[merlin2004]

So after months of procrastination I think I have settled on my first approach for a CNC gantry unit. I have read what I believe to be all the posts on this forum regarding the 6040 series units like those sold on eBay and by groups like carving-cnc. My conclusion is that from a mechanical perspective these machines will meet my needs and would be a suitable choice as a hobbyist introduction to CNC. My plan is to work mostly with balsa and ply wood, occasional PCB work and possibly carbon fibre sheet and Polly carb.
What I have concluded from all the posts about these machines is that the electronics are not worth my time and hassle of sorting them out, while I am most capable of doing this I really don't want to stuff about with it throwing good money after bad.

So here is the run down on what I plan to purchase, I welcome everyone's comments and suggestions. I have a few questions of my own at the end.

6040 MAINBODY #1 @ $1202.55 inc Postage and Handling to SA Australia from carving-cnc. This is the unit that comes with stepper motors. CNC Engraving router 6040 mainbody - carving-cnc.com

Gecko 540 stepper Drive with 48v Power Supply. @ $325.85
Accessories to compliment Gecko, break out boards, shielded stepper motor cable, gecko chiller and emergency stop switch @ $99.90. From Homann Designs

Mach 3 software @ $145.04 also from Homann Designs

So far so good but now I have questions. The one item I can not find mentioned on the forum is any real discussion on an alternate spindle and VFD unit. I would like to get a reasonable quality spindle and VFD unit that will work with the Gecko 540. I am looking for something around the 1500W range, water or air cooled. The kit above comes with a 65mm bracket so something to fit this with minimal rework would be nice, it should also take a ER 11 collet. Does anyone have a suggestion for me, I am out of my depth on this point.

I would also like to know if any one knows if the stepper motors are 4 or 6 core.

If you look at the full kits from carving-cnc they have a tool set device, can anyone explain this to me, what is it and how can I reproduce it for my setup if its needed.

Last one if anyone out their has installed limit switches on their 6040 series unit, I would love to see some pictures or diagrams on what was done.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post

Cheers
Colin

[techtoys]

Hi Colin

I am working on improvements to my 6040 machine. I already have a cnc milling machine, but wanted a machine for softer materials (plastic, wood) but with a bigger working envelope.

I agree with your decision about Gecko 540 stepper Drive and 48v Power Supply, plus the miscellaneous parts from Homann Designs. That's what I've been using on the milling machine, and what I've also fitted to the 6040 router.

Mach3 software is good too. But do yourself a favour and also buy an Ethernet SmoothStepper from Homann Designs. It will greatly reduce the overhead of work that Mach3 and the computer need to do for producing step and direction pulses. It will also allow you to use a computer that has no parallel port (i.e. most newer PC's). My decision to use the Ethernet SmoothStepper was a good one. I'd used the USB SmoothStepper in the past, but its noise immunity wasn't great. The Ethernet version seems very good.

The stepper motors on my machine are 4-wire, 3 Amp, 1.8deg per step.

I have just finished adding optical Home Position switches to each axis. This ensures repeatability. I have configured the Limits and Homing screen in Mach3 so that it uses "Soft Limits" (i.e. distances in mm from the home position in each axis) and therefore don't have any physical limit switches. Attached are some picture of how I've mounted them.

I got the photo-interrupter switches from Ocean Controls Photo Interrupter Switch PU-08 :: PhotoElectric Switches :: Sensors :: Welcome to Ocean Controls

The Gecko540 expects to see no more than 5 Volts on its home/limit switch inputs, but unfortunately these photo-interrupters have an output that is pulled up to the 12-24V power supply. So I made up a little circuit board with some 4N25 optocouplers to isolate the Gecko540 from the photo-interrupter voltages. It is mounted on the side of the gantry. I took the cover plate off it for one of the photos I took for you.

There are plenty of other photo-interrupters available that don't have their output pulled up to its supply voltage, so the optocoupler board wouldn't be necessary if you chose a suitable photo-interrupter.

The z-axis has an aluminium plate sandwiched between the spindle-clamp and the rest of the carriage assembly. This plate has a small "flag" sticking out the side, which breaks the light beam in the photo-interrupter.

The x and y-axis each has a plastic "flag" that I machined up to operate the photo-interrupters. Everything is mounted on brackets I cut by hand from various pieces of aluminium extrusions.

Hope this is useful information.

-Pete

[merlin2004]

Pete

Very useful information, i must have a draw full of optical sensors from old printers i am sure i have something amongst that lot that will do the job. A Nice idea and thanks for the photos they where very helpful.

I will also add the Ethernet SmoothStepper to my shopping list.

I have run into a bit of a hurdle with my original shopping list. In the hunt for a ~1.5kw Spindle i have found that venturing away from the Chinese models sold with 6040 series or separately on eBay is an expensive move. Outside of the countless Chinese models on eBay where on average the price for a VFD and Spindle setup is in the range of $300 to $500 dollars including freight, the average price of a brand name spindle that could be easily fitted to the 6040 main body kit from carving-cnc has been between $750 to $1600. Perhaps i am looking in the wrong place, but at the same time i don't see to many posts about issues with the Chinese spindles, is it possible that the quality and performance of these units are OK?
Additionally Can the VFD units that ship with these units be easily controlled by the Mach 3 software?

The second issue is that the main body kit comes with a 65mm adapter and this only appears to be suitable for 800W spindles as all the 1.5kW spindles i have found are 80mm or larger in diameter. So this again means more work effort, and cost.

Of course at this stage i have made no contact with carving-cnc but i intend to do this shortly to see if their are other options such as buying a unit with the spindle and VFD and the 4th axis add on without the driver board. But currently my guess is that this will drive the price back to very close to the full running unit.

If i take the following into consideration.

Main Body #1 (comes with stepper motors) = $1202.55
Gecko 540 stepper Drive with 48v Power Supply. @ $325.85
Accessories to compliment Gecko, break out boards, shielded stepper motor cable, gecko chiller and emergency stop switch @ $99.90.
VFD and Spindle 1.5Kw Water Cooled (Chinese models) ~$350.00
Pumps and Hoses and Fittings ~$100.00 (for something moderately decent)
80mm Spindle Bracket ~$60.00

Sub Total ~$2150.00
And i still need collects, tools, and enclosure etc.

Compare this with the carving-cnc complete kit for their new model which has the 1.5kw water cooled spindle. (And apparently some better electronics )CNC 6040Z-S80(New Version) ROUTER ENGRAVER DRILLING AND MILLING MACHINE - carving-cnc.com

Which i can land for $1955.00
I am starting to think the better option is to purchase the complete kit.
Layout the money for the gecko control gear and i will probably break even but with half the work effort?

I Would really like the opinion of others, especially in regards to VFD and Spindle selection.

Thanks Again.

[techtoys]

Hi Colin

I bought my 6040 machine second-hand, with a blown-up control box. It came with an 65mm diameter water-cooled spindle, and a VFD that is capable of being controlled by Mach3 (if you do the extra interfacing yourself). I'm pretty sure they would be the units that originally came with the machine. Given the lesser rigidity of the 6040 gantry when compared to my milling machine, I think the power and speed of the spindle will be plenty.

The original control box didn't interface with the VFD - it only has connectors for the three stepper motors plus a water pump for cooling the spindle. The VFD was operated as a manual speed controller with RUN and DIRECTION buttons, and a knob for setting the speed.

Fom the link you sent, it looks like the newer control box has the VFD built into it. I hope they've interfaced it with the parallel port so that Mach3 can control the spindle. But it is impossible to know for sure. If you look at the specifications for their 4 Axis CNC Breakout Board, which they say is used in their CNC 3040 and 6040 models, it states that it has PWM spindle speed interfaces. So hopefully this does mean that their control box allows Mach3 to control the spindle.

I guess you get what you pay for. I chose to invest the extra time and money to fit a Gecko drive and throw away the control box that many people were saying bad things about. This also allows me to customize the machine to add the HOME switches and soon some controls for mist coolant.

I guess it's taking me longer to get it to a stage where I can start cutting material, but at least I'll be very familiar with my machine if any problems arise in the future. In the meantime I'm lucky enough to be able to make things on the cnc mill, so I'm in no hurry. Actually, I probably enjoy building and modifying cnc machines more than just making stuff with them.

Back to the VFD, in case you decide to build all the controls yourself. The Gecko540 has a couple of outputs that can be used for the SPINDLE RUN and SPINDLE DIRECTION signals. It also has a 0-10V analog output that can tell the VFD what speed to run the spindle at. This is how I've interfaced the VFD on my milling machine.

For the 6040 router, I've just ordered from Homann Designs a DC-03 DigiSpeed GX V3 with optional DC-DC Converter. I've used these at work to control the VFDs for some industrial cable winches I designed, and they'll make my spindle interfacing even easier.

I also ordered one of their MB-02-V6 Bidirectional Breakout Boards, which will connect to the Ethernet SmoothStepper's second parallel port. I'll probably run the spindle signals from this, as well as gaining a few extra inputs and outputs for things like a digitizing probe, mist coolant etc.

I keep mentioning Homann Designs. I have no connection with him, other than being a satisfied customer. His products nicely meet the needs of people doing exactly what we're discussing here.

Regards
Pete

[forseral]

I'm currently living in an apartment in Sydney and doing the same sort of analysis on the 6040-s80 and comparing it against the zenbot 2424. Before moving to Sydney, I designed domo (http://www.instructables.com/id/domo-large-format-cnc-mill/). It was an extremely fun experience yet I dont have the tools to build a machine so I need to buy the most complete solution possible.

Having said that, I've prioritized my requirements as follows:

1) Lowest possible Noise level (noise tests: Noise Level of CNC Spindles)
2) Smooth finish cuts - I prefer to do as little sanding as possible
3) Cutting speed - This is lowest as I'm not running a production shop

The 6040-s80 offers a full solution and I have a gecko540 to replace the provided bunk electronics. The inexpensive and readily available 4th axis is icing on the cake. it uses ball screws yet only has 60mm (2.3") of z-travel. I have a few concerns this may not play well w/ the 4th axis yet we'll see.

The zenbot, however, is american made and everything I've read has awesome support. I've had a few conversations with Shaun and he's been more than helpful in guiding my decision. He also offered to mill a spindle mount for the 80mm chinese spindle for free. It has a 4" z-travel which will prove to be very useful yet concern was expressed at using my preferred spindle from ugracnc (2.2kw, ER20) as it's 11 pounds. One other bonus is the ribbon driven design will make it a likely candidate for a 3d printer head

While I prefer the zenbot2424, I'm leaning toward the 6040-s80 as it will support my spindle needs and has the 4th axis.

[ger21]

The second issue is that the main body kit comes with a 65mm adapter and this only appears to be suitable for 800W spindles as all the 1.5kW spindles i have found are 80mm or larger in diameter.

I just checked Ebay, and there are plenty of 65mm 1.5Kw spindles.
New 1 5KW Water Cooled Spindle Motor Engraving Mill Grind ER11 | eBay

80mm spindles have an ER16 collet, the 65mm's have an ER11 collet.

[merlin2004]

Thanks For all your input (Especially Pete) sorry i have been away for a while hence the delay in keeping this post going.

So it turns out I am getting extremely nervous about letting go of my hard earnt cash on this little venture. I had almost decided to purchase the complete 6040Z-S80 package when suddenly carving-cnc now have posted new driver boards for this unit. I am unable to identify the reason for these new driver boards as little information appears to present on their website and I am not about to make judgemental accusations as to why. So I will leave it alone and just say that it makes me nervous about buying a complete kit. Of course if anyone out their has purchase the 6040Z-S80 from carving CNC I would love to hear about the experience.

I have contacted carvingcnc regarding my pending purchase to enquire about shipping and customs cost, I was happy with their fast response. I then proceeded to enquire about options to purchase the Main Body plus VFD and spindle as a package citing my concerns that the 6040Z+f model has been quite harshly criticized for having unreliable control electronics and while I have not seen such reports on 6040Z-S80 I would prefer to build my own. As you might expect i have not had a response to this enquiry after some 14 days. Just hope i have not caused them any offence as it was not my intention.

So I think this is how the adventure is going to go.
1. I Will purchase in the next few days the Main Body #1 (CNC Engraving router 6040 mainbody - carving-cnc.com)
I Will get the stepper motors with the unit and test them out if they prove to be ok well great if not well its only an extra $60 and perhaps the adapter plates etc. will save me a little time in adding new steppers.
2. I Will wait for the unit to arrive prior to any further purchase (I have plenty of time) so I will see what condition it is in when it gets here, Shipping is by DHL so I expect it to be all OK? I am also taking this opportunity to see what happens with regards to payment and the use of paypal thus revealing to me what the extra costs will be.

Thanks Gerry for the link on the 1.5kw Spindle. it turns out I had a filter in e-bay blocking sellers outside of Australia.

3. I Will purchase all items listed in previous post plus the improvements mentioned by pete.

4. I Will leave the spindle and VFD to last in the hope of a little more advice from the forum in regards to what to get. It would be most cost effective to stay with a 65mm spindle however I do not know what the advantages are between having a water cooled unit or air cooled. I am assuming that water cooled are better for longer runs (regardless of the claims made on e-bay) so if anyone out their would like to suggest a good spindle to purchase and why, and a recommendation for a matching VFD that has the required control inputs to work with the suggested electronics and software then Please throw your advice my way it would be greatly appreciated.

My gut is telling me that this venture which started out with $2K budget will mostly likely end up closer to $3K my hope is that i enjoy the experience.

Of course i would spend the money on one of these @ <$4K if it had a twice the working area Roland MDX-20 Benchtop Milling Machine As large scale model planes is my ultimate objective here i simply need more working area than the little Rolland offers but apart from that its a nice looking kit and well priced.

[cnc3678]

Hi Merlin,

My suggestion is to build from scratch using good components recommended by others in these forums. It's very rewarding (sometimes very frustrating!) and I guarantee that you will enjoy the experience.

In terms of a budget, you will spend at least 50-100% more than you originally planned. Don't underestimate things like fasteners which cost me nearly $600 all up. Then there's the extra tools that you need etc.

The Chinese spindle I finally got going recently runs very nicely, but spend some money on a good VFD.

Good luck with your build.

Richard

[forseral]

Hi Merlin2004,

Just wanted to let you know I bit the bullet and bought the full kitted 6040-z80 for the reasons listed in my previous post.

Everything is new and I assembled it in around 2 hours. I've uploaded pics of packaging and assembled machine I have not yet tested the machine but will do so in the next few weeks.

I'll say it again - after having built one, i did not want to get lost in hobby. It's easy to spend more time on the machine than using it.

the machine shipped cost me around 2300. I ordered other parts from amazon (full collet set and router bits) for another 300.

[tgdavies]

Hi Forseral,

Please keep us updated with your experience with the 6040. I'm also interested in buying one. Are you going to try the included electronics, or immediately install your gecko?

Do you have a dial gauge? I'd be interested to know the runout of the spindle.

Thanks,
Tom

[merlin2004]

Hi Forseral

Thanks for posting the Pics, Also i agree with you i dont want to be lost the hobby. I Already have a hobby and the whole purpose of buying this unit is to support my current hobby not create a new one.

Regardless I would love to find out what your electronics where like. Assuming you dont jump straight to the Gecko. Im sure plenty of us would like to hear your review.

Would i be right in assuming you purchased the unit from carvingcnc. If so would you care to share with us some details like:

where their additional costs at customs?
what was the delivery time from order?
how did you pay (paypal, visa etc) if you dont want to say, perhaps you can point out weather you got good value on the exchange rate etc. I did read one post where the price was given in local currency but billed in $US so i am interested to know if this is the case.


The kit looks good and appears to have survived shipping so thats good. I have to say that shipping issues and other little gotcha's (like those above) have been probably more of a concern than the my debate on weather to buy it complete or do my own electronics.

Anyway please keep me informed of your progress. I am just waiting for my tax return to raise the last few dollars prior to ordering. Not long now.

Cheers
Colin

[BAMCNC.COM]

Tax return, good words to hear, I'm worried this year....

[forseral]

Hi Forseral,

Please keep us updated with your experience with the 6040. I'm also interested in buying one. Are you going to try the included electronics, or immediately install your gecko?

Do you have a dial gauge? I'd be interested to know the runout of the spindle.

Thanks,
Tom

Will do on the updates and I'll give the existing electronics a try yet I'm finding it difficult to determine why should keep them since I already own the gecko.

[RussellK]

Hi Forseral
where their additional costs at customs?

Given Forsearal appears to be in the US, I'm not sure whether US customs charges are going to be similar to those incurred in Australia.

I do know someone who bought a 6040 from Carving CNC last year - their costs were:
CNC6040Z+F US$1355
Rot. axis US$185
Shipping (UPS) US$583

Import duty AU$289
Customs fee AU$55
Other charges AU$11

[merlin2004]

Hi RussellK
Thanks for that info on the the overall cost.

as for location of Forsearal i did notice hist post location was US, but in an earlier post he mentioned he was in Sydney so i was working from that bit of information.

Regardless its good to know what i am up for in the extra's.

I look forward to Forsearal posting his experience. Regardless i have decided to go in for the long hall. i will Buy the basic machine. and i will purchase the spindle, vfd and gecko and other items separately. I feel confident that for my efforts i will get a reliable and quality machine (that i will probably use twice a year)

But i expect the build quality of my scratch built planes to be remarkably improved. I have recently been flying helicopters too so perhaps more use making custom parts for them also.

I Will continue my post with my own progress also. for the interest of others and also because i am sure to have many questions.

I must thank everyone so far for their responses and input. it has been a great experience this far. And i still have note even ordered any thing.

[RussellK]

I've been looking at getting a machine for a while now - to their credit, those figures came from a customer in Australia that Carving CNC referred me to. On that basis I'll most likely get one from them.

I've been tossing up sourcing just the table then getting the spindle, stepper controller etc. separately, but am leaning towards getting the full kit in the first instance, getting it up and running and doing some work, then address whatever weak links arise. That's partially based on talking to a local guy from the Oz Woodworking CNC forum who got a bog-standard Chinese 3020 unit off Ebay and finds the stock spindle, VFD and stepper controller works just fine - he, like many, thought he'd be heading down the Geko route, but his experience so far indicates he doesn't need to, although he was considering the Ethernet Smoothstepper when I spoke to him - I think he was attracted to the idea of using it via WiFi (I'm not sure how kosher that'd be...).

[RCaffin]

Forgive my ignorance and doubts, but I don't quite see the point of putting a 1.5 kW spindle on a gantry CNC built out of aluminium extrusion. I have serious doubts as to whether the frame could withstand all that. Seems to me that you could get at least a millimetre of flex at the cutter.

Unless you want to gear up to 20k rpm or something, and need the extra power for the gearing losses.

Hum???

Cheers

[merlin2004]

Sorry for the long absence from this post. Unfortunately Chinese New Year played a part in delaying the process of acquiring my unit.
So I wanted to jump on tonight full of enthusiasm because today 2 large boxes showed up on the door step.
Before i go into details i want to clear up some earlier topics that i raised previously

“So it turns out I am getting extremely nervous about letting go of my hard earnt cash on this little venture. I had almost decided to purchase the complete 6040Z-S80 package when suddenly carving-cnc now have posted new driver boards for this unit. I am unable to identify the reason for these new driver boards as little information appears to present on their website and I am not about to make judgemental accusations as to why. So I will leave it alone and just say that it makes me nervous about buying a complete kit. Of course if anyone out their has purchase the 6040Z-S80 from carving CNC I would love to hear about the experience. “

So i contacted carving cnc again and asked about these boards. Their response was.
“the M542-05 and 450JKB is new upgraded driver board for 6040Z+S80, they already been installed in 6040Z+S80 model . some buyer tell us they wants to buy them as Spare, so we supply it on the website.”
I Just wanted to clear that up because I hate to leave doubt in anyone’s mind.


So here is how my adventure went.
After doing all the sums and a few conversations by email with Lance from carving CNC I concluded that regardless of the my concerns regarding the quality of the electronics it was still cheaper to buy the whole kit and deal with any issues than to purchase the basic machine.
Further on this I have since read two other posts regarding this model and both have claimed the electronics to be reliable and up to the task. I also decided to take Forseral’s advice and try not to inherit another hobby.

So I have to say I had a great experience thus far dealing with Carving CNC. “Lance has been very helpful and their responses to my emails and questions where fast and precise. Excluding the email regarding purchasing the base machine and spindle + VFD only. I never did get a response to that

A Quick run down on the purchase.
I Purchased the Full Machine + 4th Axis + March 3 Wireless Hand wheel
I Payed by bank transfer. This was the best option because I was able to pay in $AUS amount shown and did not incur any exchange costs or conversion losses and in addition this gave me a 3% discount on the price. All up the difference between this vs paypal or visa was a few hundred dollars. I only incurred a $20 fee for the foreign transfer. All of this was on the advice from Lance, however most of this would have become apparent as you proceed with the purchase online. Still it was nice to get the details up front.

So the unit has landed. I have unpacked it and it all appears to be in great shape. (a few pics to show) I was worried about the unit being damaged but it was quite

So I will start the build and test it all out shortly and share my experience. (Here is hoping it’s a good one)
I still plan to modify and improve in the future following the advice from pete. I will start with the smooth stepper, but first I will give it a go as the base kit.

First A quick pic of the hobby i am trying to support and not get diverted from

Now the Unit

[RussellK]

Hah. I got mine yesterday and had it up and cutting in an hour or two!

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/chines...ml#post1246104

Not 100% sure on the wireless remote thing yet - I think I need to tweak something somewhere to make the jogging/stepping more useable.

[port_huon]

Not 100% sure on the wireless remote thing yet - I think I need to tweak something somewhere to make the jogging/stepping more useable.

Is the stepping/jogging stable when the VFD is not power on? Given the amount of noise these VFD's put out, I'd be surprised to get a reliable wireless connection operating so close to one.

We recently put together a 6040 (not from Carving-CNC) for our makerspace and the steppers were all over the place until the controller was properly earthed.