[leapnlarry]

Thanks for your advice, it sounds like it would be better to purchase the frame and quality electronic items separately.

CNC6040-S80 Mainbody with 80mm spindle holder from Yoocnc X6-1500 X4-800 3020 3040 6040 series - carving-cnc.com shipped from china to usa $1203
Attachment 243088
Attachment 243104

3 axis nema 23 kit from CNCRouterParts $519
Attachment 243096

What's included
48V 7.3A switching power supply
Gecko G540 4 axis stepper motor driver
3 High-torque Nema 23 380 oz-in stepper motors, or our new even better low inductance 320 oz-in motors. These motors already have the current set resistors installed in the connectors. No soldering or crimping required. These are optimized for the G540 -- don't get caught up in the stall torque game, since your motors don't run at stall! Both motors use all of the 3.5A the G540 has to offer.
3 High-performance flexible motor cables: (1) 6'and (2) 12' cables

Smooth stepper for nema 23 g540 $200
Attachment 243098

2.2kw water cooled spindle (80mm diameter) with inverter VFD from Build Your CNC - CNC Router Kits, CNC Machine Kits, Laser Cutter and Engraver and 3D Printer $568
Attachment 243102

Mach 3 Software $170
Attachment 243100



I can build the enclosure myself

Frame $1203
electronics kit $519
Smooth stepper $200
Mach 3 $170
Spindle with vfd $568

Total Cost $2660

[aarggh]

These machines although made of aluminium are still somewhat small, and I'd consider a 2.2kw spindle a fair amount of dead weight for the Z axis, let alone the inertia and sheer power of it compared to the grunt of the machine and steppers.

Normally these are supplied with a 800w air/water cooled spindle, or the crappy DC spindle, I'would consider maybe the 1.5kw the highest I'd go for one of these machines myself. 2.2kw is huge, and compared to the machine would be way overkill. I'd also think though you should be able to do a lot better on the pricing off Ebay there too. From memory I've bought 1.5/2.2kw spindle/VFD combos for around $325-$375 a set. Seeing as they're all Huangyaung VFD's anyway (I'm pretty sure I misspelled that) just pick a seller with good feedback.

My 2c anyway just based on my experiences. I don't see the point in paying more for essentially the identical items.

For comparison, my 300kg 6090 cnc has a 1.5kw spindle, and I can assure you it's more than adequate for everything I've thrown at it over the years.

cheers, Ian

[aarggh]

Don't know what it is but I'm having all kinds of weird trouble posting today!

I just noticed you have both a smooth stepper and a G540 in your BOM, all you need is the G540, that has the 4 drivers, as well as the breakout/interface/buffer board to connect to the parallel port, so you can save $200 there. If you included the Smoothstepper because you were wanting to use USB instead of parallel, I'd strongly consider just picking up a $20 P4 desktop to use as a dedicated Mach3 station, and just go with the G540 on it's own. Keep it simple.

cheers, Ian

[Bob La Londe]

Wondows 7 64 bit and Windows 8 will not work with a parrallel port control.

FYI I have a smooth stepper feeding a G540 on one of my machines.

[aarggh]

The copy of WinXP that will come free with the $20 PC will work with the parallel port though, and then you don't need the Smoothstepper at all.

Horses for course though, everyone's needs are different, so I'm simply basing my remarks on what I do, or would do in the same situation, as I keep a number of old P4's around for just that purpose. Especially as they all have the WinXP license stickers on the case, but partly cause i'm a cheapskate!

cheers, Ian

[Adverse Effects]

i have some old P4's some with XP and some with win2K
i have tryed mach3 on 2K , XP , 7

2K hands down was nice and fast no problems at all
XP was a little slower with no real problems
7 was slow and i gave up on it after an hour of trying to get it to run the mill as fast and smooth as 2K and XP

this is why i have 5 old computers fully formatted and set up ready to go (old systems can fail with out notice some times lol) so i am set for a few years at lest haha

[leapnlarry]

The reason i put the 2.2kw spindle in there is because the company i quoted were out of stock of the 1.5kw spindle. here is one if found on ebay $375 shipped to usa from china.
Attachment 243194
The reason i have the smooth stepper in there is because the computer i am going use is windows 7 64 bit machine i built a couple of years ago, its a fast machine and it would be a shame to go back to win xp.

I could also install a parrallel port card in the computer instead, to save some money, but that wont work on the win 7 64, I could install the 32 bit version.

I also have several old computers around the house and a stack of old motherboards with parrallel ports i could build a win xp machine around if i needed to.

is there any other advantage of the smooth stepper besides being able to connect by ethernet?

are there any other ways to hook up the Gecko g540 to the computer with usb?

[Bob La Londe]

A smooth stepper has inputs and outputs for 2 full parallel ports, and inputs for a third. If you run your machine its raw state all you need is one parallel port worth of inputs and outputs, but the extra signal paths can be quite handy if you start adding stuff to your machine. The biggest advantage to the Smoothstepper though is that it handles a lot of the pulse stream and timing that would be handled by the PC processor otherwise. You can often run faster and with less problems using a Smoothstepper.

[Adverse Effects]

i was just thinking

2 question that has not been asked is

"what do you want to do with it?"

"what materials do you want to cut and up to what size?"

[leapnlarry]

As far as what i want to do with the router. I make parts and designs for RC cars, planes and helicopters
Attachment 243312
I am working on a stabilized gimbal and some different quadcopter designs

I need to cut out small peices in the 20-100 mm range out of 2 -3 mm aluminum sheet and out of 2mm, 3mm and 4mm carbon fiber sheet.

In these pieces, there will be 3mm drilled holes that will have to be very precise.

some pieces will be different types of plastic in 3 dimensional shapes, but we mostly use the 3d printer for that.


I may need to do some 3 dimensional stuff out of aluminum later, but i am planning on buying a cnc lathe for that stuff.

Carbon fiber sheet is the one i need the most, hard to cut cleanly without a cnc router and makes lots of toxic dust when cutting manually with a dremel

[Bob La Londe]

Add a vacuum shoe and dust collector to your system then. A shop vac if emptied and cleaned often can get you buy on the cheap for a while, but you will want to design a vacuum shoe to go on your spindle to suck up most of the dust when it is generated.

[Adverse Effects]

the ebay type of units you are looking at will only just do aluminum and will flex a tiny bit doing it

as for CF i wold say to make a water tight tray and cut it under water as that **** will kill you i use a tin cooking tray and hold down the CF with some strong magnets

[leapnlarry]

Thanks for the great ideas.

Are there any other cnc routers out there that are a good value, for aluminum and CF

I came across these today but cant find many opinions on them.

Attachment 243350


Attachment 243352

CNC Stepper Motor Driver Systems & Hobby CNC Routers:: PROBOTIX™

[Adverse Effects]

are they chipboard bed's? hmmm

the down fall i see with thos units are the rails and lead-screws getting covered in crap and trashing the bearings and nut

look at this video

[aarggh]

The Fireballs/Comets are a nice versatile design, and from I've seen most people who own one are very happy with them, however I don't understand the preference with using a wood router on them though against a spindle/VFD combo, the spindle will always win hands down for value, noise, reliability, runout, hell, in every way possible.

With good dust extraction, and a spindle/VFD, I think they'd be a great machine to have.

cheers, Ian

[LacL]

I'm considering getting a 6040 with the 800W spindle and I am prepared to install a G540 in it but I have a question regarding difference between the spindle and VFD on the blue box vs the newer black box models with the smaller integrated VFD. There's a $300 price difference between them. Is the black box version worth the extra $300 for the smaller VFD driver?

[Adverse Effects]

I'm considering getting a 6040 with the 800W spindle and I am prepared to install a G540 in it but I have a question regarding difference between the spindle and VFD on the blue box vs the newer black box models with the smaller integrated VFD. There's a $300 price difference between them. Is the black box version worth the extra $300 for the smaller VFD driver?

start reading from here

post #147 in this thread

[LacL]

start reading from here

post #147 in this thread

Thanks for the reply, but I actually read through this entire thread before posting my question.

Sorry if I missed the obvious, but I didn't find any info on how the new VFD controller compares to the old one. cnewb mentions that the new stepper motor drivers and controller (YOOCNC) are different in the black box and the shielding and grounding issues appear to be fixed, but I'll be gutting those out anyway so my only concern is with the VFD controllers and how they compare.

[tgdavies]

If you are definitely going to discard the electronics, why not buy it 'mainbody' only and buy the spindle/VFD separately? That's what I did.

[Adverse Effects]

the "new VFD" is the old VFD just moved from the outside to the inside from what i remember