[elefant man]

Hi I am a new member and I am currently building a new 2019 mill.

I have had a CNC router for a few years and I decided to find a nice little mill to make my RC heli & quad parts mainly in aluminium. I am an engineer by trade and use Solidworks and Featurecam daily.

See the pics below for the rough SolidWorks layout of what I am planning on building.







I have designed the enclosure with bracing the Z column in mind and to house the large electrical cabinet and my silent compressor below.

I plan to use the following for the build most of which I have already.

Gecko G540 for the drivers ( Reuse from old router )
CSMIO/IP-M 4-axis Ethernet Motion Controller & mpeg module ( Still to buy )
MEAN WELL SP-320-48 PSU for the motors ( Bought)
Stepper Motors, 4 Wires, 1.26nm, 2.5 V, Inductance/Phase (mH) 2.5 ( Still to buy )
Schneider Zelio PLC or 2 with HMI screen/s because I have them ( to show rpm, Limit switches, and control axis and steps for the mpeg )
Inductive RPM pickup ( have lots of sensors so will pick one )
Inductive limit switches ( have lots of nice flat sensors )
Mister ( still researching )
Oldham Couplings ( bought thanks to Lester at MEDW top bloke! )
24v LED strip lights around the front angled in at 45 degrees ( got a few laying around )
MGF sil-eol 24/50 gf silent compressor ( had it a few years unused till now )

Well thats most of the plans outlined.


Hi I have started the enclosure build the pics are below.

At this point I would like to thank my friend Scott for helping me get the enclosure parts and the laser cutting etc. Top man

So to start it all off I have started my enclosure.

The enclosure was all drawn in SolidWorks so I could check dimensions, plan and produce an accurate bill of materials.

The enclosure is 40x40 Bosch Rexroth aluminium profile *( apart from the column brace uprights which are 40 x 80 ) and all of the brackets are designed by me and laser cut from 3mm ali. The wheel base plates and the rear column brace is 3mm stainless steel.


All of the aluminium profile cut to size as delivered.


mmmmmmm T-Nuts


Some of the laser cut L-Brackets


Some of the laser cut T-Brackets


The laser cut stainless steel caster base plates


The stainless steel column brace plate


One or two M8x16 bolts *:shock:


The castors fitted on the plates. Each castor is rated at 90KG load and is swivel and wheel braked


The base before squaring up and final tightening


The base all square and tightened up


The base all square and tightened up.


Column support parts laid out



Column support assembled


Entire upper rear assembly


Added lower braces temporarily


Door frames

The main work top and lower shelf should be here Monday so weather permitting I should be able to cut and fit these Monday night.

[Lobos8403]

Looks good so far! I'm in a very similar boat myself, i just started modeling up the enclosure last night for Craigslist find Taig rebuild. I also reverse engineered the mill probably to a degree of detail that is completely unnecessary for most purposes but its accurate to build the enclosure around and looks cool in simulations Subscribed to see how your enclosure came out. How much did all this cost you so far?

[elefant man]

I downloaded the mill model already done in STL format so I converted it to SolidWorks parts and assembly's so I could build the enclosure. The cost of the enclosure will be around £750 around 1200usd. so not cheap but I never cut corners on my projects to save a few quid its just the way I am ;-)

[elefant man]

The worktops came today cut and fitted by my mate Andy ( Thanks Andy )



The top parts are only to align the worktop I now need the panels which don't ship until the 1st so I hope they come before good Friday or I will be stuck until next week now.

[fretsman]

Really nice setup you're building, thanks for sharing the eye candy!

[elefant man]

So all of the panels came yesterday so I have spent the morning building the rest of the enclosure. The top, sides and back panels are 10mm White Ex-Cel Integral Foam PVC and the doors are 5mm Lexan.

All in all I am very happy with the way the enclosure has gone and it looks very nice indeed. I am really chuffed at how sturdy it is it seems very strong indeed.

See the pics below for the finished enclosure with the mill in rough position.



















So the next step will be the electrics etc I will keep you all posted how it goes.

[CS900]

looks great! MY only comment would be how are you going to adjust your split nut if you need too? you'll have to unbolt the mill to get the table out of the way far enough. Not a huge deal, but you may find it annoying

[elefant man]

All observations and suggestions/comments gratefully received.

I am not sure what you call the split nut but if it is the big nut that holds the Z column in place then there is an access hole in the rear colmn brace plate.

If there is another nut I have over looked let me know while I have a chance to look at the design.

[Lobos8403]

Hes talking about the split nut of the lead screw. But you should be able to pull the entire y carrage out to get to the x axis.

[elefant man]

Yep with you now yes I would just pull the entire carriage off or undo the mill and remove from cabinet it only 3 bolts and a few wires all easy to get too.

[CS900]

yup, that's the guy I was referring too. I did the exact same thing on my first enclosure. I ended up cutting an access panel in the side so I could position the table in the right spot and slide the table thru it and out of the way.

either way, it still looks fantastic.

[elefant man]

Been a bit busy with other things of late so not lots of progress but I managed to do a bit this weekend.

I have fitted the 3 x 300mm LED Strip lights. I 3D printed 45 degree mounting blocks for the lights to screw too and I used computer type self tapping screws after pilot drilling to secure the brackets to the panels.

I then 3D printed some wire securing tabs and secured them to the panels in the same way.

I mounted a 24v 2.5A PSU on the rear panel this will be switched from the Zelio smart relay and HMI when it is installed.

The pictures are a bit deceptive the lights are very bright and illuminate the entire enclosure very well indeed.

I also 3D printed the stepper motor covers sanded and coated in epoxy resin these are now awaiting final sanding and paint.

I am 3D printing the HMI mounting box at present as thats the next step.

See the pics below.






















The wire clip tabs 3D printed


This is the HMI screen mount on the 3D pinter is a 15h print