[BanduraMaker]

I've finally got my machine pretty much up and running so I thought I'd post a few pics of what I have. This is my first CNC machine and my first foray into the CAM/CNC world. I have a bit of prior experience with CAD but not too much.

I purchased the Raptor 24x36 with an 8"Z, 2kW Teknomotor spindle and electronics from George a few months ago but my day job and other projects always conspire to keep me out of the shop. Anyhow, it's now pretty much ready for production! Yes, it did take a long time to get it but it was totally worth the wait!!

here's the main Setup:



Originally I had planned on making a bench from unistrut but wood was about $400 cheaper!! I have the little rubber leveling caster/feet which work o.k. but the whole thing wobbles a lot when cutting at high speeds. I figure that's not necessarily a bad thing though.

I'm using 380 Oz-in steppers with 10mm pitch screws and have it running at 425ipm X (long) and somewhere in the 500+ for Y and Z (Does it matter or is anything faster than the X just wasted speed?).

Here's a test cut I made the other day - This is one side of a 4 sided part I'm planning. I did one side only just to learn more about how my planned tool paths will work out.

Material is a chunk of really soft cedar 4x4 I had laying around. Final Scroll will be maple, possibly hard, possibly soft.

Roughing with a 1/2" ball mill - 150 ipm



Finished part, cut at around 100ipm:



Another View:



The dots around the top aren't tear out, they're actually in excess stock left from the roughing operation. The spiral machining strategy I did for the scroll didn't profile that part. I'm thinking that the best bet would be to make a 2.5D operation to clean up the profile from each angle. Or, we'll see, this will be a 4 sided setup so the other sides might clean all of that up just fine.

You'll also notice a little saw cut at the bottom of the part - that's because my CAM software detected a little collision there so I sawed and chipped off some stock there to make sure it didn't happen. Same thing happened up top too. Interestingly, when I was splitting the excess stock off, I pushed the stock out of alignment - I just blew the sawdust off my fence setup and tapped it back in and it was pretty much completely realigned.

I just have to say that I'm thrilled with this machine. Rock solid and fast. I still have a lot of learning to do as far as the CAD & CAM portion of the process but I'm very confident that I made the right choice in machine here! I'm thinking that for roughing I should be able to go around 200+ ipm. Finishing will probably have to drop down to 100 to 150 do avoid tearout in the complex curves.

I don't have any video cutting the part because my dust shoe was in the way but I'll try and get something happening before the end of the week.

Comments and questions welcome.

[barnaclebeau]

Sweet rig! Looking forward to some video! Did you buy the spindle with the machine?

[BanduraMaker]

Yes, I purchased the spindle with the machine but it was drop shipped from a distributor in the states. The spindle plate from George wasn't ready yet so I made my own.

[theremin]

Your scroll is looking great, Andy! The new Raptor looks great too--George tells me that my upsized Raptor is about to ship and I can't wait. Is your dust shoe one of the ones that KentCNC sells? Do you like it?

Anyway, glad to see that you're churning out dust with the new machine. Congrats!

Dave

[BanduraMaker]

Yes, my dust shoe is the KentCNC one and it's really nice. Unfortunately, I purchased both the 3" and 2" brushes and the 2" will probably be worthless. If anything, 4" brushes might be useful for what I'm doing.

The only other thing I worry about is that the shoe is really close to the air exhaust on the spindle body and I worry that it impedes airflow. Time will tell I suppose.

[theremin]

Yes, my dust shoe is the KentCNC one and it's really nice. Unfortunately, I purchased both the 3" and 2" brushes and the 2" will probably be worthless. If anything, 4" brushes might be useful for what I'm doing.

The only other thing I worry about is that the shoe is really close to the air exhaust on the spindle body and I worry that it impedes airflow. Time will tell I suppose.

Yeah, with my home made dust shoe, I've found that a 4" brush would be more useful too (I have 3" and 1"). The 3" is short enough that it will collide with my work when carving banjo heels--I rarely use the 3" brush as a result. I carve necks with shop vac in hand... The 1" is good though for all of the 2d and 2.5d stuff that I do (fingerboards, etc.). The Kent shoe really looks nice.

My shoe mounts pretty close to the exhaust on the Colombo spindle, but it hasn't seemed to make any difference so far.

Dave

[barnaclebeau]

I just pulled the trigger on a 24x48 Raptor, can't wait to join you guys! I build bass guitars, I've been designing in 3D for a long time but building from 2D prints. I'll start my own thread when it ships.

[theremin]

Well I've received two out of four boxes with my new 24X48 Raptor--I guess the other two are still somewhere out in FedEx land. At any rate, I got the 80-80, the end pieces, the uprights and the backing plate for the Y axis along with a bunch of hardware. I did a quick temporary bolt together of what I have so far, and it's obvious that this thing is going to be a really nice, stout machine. My old Raptor is a great machine, but this one really puts it to shame. It's going to be very heavy too. I'll add info and pictures after the rest of the machine gets here.

George packed everything very well too--I'm excited at this point! Hopefully the other boxes will get here soon and I'll get this thing up and running.

Quick question for you Andy--how did you end up attaching your cable guides to the machine? I can't quite see in the pictures. Did you end up drilling and tapping some extra holes in the backplate?

Thanks,
Dave

[BanduraMaker]

Quick question for you Andy--how did you end up attaching your cable guides to the machine? I can't quite see in the pictures. Did you end up drilling and tapping some extra holes in the backplate?

Yes I did, just two - one on each end. I didn't think it really needed an extra in the middle since there's so little weight on it.

If you can wait a few days, I'll take a couple of pics.

p.s. - Got my vacuum stuff in yesterday. I went for the little pump and it looks like it's going to work out just fine!

[BanduraMaker]

Well, decided to take the pics tonight as I'm procrastinating something else...
Here's shots of how I mounted the e-chains.

Two little button head screws attaching the 1/16" angle aluminum.

The other mounting points are 1/2" x 1/8" mild steel bar I bought at the hardware store.

[theremin]

Those are great--thanks Andy!

Dave

[BanduraMaker]

A short video showing my machine cutting my first "real" part: a vacuum fixture I'll be using to hold down my necks.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/voXPa9JtsVA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[CNCforfun]

What a great video you have made.

[Padrino]

any recent updates/pics?

[BanduraMaker]

Nothing major. Since I last posted here I updated the mounting of my table top to the machine as I wrote in the other thread.

Other than that everything has been working well and I've been busy making lots of parts.

[Padrino]

Im making a similar machine however what did you do for electronic controls and drivers? Do you use limit or home switches? Do you have a touch tool and how does it all work?
I know that is a huge question.
Thanks

[BanduraMaker]

I use a Gecko G540 for my driver, toroidal power supply from George, hall effect home/limit switches from digikey, and Ger21's screenset for Mach 3.

Touch plate wires into the G540, just need to make sure the spindle is grounded (my whole machine is) and select the right pins in the Mach 3 setup screens. Ger's screenset makes it very easy to do tool touch off and tool changes. If you haven't already bought it, you should.

Explaining how everything works is a bit more typing than I'm willing to do right now . If you read through the Mach 3 setup instructions, pretty much everything is in there. If you have specific questions, feel free to ask though.

[Padrino]

Thanks Andy,
Ill check it out!
Cheers
Rob

[DiaLFonZo]

Hi,

I am looking for one..
What is the real cutting area of yours ?

Eric

[BanduraMaker]

About 28" x 19" - wish it could go the full 24x36