[workinwoods]

Yes, you can remove them from the rails by sliding them back over the plastic retainers. Do it carefully of course, but afaik people do that all the time. I have done that with round trucks and with ball screws myself. I suspect i have also done it with rails in the past as well, when we were setting them up.

Yes, you should have both machined surfaces on the same side: it helps with the alignment. That is what those surfaces are for, after all.

Me, I would mount up one set of rails using the alignment jig and then run one truck over the joint slowly a few times while holding the truck gently. If you can't feel any serious bumps as you go over the joint, then the balls won't be feeling anything either.

Without wishing to be discriminatory or biased or anything, these rails get mounted by hordes of relatively unskilled people, and even in Chinese factories. They are not that delicate.

Cheers
Roger

So i just noticed that the plate I was trying to mount to the bearings connects to the top and bottom of the bearing so shouldn't there be a machined surface on both sides of the bearing for the plate?

The way that I have it now 1 machined surface hits the top of the plate and 1 machined surface hits the bottom of the plate wont that be just as accurate as if they were both on the top side?

I mean really shouldn't there be that machined surface on both sides of the bearings? so all four sides of the plate have contact?

[workinwoods]

Idk thats kinda another thing the linear bearing after greased aren't what I call smooth when moving over the rail I have no experience with this type of bearing but I thought that it was supposed to be extremely smooth like butter? it seems like I can feel the balls rotating in the bearing when i slide it up and down the rail

[aarggh]

Sliding the trucks should be smooth but the bearings should be free to rotate and slide in the races, so it will have that steel on steel sound, not a grinding noise in any way but I wouldn't call it smooth as butter myself.

cheers, Ian

[RCaffin]

So i just noticed that the plate I was trying to mount to the bearings connects to the top and bottom of the bearing so shouldn't there be a machined surface on both sides of the bearing for the plate?
The way that I have it now 1 machined surface hits the top of the plate and 1 machined surface hits the bottom of the plate wont that be just as accurate as if they were both on the top side?
I mean really shouldn't there be that machined surface on both sides of the bearings? so all four sides of the plate have contact?

NO, to all of the above.

You see, while I can mill several slots in a straight line and pretty much guarrantee that ONE edge of the slots (eg top edge) will all be in line, I cannot and will not try to guarrantee that the width of the slots will be exactly the same width as the trucks. If the slot is 5 microns narrower than the trucks, they won't fit. If the slots are 5 microns wider, there may be slop. Contact against ONE face however is easy.

However, you should not be feeling any 'vibration' from the balls in the trucks. If there is any, I suggest you contact the supplier.
Caveat: you might feel a very tiny amount for the first day as the surfaces settle down. That's like burnishing.

Cheers
Roger

[workinwoods]

Thanks for the advice on the linear bearings

aarggh and Rcaffin I will see how they act in the near future put I did flip them over so that the machined surfaces are all on the top now I might send a request to CNC Router Parts to see about adding that to the instructions

[workinwoods]

Alright everyone I got a little more work done tonight

So here is a shot of the machine with the y-axis installed part way


Close up of the right riser assembly very clean and simple


Check out those linear bearings!! looking nice lol



Wow that is alot of bolts on 1 side to connect the gantry lol

[workinwoods]

SO remember the spoil board I designed in post 14 of this thread?

well I sat down and ran some numbers and I dont think I am going to buy all the pieces for it right now unfortanly total cost will be around 700.00 and I would love to have it but I can get almost the same thing accomplished with 2 pieces of .75" mdf. maybe when the orders start coming in and I start making some more money I can invest in the spoil board I want and designed.

I also have to buy about 400.00 worth of special tooling for a upcoming job so its that or the luxury spoil board lol

[mussersail]

I used a laser throughout assembly of my unit and had pretty good success. Bosch makes a lesser expensive ($200) 360 degree laser that works using prisms instead of a motor spinning around. We have been using them for a year or two on job sites and have been pretty happy with their accuracy. I set one up in my shop on a fixed bench near the CNC. I built a wood base and used to level this as close as possible. Then I built the CNCRP frame on top of the wood table and attached the angle brackets but didn't secure to the table. I went around and shimmed all the angle brackets until frame was level and then attached it to table, and checked again. This allows you to take readings and many many different points on the assembly. The laser line is pretty sharp if set up 10 feet away. We set laser up on blocks a few inches higher than everything and then used a scrap piece of wood and drew a pencil line at the highest part of assembly and then just shimmed up to the line everywhere else. Easy peasy, just time. Leveling the table first and then the frame made things very easy. It might be a little harder with the metal legs. Having a solid wood table top allowed me to put a angle bracket anywhere I needed to and secure in many locations. I added the spoil board - my attachment method I think got a few frowns but it was quick and easy - I drilled 1/2" holes about a 1/4" deep with a forester bit just a half an inch off the crosspieces and used #12x4.5" GRK framing screws to attach spoil board to my wood table top, bypassing any direct attachment to the cross members. Another reason for wood table was mass. I used a bunch of very large and heavy parallam beams. The table probably weights 400lbs or so. You could add a bunch of ballast or wood scraps to your lower shelf to add mass too. When all done and said, the spoil board had a variation that was incredibly insignificant to me for what I would be using the machine to do - .011 variation from high to low. I went ahead and started cutting without worrying about surfacing the spoil board. Mostly everything went well, but if I tried to keep my tool depth to a one hundredth or so over the material thickness I would occasionally get a onion skin. So it boiled down to surface spoil board or just cut everything deeper - I surfaced board and didn't need to take off much at all. Still not sure how much this matters for what I do, especially since without a vacuum table I'm not sure there isn't a .010 or more variation in sheets sitting flat.

Looking good so far and the folks on this forum are great when you run into a problem as they are at CNCRP too. I've been cutting things for at least a month I believe and think I've just finally arrived a nice square machine and good, reliable cuts, so keep at it and keep asking questions.

[RCaffin]

I would love to have it but I can get almost the same thing accomplished with 2 pieces of .75" mdf.

I am a great believer in cheap prototypes. Huge advance on the learning curve.
Not wild about MDF, but it's cheap. Fairly flat too.

Cheers
Roger

[workinwoods]

alright well a little more progress i had to bang out some custom orders this morning on my other cnc machine so here are a few more pics and a few questions

Got the gantry linear rails on its kinda werid you use the rail setting jig for the top rail but the bottom stays loose and gets tightened after the bearings and plate are on with no setting jig at all. Does anyone know why this is done this way? why dont you use a rail setting jig on the bottom rail like the top?



Here is a side view of the rails and end cap mounted up



Here is the z-axis mounting plate and the bearings all mounted up. So to tighten the bottom rail you have to move the whole assembly to the right then tighten the 3 bolts to you immediate left and then you move the assembly all the way to the left and tighten the bolts to the immediate right. then you center the assembly and tighten all of the remaining bolts.



Side view the instructions dont say to put in the little red caps covering the bolt holes I guess I will just hang them on the wall lol jk



Here is the motor plate mounted I love how this plate mounts with a couple of dowel very solid!!



Motor assembly on the right side of the machine



back side of the same motor



Okay so here is a pic of the motor assembly on the right of the machine So you see the long tensioner bolt? well there is a little bolt in that little post that the instructions say tighten after the bolt is already covering it. I am really not sure how to tighten that little bolt??




Here is a pic of the back side of the motor and the instructions say to push in and turn that black eccentric collar until the bearing turns inside of the plate? I am not sure what they mean by this and so I just turned it until I saw the bearing turning as well? can anyone clarify this for me?



Well the instructions never told me to put these bolts in so I guess I will just leave them all out and see what happens lol

[RCaffin]

the bottom stays loose and gets tightened after the bearings and plate are on with no setting jig at all.

IF I understand this correctly, then the 'setting jig' for the bottom rail is actually the Y axis carriage. The bottom rail MUST be set so the Y carriage can slide back and forth: anything else would create a jam. You mention doing this setting later on, when you slide the Y carriage back and forth.

Well the instructions never told me to put these bolts in so I guess I will just leave them all out and see what happens

Sounds like a Real Bad Idea to me. I am SURE that there are meant to be bolts in every hole. Why so many? Because with Al extrusion you HAVE to distribute the load, or the Al will flex/distort too much.

Otherwise, looks as though it is coming on nicely.

Cheers
Roger

[workinwoods]

So I was starting on the electronic part and then the power went out

Brings up a good point what preventative measures are you guys taking in case of a sudden power lose?

[aarggh]

So I was starting on the electronic part and then the power went out

Brings up a good point what preventative measures are you guys taking in case of a sudden power lose?

I run my cnc and PC/LCD off a big a**e UPS.

Although I didn't originally hook it up for power loss, but more for the power conditioning side in relation to troubleshooting some rare lost steps issues I was experiencing. Which turned out in the end to be overheating steppers, but I figure it's hooked up now.

cheers, Ian

[mussersail]

Not much you can do I would thing, other than a generator that would automatically kick in. I've had larger problems with PC nonsense. I'm one of those strange birds that has been continually using Apple computers since the mid-80s so unfortunately there has been a bit of a learning curve with the PCs I bought - dedicated one to run Mach3 and another for VCarve and Mozaik. There was so much crap pre-loaded on machine that I had to get rid of and then the machine has automatically updated windows once during a long cut - not a happy camper. It seems as soon as there is a communications interrupt between the Smooth Stepper and computer its all over.... I'm sure I can stop the automatic updates but for now I just shut down the wireless connection, which I hope will stop problems. I also had some problems with the screen going to sleep, which shut down things too, but that was easy to adjust. When I lost things I just reran the entire cut over and watched the machine cut air for an hour. There looks to be a feature in Mach3 control panel that you can run the g-code in reverse, but I wasn't willing to test on what I was working on.

[aarggh]

.

Sounds like a Real Bad Idea to me. I am SURE that there are meant to be bolts in every hole. Why so many? Because with Al extrusion you HAVE to distribute the load, or the Al will flex/distort too much.

Cheers
Roger

A lot of the machine suppliers use a generic hole pattern to allow for different mounting methods and materials to the frame, and spindle/router mounting plates, so I wouldn't be surprised there's a number of holes unused.

cheers, Ian

[RCaffin]

There was so much crap pre-loaded on machine that I had to get rid of

There is actually a check list somewhere (on the Artsoft web site i think) for XP, covering what to get rid of! Doing everything it says is very wise. Mach3 is NOT a politically correct Windows program, as it subverts Windows somewhat to get the Real Time performance.

then the machine has automatically updated windows once during a long cut

First rule for running Mach3: the PC must be stand-alone with NO connection to the internet. 'No connection' as in NO CABLE and NO WiFi, PLUS auto-update turned OFF.
MS likes to take charge of YOUR machine for all sorts of things. The very concept is death to a Real Time CNC controller. The PC is for running the CNC and nothing else.
Yes, my CNC PC has an ethernet connection to the Smooth Stepper and nothing else at all. Program transfer is by USB key.

It seems as soon as there is a communications interrupt between the Smooth Stepper and computer its all over.

Well, if the SS runs out of commands, it has to do a crash stop. Think about it: what else can it do?

for now I just shut down the wireless connection, which I hope will stop problems.

I would prefer to physically remove the wireless link. I don't believe the claims that it is switched right off.

I also had some problems with the screen going to sleep, which shut down things too,

Not quite right. My screen can go black while Mach is running, but that is the SCREEN going to sleep. If you allow any part of the PC to shut down, as many laptops are inclined to do, then you will crash Mach. You have to turn off all power-saving settings and have the PC running all the time.

There looks to be a feature in Mach3 control panel that you can run the g-code in reverse, but I wasn't willing to test on what I was working on.

The button is there. I have never touched it! I don't believe it.
OK, it might work for G0, G1 commands. For G76 and G83????? You jest.

Cheers
Roger

[asuratman]

Hi Workin,
I saw from your pics that new design, cncrp use linear rails, its stiffer and better. They do not use wheel anymore. Its alot better design. Thanks for the pics.

[workinwoods]

Hi Workin,
I saw from your pics that new design, cncrp use linear rails, its stiffer and better. They do not use wheel anymore. Its alot better design. Thanks for the pics.

Oh yes sir if you need any other pics just let me know

And yeah I am glad I got the new design I am tired of those v wheels on my other machine lol

[workinwoods]

So guys I am a bit confused on the Plug and Play electronics that I bought with a price tag of over 2500.00 I would like some instructions on where exactly the cables are to attach and preferred cable routing method

Can anyone be of help on this issue?

"note: if the instructions are on the cncrp site I will delete this post but I looked and I cant find them "

[ericclinedinst]

Here you go bud. http://www.cncrouterparts.com/images/CRP800_N34_Gland_Plate_800.jpg

If you want the cable carrier on the other side, just mirror the locations of the brackets and trays shown in this picture.
http://www.cncrouterparts.com/images/CRP800-4896-base_800.jpg

So guys I am a bit confused on the Plug and Play electronics that I bought with a price tag of over 2500.00 I would like some instructions on where exactly the cables are to attach and preferred cable routing method

Can anyone be of help on this issue?

"note: if the instructions are on the cncrp site I will delete this post but I looked and I cant find them "