[ssw]

Hello All,

Still missing a few pieces, but have enough to get the major hardware together. Went with the NEMA 34's and plan put together my own control box.

This is my second machine build. The first was a complete DIY job, plywood structure with skate bearings running on water pipe. Needless to say I learned a lot!

My base is aluminum extrusion, 1.5" x 3.0". Outside perimeter of 49.0" x 63.0". 32.0" high will make the spoil board right about 36.0", standard counter height.
Attachment 219170Attachment 219172Attachment 219174Attachment 219176

-- Bernie

[groc426]

That extrusion table looks really sharp!

[rwskinner]

Looking Good!

[ssw]

All,

Well, the build is going great!

Bumped in to a few snags, but managed to work things out myself so far. Got behind posting to this build log, but I'll do my best to catch up and document the adventure.

...So if you look at the previous photos you can see that the floor my shop area in the garage has 2 steps up. Everything looked like it would fit next to the workbench, but I forgot to consider space for the gantry motors and cable management. The attached pics show my solution. The wood blocks are solid top to bottom, so should have no issue with machine weight. It just looks funny.
Attachment 220792

[ssw]

Base frame leveled and squared.

Machine base attached with slotted "L" brackets.

[ssw]

Installed steel bearing rails and gantry components. I used the bar clamp suggestion. worked pretty good, although I did go back and tweak a few of the connection blocks after I found that the bearings rolled easier in some parts of the rail.

Here is a tip: I was not seating the steel into the blocks better. That was already bottomed out. What I found was that the block itself could be moved slightly as it attaches to the extrusion. That straightened things out!
Attachment 220802Attachment 220804

[ssw]

Motors installed!
Attachment 220810
Attachment 220812
Attachment 220814

And I found an old PC carcass to use for my DIY electronics!
Attachment 220816

[ssw]

Mounted components to a 0.090 thick aluminum plate.Mounted that plate to the old PC mother board stand-offs in the tower case.
Attachment 220818Attachment 220820

[ssw]

Still waiting for the proximity sensors to arrive. Found a refurbed Dell tower/Win7 computer at Micro Center WITH WARRANTY for $120.00!!!

In the meantime I just had to wire things up and try it out!

Attachment 220824Attachment 220826

IT WORKS!!!

[CRP]

Hi Bernie,

Your build is looking great! Nice work.


Cory

[ssw]

Cory,

Thanks!

[groc426]

Wow you've made a lot of progress. I agree with Cory, its looking really good! Is it just me or are some of the attachments not working?

[ssw]

Thanks Guys!

Hey, does anybody know why some of my photo attachments are not showing up properly? They were all shot with same camera.

Thanks.

[rwskinner]

I'm not sure, but I had this happen as well on the "Insert Picture" but if I used "Attachments" then it worked fine. I'm not sure if that is the problem with yours or not but it was doing that to me a few days ago.

Richard

[ssw]

Thanks Richard.

I think my image files were too big.

Here are some of my missing attachments:
Attachment 221050Attachment 221052Attachment 221054

[ssw]

Oh and here is a quick video of the first moves!

(YouTube offered to "fix" my shaky video. NOW it's a WARPED video. THANKS!)

[rwskinner]

Sweet looking machine and stand!

Richard

[ssw]

My local Menard's store has precision pre-cut MDF in 4 x 4, 2 x 4, and 2 x 2 ft. sheets. Perfect!

Attachment 221154

[ssw]

Cable management installed. When this 12" Z is all the way up, it barely makes it, but it does.

Attachment 221160Attachment 221162

[FoxCNC1]

Base frame leveled and squared.

Machine base attached with slotted "L" brackets.

I like your base, how are those legs 40-4080 ? working out for you?
I was going to go 40-8080 until I saw this.