[vinsonelt]

My first post!

I would like to start off by thanking everyone that has contributed to CNCZONE, your contributions have made this my cnc project possible! I have been stalking this site for a few years and have finally given in and purchased my machine.

I was split between Joes hybrid and the CNCROUTERPARTS kit. I went with the CNCRP kit for a few reasons: ease of assembly, less time, and fewer tools are required. I think that the CNCRP route may cost a little more IF you don't make mistakes building the joes hybrid. As I have learned in previous projects mistakes can be costly so I really wanted to minimize them (obviously) and I thought the CNCRP kit looked much simpler than the alternative. The time aspect was probably the largest driving factor, I have little free time and did not want to have to re invent anything and I did not have the metal working tools needed for the joes linear rail solutions.

As for the Nema 23 decision. Back about a year ago I though I would start of with the shapeoko.... long story short..... I purchased a gecko g540 for the shapeoko, a bit overkill but I thought I could later use it on something else. Well the shapeoko project was never complete as I was unhappy with the setup, but I was left with the g540. The price for the Nema 23 without the g540 was enough that I decided to just go with the nema 23s. Cory at CNCRP told me that I would be able to upgrade to the 34s later with only a few small hardware changes, so If I ever make a few coins with this thing I will upgrade to the 34s in the future.

I purchased everything from CNCRP except the g540

CNCRP PRO 48X48 kit
Nema 23 motors
cables for the motors
cable track kit
auto z touch plate
mach 3
proximity switches
bosch 1617 router mount


So to the Build, I ordered the kit back at the end of February and have recently just started building it.

[vinsonelt]

The Table:

A long story, and probably a boring one. I spent more time and money on this than I should have, by a LOT. My first thought was to build a table, so I spent a month researching table designs and construction techniques.

I noticed some people mounting linear rails directly yo torsion boxes, so i figured that a torsion box would be plenty strong to support the cnc machine frame. I watched "The Wood Whisperers" torsion box video about 50 times, then set off to design my own. After drawing and redrawing and some more redrawing I probably have a close copy of the wood whispers, just changed a few dimensions. A small side note, if you are into wood working and have not checked out this wood whisperer I strongly recommend you visit his page. This dude can work some wood, I wish I were half the craftsman that this guy is.

So this was what I ended up with for the torsion box design.
Attachment 236948

I went with 3/4" mdf for all the grid work, 1/2" mdf for the top and bottom skins. I did not draw all the grid work as I did not see the need.

[vinsonelt]

Torsion Box Construction:
Attachment 236950
Started off by sending some 2x4s through the jointer and planer, than leveling them all to the best of my ability so I could start with a flat level work surface.

Attachment 236952
Cut up all the 3/4" MDF for the gridwork
Attachment 236954
Sent all the grid work through the jointer planer (got it to 3")
Attachment 236956
constructed the coutside mdf frame
Attachment 236958
glued and nailed all the gridwork together
Attachment 236960
block plane and smoothed out all the corners
Attachment 236962
glued one side of the gridwork to a 1/2" mdf sheet, let dry than glued the other 1/2" mdf sheet to the opposite side of the gridwork. Than I flush trimmed the top and bottom layers of MDF to the gridowrk.
Attachment 236964
finally I put an 1/8" harboard topper over the top layer of MDF and than put a oak surround around the outside of the mdf and leveled it to the hardboard topper.

The torsion box was complete and than I started having problems.....

[vinsonelt]

The Table saga:

If it were not for both of these things I would have never had any issues with the table:
1. My friend at work who use to own a furniture making business (he had a really big CNC router for making cabinets) telling me that I should use a metal base and not a wooden one.
2. The torsion box turned out so nice that I thought I should just use it as a work table, it seemed silly to cover it all up with a cnc machine as it was most impressive thing I had ever made.

Because of this I ordered the steel leg kit from cncrp and they are not cheap. I also had to finish the work bench before I started in on the CNC table because I did not have enough room in my garage for both.

I built the torsion box the first week of march at a friends house, because I did not have a jointer planer. The next few months progress was really slow, I was working 12 hour days at work and the next steps always seemed like I had to wait for something to dry.

the table saga continues...

[vinsonelt]

The Table Base:

Well the table base went together easy. I probably spent more time designing and re designing the thing than actually building it. I decided on oak 2x4s for the rails and oak 4x4s for the legs. I was unsure of how strong they would be, so my first few designs were way overkill.
Attachment 236978
Attachment 236980
Attachment 236982

After going to the the mill and realizing how strong (and expensive) oak 2x4s are I went with the simpler of designs. I used oak 1x4 for the two inside support beams.
Attachment 236984
Attachment 236986
dry fitting everything
Attachment 236988
Attachment 236990
I used the festool domino xl to joint the top and bottom skirt frames to make a box. It was my first time using the thing and I am extreemly impressed. The joints seemed rock solid.
Attachment 236992
bolted the top and bottom skirts to the legs and installed leveling casters from foot master (GD-60f)
Attachment 236994
finally I attached the two inside support rails using pocket holes.

The table base was complete minus finishing the wood. It should be easy now, slap on some poly attach the top to the base than I could finally open up some CNC boxes and get to the fun stuff.

[vinsonelt]

Table Assembly and finishing:

Well after probably a solid month of polly one piece or another and figuring out how I was going to attach the table top to the bottom I was left with this.
Attachment 237018
Attachment 237020
Attachment 237022

I spent a long time going down a few wrong paths trying to attach the top to the base. I think I ended up taking the correct path. This thing is rock solid, and looks nice. After seeing the final product I was sure that I did not want to use this for the CNC machine.

[vinsonelt]

Finally some CNC action!

After days of pondering I decided to use the table I built, the steel leg kit is sitting in the corner of my garage but I am happy with the choice. Once I had the machine secured to the table I knew it was the correct choice. The steel leg kit is extremely high quality, but I liked the idea of having the rolling casters on the table and being able to install more shelving on the base.

Attachment 237032
Attachment 237034
All the boxes, it was like Christmas!

Attachment 237036
Attachment 237048

I got the table base as level as possible

Attachment 237050
Attachment 237052
I ordered some more brackets from 8020 to attach the CNC table base to the base. I used big drywall anchors on all of the brackets to hold down the base.

Attachment 237054
installing the steel rails

Attachment 237058
installing gantry risers

Attachment 237060
Attachment 237062
gantry beam
Attachment 237064
gantry rails
Attachment 237066
the cable management

After the base of the cnc machine was fastened to the table the build went fairly quick, I built up the rest of the machine in an evening. I ran into a few problems the following morning but the guys at cncrouterparts have stepped in to help! more on the next post.

[tauntdesigns]

Pulling up a chair........... looking good

[vinsonelt]

Two steps forward 2 steps back,

The other day I ran into an issue with the the gantry carriage, fortunately the guys at cncrp were quick to help. After talking with them I was able to get a upgraded replacement sent out at a very fair price. They offered to ship me the same one for free but instead I opted to spend a bit extra and get the most recent gantry riser and gantry setup. The wait is a little painful but apparently the new design is better and now seems like the time to take care of this before the machine is all together.

I spent a little time last night removing a few parts of the machine and then another hour leveling the base of the table even more. Leveling this thing has become a bit of an obsession. I have only used box beam levels for general home repair/construction in the past, nothing that requires the precision that I think this machine will require. I purchased a Starrett .98 6" level off amazon for this project and I am astonished at the difference in accuracy that you can achieve with this level. The packaging says that the gradations are .005" per foot. When set on top of the box beam level it is night and day difference. The starrett will only have half the bubble viewable in the window while the box beam level is showing dead center. I have also come to learn that my box beam levels are not level. At the start off this project a friend clued me in on how to check if your level is level (if you did not know this is possible I highly recommend that you leran the trick on youtube) and I checked my box beams and saw the smaller one was clearly out of alignment but the larger of the two looked perfect. After using the starrett in conjunction with the larger level I have learned that the bubble is ever so slightly out of alignment AND i think the aluminum beam is not 100 % flat. I will place the larger level across a section and then use the precision level and get multiple readings from different places across the larger level and the readings are off by .0025" to .005" My only conclusion in that the box beam aluminum level is not entirely level. I am not sure if there is better ways to take these measurements, if you have any thoughts or better way to level the machine I would love to hear them. I also dont know if this level of flatness is even necessary, but i figure it can not hurt. I am to the point now where no one reading is more than .005" off level. I wish i could get it perfect but when I try to zero in even more I do not seem to be doing much other than raising or lowering each leveling foot a little when I am done.

Some truly exiting pictures of me leveling the table base
Attachment 237378
Attachment 237380

[vinsonelt]

Electronics,

Now that my post are caught up to real time I will try and be a little more descriptive and put more pictures up. I hope that one day this can help some one else.
This evening I spent a few hours going over electrical wiring, enclosures, plugs, power, switches and some other electrical choices. This could be more time consuming than the mechanical construction if I let my OCD take over. If I had unlimited funds I would love to have this setup:
Attachment 237384
(this is the cncrp nema 34 plug and play system)
Unfortunately its not in the cards this year year, I hope to come close in building something that looks this profesional.

I already have most of the electronics pieces I will use:
48 v power supply
g540
ethernet smoothstepper (on order) (requires 5 volt DC power supply)
limit/homing switches (requires 12 v AC power supply)
motors
touch plate
laptop
1 case fan (will probably order another)

My first order of business was deciding on what type of connector I would use to plug the limit switches into the box. XLR plugs are the only thing I could find, and they were not overly expensive so I ordered five of them
from amazon.
Next I wanted to draw up a basic wiring diagram:

DISCLAIMER! I am NOT an electrical engineer, nor do I have any training in wiring diagrams, I am sure this could be improved. As time permits I will add to this and clean it up but for now it works.... for me

I used sheme-it on digi keys website. It is free and seemed relatively easy to use. I used the nema 23 wiring instructions on cncrp website to construct this diagram. One important note, the signal wires from the limit switches that connect to the G540 go to physical pins 1, 2 and 3. The cncrp instructions tell you to plug the limit switches into pins 10, 11 and 12. The picture they show seems to be correct, with the wires going into physical pins 1, 2 and 3. The G540 manual refers to pin 1 as "INPUT 1 (DB25 PIN 10)", so I see how the cncrp instructions are also correct.

So I had narrowed down a few components I wanted to purchase to make a nice clean enclosure. Unfortunately the enclosures are expensive (even used old ones from ebay) and I am still a little unsure about a few choices. At the end of my research this evening I stumbled onto "din rails." They sort of bring me back to square one. I had picked out some terminal strips and small components that I was thinking about that you can not use with the din rails. Now I am going to have to dig through all this din rail information. I think using them and the associated components would make for a cleaner looking enclosure. If anyone has any recommendations for a good size enclosure for a reasonable price (im guessing 18" x 18" x 6") and thoughts on the din rails I would like to hear them. If not I love combing through the internet and this site!

I really want to find a nice solution were I can have one 120 V ac plug on the electrical enclosure that that will power all the electronics. I do not want to have to plug in the 48v, 12v and 5v power supplies into individual electrical outlets. I want all the connections to plug into the outside of the case.
While I am waiting for my parts to arrive I will be spending most of my free time working on the electrical aspect of this.

Well thats it for now!

[seesoe]

hey vinsonelt, nice build so far, your base came out nice!

take a look at my pro4896 build thread. i bought my nema electronics enclosure from ebay for $150 shipped! i looked to see if there are more but didn' seem to find it. heres the title "SCHAEFER SPN1 20X24X7.5 NEMA 1 ELECTRICAL ENCLOSURE (140996778527)"

[victorofga]

youre very brave to jumping in the middle..

I have only one question... what the actual cost difference between 4x4 and 4x8 ...
I may miss something, but I see ""only"" extra cost the aluextrusions with corners and some wood for the underlaying table..

I tell you why I asking it..
I have a 4x6 machine due to space I purchased it.. now I banging my head into wall because a 8 feet sign as I have to slide it, due to short table it adds up time almost doubling the project..

I know hard to squeeze out the money for, but its returning you later very much..

[seesoe]

added cost between 4x4 and 4x8 would be as you said aluminum extrusion and wood for the base. also there is the added cost of longer wiring and longer cable track if you have.

[cbr929]

Plus longer cold roll steel bars and v-con clamps for the X axis and extra rack gear.

[vinsonelt]

victorofga

I decided on the 4x4 mainly because of the size, cost was a small factor along with my intended uses for the machine. If I had a really large area to work in I would have gone with the 8' but I am trying to fit this in my garage along with two cars. The extra cost of the machine is about 1,100 if you were to go with the 8x4. If I ever do need to move up I will be able to keep almost every portion of the kit, I will just need new side rails, and a few cross beams.

If this machine made me any money I would be extremely happy, if it could pay for itself I would be thrilled. I am just planning on making parts for RC planes and some woodworking.

[vinsonelt]

The Machine is Finished:

After a few small issues, a new kid and a lot of not having enough time I have finished the machine. I was hoping to document more of it, but I do not have enough time. To make a long story short I got some new and upgraded pieces from CNCRP to stiffen up the gantry. I installed a Bosch 1617 router, and a temporary dust collection system. What free time I have had I have been tinkering around with this thing.

Below Is a video of the machine cutting out some foam planes:

[vinsonelt]

Here is an iPhone 4 stand I made. The stand had to be able to hold the phone sideways.



Attachment 260344

[vinsonelt]

Below is a step stool I made for my kid, he likes to help in the kitchen. It turned out nice, I have not finished it yet but I was really happy with the machines work.

Attachment 260346Attachment 260348

[vinsonelt]

First go at cutting Aluminum. Most of the info is in the youtube video and description so I will not re write it down here.



Some nice pics

Attachment 260526
Attachment 260528

I have got to find a way to cut Al and contain some of the mess. I spent as much time cleaning the area up as I did cutting out the work piece. If anyone has any ideas I would be happy to hear about them.

This picture only shows a small portion of disaster
Attachment 260530