[SCzEngrgGroup]

Hi Ray

Totally different processes. With the propane heater you are probably relying on hot air and conduction. That will be slow to get into the ABS. With IR heat lamps you are pumping that energy straight INTO the ABS sheet. Which is why the commercial production companies do it that way.

Cheers
Roger

Yes, I understand that, but the heater is fully enclosed, and insulated, so the heat it going nowhere BUT the ABS. 25,000 BTU is equivalent to about 7500W, while four 350W heat lamps would be only about 1500W. I will give it a try. It would be the cleanest, simplest solution if it works.

Regards,
Ray L.

[RCaffin]

Hi Ray

With the high power of that propane heater you are more likely to melt the top surface before the rest is soft.
All I can say is that the commercial firms I dealt with used heat lamps instead. That was their living.

Cheers
Rogere

[bhurts]

If you want to get some abs glue locally just look for mek at Lowe's. It will do the trick. You'll need a syringe to use for a applicator.

Ben

[SCzEngrgGroup]

If you want to get some abs glue locally just look for mek at Lowe's. It will do the trick. You'll need a syringe to use for a applicator.

Ben

MEK is a very low-viscosity liquid, isn't it? How do you get it to stay put long enough to make the bond? I've tried Acetone on ABS, but it runs off and evaporates so quickly I found it impossible to get a good bond without dipping the parts, which makes a real mess.

Gorilla Super Glue also works very well. In the test pieces I did, the plastic broke before the bond gave out. All cyanoacrylates are not alike, but I've found on several prohjects that the Gorilla brand works exceptionally well, even on many difficult materials where other cyanoacrylates completely failed to bond.

Regards,
Ray L.

[bhurts]

Mek isn't really a glue bond it is a chemical weld. You use very little and it evaporates quickly. You use a syringe will a small diameter needle to inject it in the seam where you are holding the two pieces to be bonded together. It wicks in between and melts the plastic the evaporates. When the plastic hardens it is now like having one piece instead of two. The process is used in fabrication shops to bond abs, acrylic, styrene, polycarbonate, pvc and many other plastics. Another good method is to weld it. That works well for abs , polycarbonate, Hdpe, ldpe, polypropylene, pvc and more. As for your vacuum forming you can pick up a old oven off craigslist to make your heater. Hindge the door on the side and put some heavy duty drawer hindges inside. That will allow you to slide the plastic forward over your form. Raise the form up into the sheet and hit the vacuum.

Ben

[LeeWay]

I use Weldon solvent glues to weld the polycarbonate dust ports on my guards. I use #3 and #16. 16 is the thicker stuff that comes in a tube. Much like plastic model cement. I use it first on the top side to create a seal around the port like you would do with caulking.
When that dries (quickly) I turn it over and use a syringe to fill the crack with the solvent type #3 from a can. That makes for a very strong weld. Just the thin stuff would probably work great on the ABS. Get several clothes pin type low pressure clamps to go around the perimeter and weld away.

[Hirudin]

It's also possible to weld acrylic using a similar process. I don't know about the other plastics, but there are several instructional acrylic welding videos on YouTube.

Here's one... (I love the Tap Plastics jingle)
How to glue Acrylic: https://youtu.be/hT6Ow_cBTps

[kvom]

I recently became aware of polycaprolactone as an option for molding soft jaws, but it can act as a glue for plastics. It melts at 150F (eg, hot water) and becomes clear and moldable, then becomes hard and white at room temperature.

[bhurts]

Hirudin that video is exactly what I am talking about. Mek or methylene chloride works for acrylic and abs. Abs is actually acrylic, buterate, and styrene. The same process works for polycarbonate and pvc just as well. You can't use mek for them though. You can use thf to glue both pvc and polycarbonate but I use a special polycarbonate solvent for pc that works much better. I would often weld pieces together then use solvent or vice versa for all the solvable materials depending on the structure of the parts. The non solvable but weldable materials I mentioned are just as easy to work with if you can source the appropriate welding rods. Harbor freight sells a low cost plastics welder but the tips that come with it are not feed thru and in my opinion are a waste of time. You can order a good feed thru nozzle but at 100 bucks or so they are more then the cheap welders. I wouldn't recommend trying to weld anything less then 1/8 inch if you aren't willing to trash it.

Ben

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Got me some MEK today, and it is truly amazing stuff! First thing I did was make up a nice Plexiglas enclosure for the ATC PCB to keep busy fingers out of it at Cabin Fever. It took no time at all the cut the parts, and gluing the whole thing together took literally about 3 minutes! Once Plexi or ABS parts are put together with MEK, they ain't EVER coming apart again without destroying the parts in the process.



The ATC has worked absolutely flawlessly all week - not so much as one minor hiccup. The PCB has really made a world of difference. Over the last few days, I "upgraded" the communications between the ATC and PDB, and between my KFlop and the ATC, so both are now communicating bi-directionally, rather than just firing off commands in the dark. With a little luck, tomorrow I'll have the shrouds completed, and start cleaning up the cabling, make some improvements to the error recovery firmware, and updating the web interface, based on my experience using it the last few months. I'll have the first Mach3 plug-in within the next week or so as well.

Regards,
Ray L.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Carousel shroud is done and mounted. Transfer arm drive shroud is made, and will be mounted tomorrow.



Regards,
Ray L.

[tmarks11]

Awesome! You back on track to get it to Cabin Fever?

Only two weeks left...

[LeeWay]

Not for the show, but you may want to consider using gray ABS rather than black. The Novakon machine have gray in them. Maybe blue gray for the Pulsar. Even white might be better. I do like the look of the black personally, but my home made mill was all black. Every single chip just glistened on it. It never looked clean at all. Not that it was supposed to. Just something to consider.
Are you going to put your logo on it somewhere? Maybe "Made for Novakon by SCEG, LLC"



Never mind. Mcmaster Carr only has it in black or brown. I may be thinking of PVC sheets. ABS is a better choice.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Awesome! You back on track to get it to Cabin Fever?

Only two weeks left...

Yeah, I see no reason the ATC shouldn't be there at this point. The last critical missing piece is the Mach3 plug-in, which I'll have within 48 hours.

Regards,
Ray L.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Not for the show, but you may want to consider using gray ABS rather than black. The Novakon machine have gray in them. Maybe blue gray for the Pulsar. Even white might be better. I do like the look of the black personally, but my home made mill was all black. Every single chip just glistened on it. It never looked clean at all. Not that it was supposed to. Just something to consider.
Are you going to put your logo on it somewhere? Maybe "Made for Novakon by SCEG, LLC"



Never mind. Mcmaster Carr only has it in black or brown. I may be thinking of PVC sheets. ABS is a better choice.

That may not be as much of an issue here. The ATC is up high enough, it really doesn't get very dirty. After all, I've been running it all this time un-protected. Of course, the ABS can be painted, if color is an issue.

Regards,
Ray L.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

A few more pictures. First, the ATC, fully "clothed" for the first time:

Attachment 275032

By far the hardest part was getting the "cable chain" to fit, and to "play nice". I had to modify parts of it to bend tighter, other parts to bend the opposite direction, and some parts not to bend at all. But, it now works perfectly. I will need to re-think some aspects of the shrouds on the transfer arm drive, to give them more stiffness, and better support.

And the electronics in its new, temporary, home:

Attachment 275034

It has now run for about a week without a single error of any kind, so I am very happy with the overall performance and reliability.

The ATC WILL be at Cabin Fever!

Regards,
Ray L.

[UniqueMachining]

Ray

Looking good! I'll catch you and the ATC at Cabin Fever.
If the ATC is half as productive as the Power Draw Bar, count me sold.
I don't miss my milk crate for one minute.

John

[LeeWay]

Would a flexible conduit be better?

[SCzEngrgGroup]

Would a flexible conduit be better?

No, that would be even harder to deal with. This works fine as it is, and if I rotate it 0 degrees, so it bends to the back instead of the side, it should go together very easily without having to modify the chain.

Regards,
Ray L.

[RCaffin]

re Cable chain

My machine has some of this as well - possibly Igus stff. But the stuff is where the chips fly, so the mfr covered the cable chain with bycicle inner tube, full length. Yeah, looks a bit strange at first, but it keeps ALL the crap out of the pivots. I can run the shop vac over it and it is clean. It works!

Cheers