. I have a table full of electronic components. I will put that part off until last. It is so overwhelming to think about the machine and the controls so I had to put it on the back burner to save my sanity.

I have all the components to put the machine together but all I have done to date is build the table. Hopefully I can get the mechanical part of the machine together by the end of July.

Here are some pictures of what I have to start with. Sorry the component picture is so dark. The machine is anodized black so it doesn't show up real well on the black plastic.

I'm not sure when I will have more pics but I will share as I go.

Wish me luck.
Rob

---

Hi Rob , looks good that stand.
A servo is pretty much a motor with encoder on it , those are the 110v /220v drivers ?

Hi George. Thanks for the compliment on the stand. My five year old and I painted it with a brush. Good father/son project.

Yes, the drives are the 110v.

Can wait to see the machine up on that table.

Rob

No Problem , If I had known you where going to be using those motors, I would have said to get 2510 ballscrew. You will be getting speeds 2500 to 3000ipm . One day I will finish pulley set up for turning down speed to get more torque .
I have sold lots of the easy servo set up and everyone so far likes them. Both the 80v and the 110v model .
110v model is far better

Hi all. Just wanted to provide an update on the assembly of my XZero Predator 40 X 60.

I found some time last night and this morning to finish up the stand and start assembly of the machine itself. I have it about half way complete so far. Sorry no pics. I will post some pics once I get to something that is unique to my machine.

The assembly process has gone really smooth thanks to George's solid engineering. There is something to be said about starting with a proven platform. Before making this purchase I started working on a design of my own. Not surprisingly it turned out very similar to the Predator. It was to be 50"x 60" so I did give up a little real estate. My point is it would have taken me another month plus to design the details, then I would have to source all the raw material and start performing the machining. I had estimated the machining would have taken me 4-6 months with my current work load. My personal recommendation to anyone thinking about building a machine is to give plenty of consideration to purchasing a well engineered kit.

Speaking of the kit. There are about a million fasteners of various sizes and lengths involved. To George's credit I was not missing a single screw.

I will share some of my findings from the assembly. Be prepared to do some detail work on the extrusions. They require a bit of de-burring. Also make sure to have plenty of cleaning solvent handy. Most of the items pick up some sort of FOD during shipping. Especially the ball screws and Linear Rails since they have protecting coating and lubricant on them. Be sure to clean down inside the counter bored holes on the liner rails. The manufacturer (not XZero) left plenty of goodies down in there.

I will be able to drill/tap the Z axis/motor mount plate to accept my motor mount today. I purchased a mount from another vendor before I thought to ask George if he had one designed to bolt on turn key. I will post a pick of that when I am done.

If you find yourself at the front of assembling one of the machines I highly recommend spending some time on the XZero Forum. The pictures and Assembly Post there tell the whole story. It is a really easy to assemble project once you have viewed the pictures and sequence of events.

It looks like I will not be able to complete the project this weekend. I need to source some t-nuts and counter sunk screws to mount the extruded table top. The nuts I want require you to insert them from the end of the extrusion so I can't put on the back plate or y axis ball screw yet. It will take 120 of each to mount the top the way I want to.

For those that are curious, I am just shy of having spent $15K on this project. That is a great deal compared to the $40-45K I was quoted for a few different commercial routers. Those machines did have ATC which was a $12-15K upgrade.

I could have easily done this for less but I wanted to buy the best equipment I could afford. The goal being a very reliable/safe machine that will last me years and perform very well.

The break down of rough numbers is as follows.

Machine $5500
base machine
upgrades
shipping

Control Software/hardware $1100

Motors/drives $2400

Router motor $200

Stand $800

Vacuum System Blower $300

Control System $4000
includes the following
Computer
Enclosure
24V power supplies
3v-5v-12v power supply
Safety relay
Power relays
Solid state relays
SuperPid
Buttons/switches
Pendant
E-stop buttons
Proximity Switches
Surge Protector
Magnetic Starter Relay
Din Rail Wire Terminals
Shielded cable
Locking electrical Connectors
Control Kiosk
LED lighting

Stay Tuned
Rob

I decided to go ahead and assemble the rest of the structure. I will wait to line it all up when I get the t-nuts installed.

I pulled the z axis/motor mount off and drilled/tapped it for the CNCRouterParts motor mount. With it lined up all the way to the bottom of the bracket, the z axis plate mounted in the middle position, and the motor fully extended I have plenty or reach to get to the table with a 3/4 scuff board installed. That is with a 1.5"loc endmill in the picture. The clearance under the lowest part of the gantry is a little more than 5.50". I can move the z axis up to the upper position and get another 2" clearance.

There is also a picture of the enclosure I am using. I bought this at a salvage company that dismantles automated factories. I was lucky enough to get it for $199. No telling what that thing cost new. It is 51" x 24" x 12"deep. Plenty of room for all the controls. It fits neatly under the table.

Until next time.
Rob

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tinmancarving

I decided to go ahead and assemble the rest of the structure. I will wait to line it all up when I get the t-nuts installed.

I pulled the z axis/motor mount off and drilled/tapped it for the CNCRouterParts motor mount. With it lined up all the way to the bottom of the bracket, the z axis plate mounted in the middle position, and the motor fully extended I have plenty or reach to get to the table with a 3/4 scuff board installed. That is with a 1.5"loc endmill in the picture. The clearance under the lowest part of the gantry is a little more than 5.50". I can move the z axis up to the upper position and get another 2" clearance.

There is also a picture of the enclosure I am using. I bought this at a salvage company that dismantles automated factories. I was lucky enough to get it for $199. No telling what that thing cost new. It is 51" x 24" x 12"deep. Plenty of room for all the controls. It fits neatly under the table.

Until next time.
Rob

---

Is that a Porter Cable router?

Yes. It is the 892 model.

Rob

Rob,
That control software/hardware is Eding CNC, so you still want to use them as you plan before.

asuratman...yes the control software/hardware is the Eding CPU5B.

Rob

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tinmancarving

Yes. It is the 892 model.

Rob

---

Ok, yes I had the mounts for that spindle. $2400 for 4 motors and drivers?

$2400
I bought four drives/motors along with all the cables plus shipping.

Rob

George, while I have you here.

I am going to have to modify the existing motor mounts or make new ones.

The shafts on the Leahshine motors are about 3mm too long and the register diameter is considerable smaller that what is on the current mount.

I doubt the register diameter is much of a problems but I prefer the make a 3mm spacer versus cutting the shafts down.

Rob

I just looked at the receipt and it was closer to $2200

Hi Rob , you can make spacer or cut the shafts. I do have the larger motor mounts for the leadshine easy servos. But you have the stock nema 34 motor mounts for the steppers . I never knew what motors you were going to use
Motor should fit on mount because I have sold a lot of the easy servos for machines

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tinmancarving

I just looked at the receipt and it was closer to $2200

---

My price on those is around $1800

Hello all. I found a few hours this weekend to put into the machine build.

Here are some photos of what I was able to get done. Sorry the pictures are not so good. I am using my 6 year old Apple 3G to take them. Yes I am too cheap to upgrade my phone. Also the machine is black so it does not photograph very well with the lighting I have in the shop.

Most of what you see here is very basic fab work. I was not sure what changes I will need to make once the machine is running so I did not want to spend a bunch of time making ""trick" pieces only to find I need to redo them later. Once it is running I will use the machine to make all the upgrade bracketry.

In some of the photos you can see a few of the 120 holes I had to drill and counter sink to mount the table top. That was a good solid 2 hours of machine work.

I still need to make the new motor mounts and bore out the couplers to match my motors. After that I can start on the electronics.

Rob

Wow, it has been almost 2 years since I posted my last update on this project.

I shelved the project for a while after loosing steam in the control panel layout design and wiring schematic. This year I ran across a Chinese DDCSV1.1 controller that does not use a PC and I was intrigued so I ordered one. I was impressed with the manual and the simplicity of the whole system.

The fire for my project started again and I went into maker mode. I saw a picture of a hand pendant that had this controller integrated into it so I set out to make my own version. For the box to hold the drives and power components I was torn between buying or building. Either way I was torn about the size so I elected to build a temporary panel system from MDF and some thin lexan I had laying around to help me develop the layout.

Fast forward and the project has come together nicely and I now have a completely functioning CNC router. My wife is very happy to seen this thing running. Me too.

I have only cut one part....which was a sword from MDF for my youngest son. He kept asking me to have a “Man's night out” so we could make weapons and play. I figured this was a good project to introduce him to a CNC. It was fun and he was excited. He has a list of things for me to make now.

Last night my sister-in-law dropped by to have my wife help her draw a poster for her son's college graduation party. It was going to be the school logo with his name and such.

I saw an opportunity to try something new so I downloaded a .JPG file of the school logo and converted the lines to a DXF file using Corel Draw. Imported that into my CAM system and put down some engraving tool path.

I was not planning on engraving it...but rather draw it with the machine. I looked at some images of pen holders that go in a collet spindle online to gather some ideas. Went into the shop and took inventory of what I had on hand and proceeded to make a simple version of what I saw on the internet.

The program took about 16 minutes to run...but the results were fantastic. The sister-in-law has not seen it yet, but I am sure she will be happy with it.

This opens up a whole new vein of projects for me.

I think next I am going to try to add a laser cutter to the arsenal. Just gotta figure out if I can control the pulse with my current software.