7pm
7pm
More work on the linear rail beds tonight. I'm working on the one to the right in the picture. I'm now within - 0.001 to + .002" of level along the long axis as measured with a master machinist 10" level with .0005" per graduation.
Not bad for hand sanding. I do have a consistent out of level condition where the inside rail side is lower than the outside across the short direction on the table. I plan to shim this out with a rail length shim.
Andrew
Spent tonight working on the second rail. Lots of sanding but getting pretty close to flat enough.
Andrew
Big snow (for Denver) today provided a good excuse to work in the shop most of the day.
Got the second rail mounted (all holes drilled and tapped)!
Here's a few pics.
Looking good!
These guys are supposedly the top for self leveling epoxy. The idea is that you can even make a connector from one rail to the other, and both sides will be self leveled to each other.
Surface Plate
I don't remember the prices but for some reason, I think it is around $ 100 / gallon.
Spent some time on Rhino the last couple of days to get the gantry supports figured out.
I have the raw AL blocks already squared and sized. Now to finish them and get all the holes drilled and tapped.
Andrew
Latest render of the machine.
Andrew
nice build Andrew.
Epoxy should not be thinned with acetone.As you found out it can dissolve your dam adhesive
acetone will result in much lower strength.If the acetone does not completely gas outthe epoxy will shrink in time
Adding acetone makes the mix flamable.I would not use a heat gun or torch to de-gass.(flame2)
Using the correct epoxy as Harryn suggested is the way to go.Self leveling epoxy's are called TT epoxy or table top epoxy.They are quite viscous but do the job.
Having said that I would not worry about your epoxy if you used acetone as it probably vaporized during the slow cure
Summerside
Larry
L GALILEO THE EPOXY SURFACE PLATE IS FLAT
Finally some progress. Orders and the GF have been keeping me way too busy the last few weeks.
Actually I've been working on the CAD and CAM side of things quite a bit but tonight a bit of real progress.
I'm using Visual Mill for CAM which the Club Workshop has a working copy. It's been a while since I was messing with it so it took some extra time to remember how to make it do what I wanted.
Anyway, here's the first CNC'd parts for the gantry.
Andrew
Orders have been piling up, so I haven't had much time to work on the machine the last 2 months. Throw in some issues with the CNC mills at the workshop and their CAM computer and I haven't had much motivation the last couple of months.
The mills have gotten fixed and I'm catching up on orders so it's time to get back to my project.
The workshop uses Visual Mill basic version for CAM but it's installed on an older computer that sometimes has issues and is for the most part usually in use when I want to work. To solve that I purchased madCAM with the remachining package. So far I'm pleased with it. Seems to be more stable and easier to setup and use.
Andrew
Rainy Days are good for getting stuff done in the shop. :drowning:
The cooler weather helped my motivation to get back to building my CNC router.
Today is the first time I've used my new MadCam software to make G-code. It is so much easier than Visual Mill which I was using before.
It's also the first real part cut on the Eagle Mill which just finished a conversion to CNC running EMC at the Club Workshop. There's some hickups to work through but I got it working.
Great build going here.
??? The only welds in the frame are those holding the bottom plates on the legs for the leveling feet? Everything else is your epoxy?
That's amazing if true. I couldn't do a decent weld if my life depended on it. Epoxy would be doable and no warping due to heat.
Yes, the only welds are on the feet plates to the legs. Every other major joint is epoxy spludge with bolts and taper pins.
Andrew
Good stuff Andrew. You should have a top notch machine when it's done.
What type of rack are you using and how are you going to keep the mesh tight?
I built a steel gantry router about 5 years ago now and it's still going strong as the day it was new. I welded everything together and got good results, not perfect, but plenty accurate for what I need.
Keep up the good work.
The racks are the one part I have not purchased yet. I'm planning on Moore Gear racks right now. I'm going to use the spring tension system that came with the Nema34 2:1 belt reduction units I got from CNCRouterParts.com I may have to modify them for higher spring tension as my servo motors are heavier than normal steppers. I also had to slightly modify the reduction units to fit my AC Servos.
Andrew
An update is long overdue.
I've been making lots of progress. First off I got my gantry supports machined. They are simple triangles but it was my first time machining without using a vise to hold down the parts. I drilled a hole in each triangle and used it for hold down to the mill table.
Second up, I've started in on the top gantry parts. I have the Z-axis motor plate done, the 2 support plates done and the top plate for the z-axis mostly done. The pictures show it all dry fitted. The tolerances are tight enough I need some rubber mallet persuasion to make the parts fit how they should.
The eagle mill at the Club Workshop is running EMC and is an old revamped CNC conversion The ball screws have some backlash which I can see when I cut circle pockets. Also, theres another issue that sometimes comes up with the servo tuning. It shows as some marks on the circle pocket edges but at about 45 degrees off axis. I haven't a clue but it's cutting good enough for the parts I'm making.
Andrew
Here is a little hint for using the eagle mill. Keep the spindle in the head as much as you can. Bring the knee up and reset zero for your cut. What you might be seeing as backlash is spindle movement. Those old machines do develop that over time and there is not a lot but keeping the spindle in the head as much as you can to minimize the effects from it.
Lots of progress on the gantry.
The eagle mill turned out to have a bad linear encoder on the x-axis which was causing all kinds of issues. It's been replaced. The PID tuning has also been adjusted and am now getting much better results.
I also picked up a new VFD from Hitachi which I trust more than the Chinese one that came with the spindle.
Andrew
*picture upload isn't working. Check Canuck Engineering Page on Facebook for lots of progress pictures. www.facebook.com/Canuck.Engineer