[Degrom]

I am thinking of useing 12mm threaded rod you can get it by the meter length from Engineers Supplies. .A.P.S in Auckland also sell it, think its made at Gartner Engineering thread rolled bright mild steel should be acurate enough I was thinking along the lines of splitting nuts and squeezing them with belvill washers to get backlash elininated still all thoughts at the moment.will have a look around engineering shops in UK as visiting next month lets keep in touch regards Shiney66

Thanks, I have sent you PM.

I will give the place a call and hear what they have to say. Might consider a 20mm threaded rod in the end.(Just to get the plasma table going)

[neilw20]

Hi Paul,

I am also from Upper Hutt... LOL

And you are right. Finding parts is a major show stopper here!!!

Anyone know of a place in NZ or Australia that sells Acme screws at an affordable price. (I am not going to pay NZ$100/Meter for a thing you can get in the US for US$5/Meter)

Cheers.
Bert.

Try MATT SINCLAIR (80+!), Coburg, Melbourne, 03 9354 2588.
Don't think he is on the web. Nice bloke.
He makes screws and nuts almost any size/thread to order. Normal and stainless, or any other material seems to be within his reach.
I have seen 4 meter long screws. He can do 6 at a pinch (From what I've seen)
Made on manual machines. Don't know how accurate pitch is though.

[neilw20]

Only just fell across this thread.

I'm 58, Melbourne, Deer Park.

Have X3 'with the lot'. Got lazy and bought one complete.
To busy working to create a CNC from scratch.
Have a Sheridan lathe, thats going to cop a few stepper motors soon, to slave off the X3.

Electronics design pays the bills.
White goods electronics. Elcheapo hi volume. Done all all sorts of micros.

I believe I can give helpful answers on the following subjects:
Balancing machines.
Ultrasonic cleaners.
Power supplies, including switch-mode.
Driving MOSFETS, IGBT's, PIC micros and others.
DC and BLDC motor drive up to a few KW.
Aircraft (fullsize) related engineering.

CNC wise, cut my teeth programming a Bosch CC120 with a 10 ton OKK beast attached.

Still write the odd bit for it. 7HP feed motors. It rocks (and shakes litterally)!
It will make 200 liters of swarf per day! 10mm chips, 0.2 thick, real hot.
It throws them 3 or 4 meters, when they miss the guards.

Making tiny prototypes for volume products on the X3

I get quite a few solid carbide bits from a PCB manufacturer.
The bits have done their hole count limit, but most are still useful.
Broken 1/8" Carbide shanks make great raw material for PCB router bits. Any body want a 10 or 20?
Send me stamped address padded bag, after you email me.

Enough of me for now.

Neil.
:drowning:

[Degrom]

Only just fell across this thread.

I'm 58, Melbourne, Deer Park.

Have X3 'with the lot'. Got lazy and bought one complete.
To busy working to create a CNC from scratch.
Have a Sheridan lathe, thats going to cop a few stepper motors soon, to slave off the X3.

Electronics design pays the bills.
White goods electronics. Elcheapo hi volume. Done all all sorts of micros.

I believe I can give helpful answers on the following subjects:
Balancing machines.
Ultrasonic cleaners.
Power supplies, including switch-mode.
Driving MOSFETS, IGBT's, PIC micros and others.
DC and BLDC motor drive up to a few KW.
Aircraft (fullsize) related engineering.

CNC wise, cut my teeth programming a Bosch CC120 with a 10 ton OKK beast attached.

Still write the odd bit for it. 7HP feed motors. It rocks (and shakes litterally)!
It will make 200 liters of swarf per day! 10mm chips, 0.2 thick, real hot.
It throws them 3 or 4 meters, when they miss the guards.

Making tiny prototypes for volume products on the X3

I get quite a few solid carbide bits from a PCB manufacturer.
The bits have done their hole count limit, but most are still useful.
Broken 1/8" Carbide shanks make great raw material for PCB router bits. Any body want a 10 or 20?
Send me stamped address padded bag, after you email me.

Enough of me for now.

Neil.
:drowning:

A man of many talents I see... Thanks for the info on the threaded rod's..

[Colin Bowler]

Hi Rob,
If you are still looking for a quote for your MDF parts, please email me, i am
in Perth too. [email protected]

Regards

Colin

G'day,

I am in Perth and am looking for someone who can cut 50 or so identical 200mm x 200mm shapes from a sheet of mdf. Please email me at [email protected] if you are interested.

regards,

Rob Denney

[cncbits]

I am thinking of useing 12mm threaded rod you can get it by the meter length from Engineers Supplies. .A.P.S in Auckland also sell it, think its made at Gartner Engineering thread rolled bright mild steel should be acurate enough I was thinking along the lines of splitting nuts and squeezing them with belvill washers to get backlash elininated still all thoughts at the moment.will have a look around engineering shops in UK as visiting next month lets keep in touch regards Shiney66

Hi, I'm in Bulls and sell the odd piece of equipment for Hobby CNC projects. One method of using threaded rod for CNC use was presented in a post 2000 model engineers (do I mean model engineers workshop) and used a nut made of 3 pieces of the same threaded rod with bearings, that tracked on the main thread. Produced zero backlash and ballscrew like movement.

[skzzyx]

Hi Paul,

I am also from Upper Hutt... LOL

And you are right. Finding parts is a major show stopper here!!!

Anyone know of a place in NZ or Australia that sells Acme screws at an affordable price. (I am not going to pay NZ$100/Meter for a thing you can get in the US for US$5/Meter)

Cheers.
Bert.

Hi Bert! probably wrong forum for this post. I met harry an sabrina double and their daughter patsy who resided at 55 routley crescent upper hut NZ in 1957 when I was in US navy aboard uss picking (destroyer) they were very gracious people and treated me so well! anybody ever hear of them? Noel Manis now 70 yrs old. e-mail [email protected]

[paulC]

Hi Bert! probably wrong forum for this post. I met harry an sabrina double and their daughter patsy who resided at 55 routley crescent upper hut NZ in 1957 when I was in US navy aboard uss picking (destroyer) they were very gracious people and treated me so well! anybody ever hear of them? Noel Manis now 70 yrs old. e-mail [email protected]

No entry for Double in the local phone book. Thats quite a few years ago.
Paul

[rex2]

Hi all
My name is Rex I live in Canberra I have several years of experience with CNC Machining centers useing Hidennhand /Mastercam /Solid works.
I am also Retrofiting a Mill in to CNC useing Gecko/Bobcampbell/ModIO good to see Australia taking off in the Hobby CNC market.

[neilw20]

Send a PM to Syil_Australia.
Frans is just a short drive from your place.

[Jakobsen]

HI Crocdundee

As a new member, as Iam to, the name say it all, you can handle what you put your mind to. That is more than me. I have been looking for the magic place to press, so I could put up a post, as you just have, but I havent found it, could you help me ? You is my last resorce.
Iam a Dane in OZ. and good lock with your project....
Thank you!

Jorgen

[domar]

Nice to be reassured that there are 10 types of people in the world!

Those who understand binary and those who don't!

Cheers
Murray
Frankston, Vic.

Hello Murray
That is great, probably the best I have seen for a while!!!
I have only recently found the cnc site and am struggling with finding my way around it. I am in Mulgrave and interested in hearing from anybody near here who is into cnc.
Regards
Don
Mulgrave, Vic

[blueairsystems]

Hello all
My name is Phil, located in Melbourne Northern suburbs (Tullamarine) and I have been introduced to this CNC zone by my brother ClaudioG located in Brisbane.
I have my own home workshop comprising a lathe, bench drill and have also recently purchased a Pantograph metal copying (milling type) machine with scale up/down facilities.
I hope to attend the Melbourne BBQ in May.

I am currently interested in either purchasing a CNC machine and am looking forward to what is available.

Cheers Phil

[ClaudioG]

Hi Phil,

Good to see that first post of yours finally appeared.

I might be able to to give you a family discount on a WidigitMaster Midi CNC Router that has hardly been used I should be using the WidgitMaster Wide machine soon, so should be able to let the Midi go.

There's heaps to read about here so enjoy.

And the BBQ should be a great intro to CNC and the local people involved.

Cheers,

Claudio

[domar]

Hello all.

My name is Don. I am new to CNC but am finding it very interesting. I have not yet started building a CNC but I am spending hours researching the options. I live in Mulgrave a suburb of Melbourne. I am no longer working and my background is is servicing scientific and medical instruments. I originally did an apprentiship at Defence Standards Laboratories in Maribyrnong.
Regards
Don

[Dr Zoot]

Greetings All,
I live at Moss Vale, NSW roughly 2 hours south of Sydney and 2 hours north of Canberra (shorter times if my wife is driving!). I am retired and a 'woodie' ... woodturning and dovetail boxes etc. Am interested in CNC to do timber signs as well as designs on boxes.
Not keen on building my own CNC router and will probably buy a small desktop model. Favouring the Romaxx at this stage and would use Mach3 and Vcarve Pro.

Alan

[Bamber]

Hi all,
Just joined the forum, the first one that I have ever joined, live in Mt Eliza (South of Melbourne). Have an X3 with servos and a CNCTechnix controller, now I have to build a workshop to house it and get it out of the laundry.

Should meet some of you at the BBQ as I am coming with locoau.

All the best

Dave.

[aussiegeorge]

Hi all,
Just joined the forum, the first one that I have ever joined, live in Mt Eliza (South of Melbourne). Have an X3 with servos and a CNCTechnix controller, now I have to build a workshop to house it and get it out of the laundry.

Should meet some of you at the BBQ as I am coming with locoau.

All the best

Dave.

Hi Bamber and welcome to the forum. Did someone say Barbeque? I am in process with building a shed. Got it in goulburn from Southern Garages. Really nice folks. There are a couple of things that they don't tell you. It really pays off to void the warranty and weld the joints of the trusses. If I had it to do again I would order extra joiner plates to stiffen up the trusses. The trusses are C beams and really floppy by themselves.

There is another shed that I built out of scraps. Roller doors are a treasure! They are made out of really good steel and each one comes with a really nice pipe to make frame work out of.

[Stewey]

Hi, I'm Ian from between Toowoomba & Kingaroy, Qld. I've been a lurker here for a couple of years (?) reading what I can & dreaming of building a router. WE hand-rout a lot- timber signs, and HDU foam, but I have just bought a big beast.
I'd been considering some nice Multicams & Matcams & the cheaper chinese ebay 'specials', but quality was one issue, and high cost was the other, and there was no inbetween with those contrasts from China to USA.

Anyway finally an opportunity came to buy a 2nd hand machine- it used to be an Esab, new in 1990, and it was upgraded with Tekcel servos, drives, controller board & everything in 2001.

The people I bought it from use Enroute 3.1 basic to do the toolpaths, and it has a Tekcel K series 2 driver & "Tekmove" to drive the router. I got the PC & dongle & software with the purchase, and about 50 assorted router bits- mostly flat 2-flute upspiral 1/8" 1/4" & 10mm ones, and a couple of engraving bits of solid carbide rod ground half away & sharpened on the leading edge.

Specifics: the router is a 3 phase 3 horsepower Perske with speed control box & inline power filter. The Esab bed that it sits on is 2.6 x 4.2 metres in size, but the gantry sticks out a foot more on the left with the controller panel etc, so it takes up 10 of width in the shed. Routable bed size is a whisker under 7 x 14 ft, though they had it setup to work on 12 ft max length.

Gap under gantry is almost 6", but clearance under the collet is more like 4 1/2". Collets are 1/8", 1/4", 10mm, 12mm.

I have a BIG learning curve ahead, but I am somewhat familiar with Rhino, and use Corel a lot as far as vectorising goes.

WE have only single phase power here, but we have a big 3 phase diesel generator (20 kva). The router also comes with a vacuum bed and about a 15 hp vac fan, but they took all that off to get more clearance under then gantry- and they use an MDF sacrificial board to screw stuff to to hold it down.

I've breifly looked into rotary phase converters, and have not reached any conclusions yet.

We take delivery of the machine later in the week. It's still in Sydney being dismantled at the moment.

[Stewey]

Oh, I do have a query or two, in advance...
They (the seller) still has the original Enroute cds, which I have now. They do not have the Tekmove driver cds though, so they make judicious use of Ghost to image the hard drive, for reloading it, in the event of a stuffup. Is it OK for me to ask if anyone here might have driver cds for Tekmove- I'd appreciate a copy, if possible.

Also, originally, the machine had (well it still has it) a bracket joined to the router plate, under which a trailing plotter blade can be attached. It used to be a system with a kind of seesaw balance, a spring, and weights, I understand. That way the weight/downforce on the plotter blade is set by the weights you add, and not by the Z axis travel of the router.
This attachment is missing.

I would love to get one, or to see photos of what it looked like, to remake one. We have an old plotter here, but there are many times I could have made efficient use of something bigger, and the idea of using this as a flat-bed plotter is very tempting.