[hllrsr]

The imperial verson is complete and the metric version will be ready this week. I have not updated the current download and was planning to add both at the same time.

When you do, could you do a version without the Mach3 demo? It would make it a little more download friendly for those of us on a dial up connection.

Other than that, I was quite impressed with the work you folks put into the plan set! I should have my rails tomorrow, I am going with 1" x .120 wall seamless mechanical tubing on the x axis- cheaper, lighter and stiffer than drill rod, and should have a 24"x48" bed version of it running for the weekend.

Iain

[lgroulx200]

When you do, could you do a version without the Mach3 demo? It would make it a little more download friendly for those of us on a dial up connection.

Other than that, I was quite impressed with the work you folks put into the plan set! I should have my rails tomorrow, I am going with 1" x .120 wall seamless mechanical tubing on the x axis- cheaper, lighter and stiffer than drill rod, and should have a 24"x48" bed version of it running for the weekend.

Iain

I am very interested in how the seamless tubing works. I just checkout the specs and they are very good.

Larry

[rockcliff]

When you do, could you do a version without the Mach3 demo? It would make it a little more download friendly for those of us on a dial up connection.

Other than that, I was quite impressed with the work you folks put into the plan set! I should have my rails tomorrow, I am going with 1" x .120 wall seamless mechanical tubing on the x axis- cheaper, lighter and stiffer than drill rod, and should have a 24"x48" bed version of it running for the weekend.

Iain

Hi Iain
Thank you for your positive comments, the 1" shafts your going to use sound like a great idea, is that a like a chrome moly tubing?
sorry about the large file, the download has grown over the last few months and is getting a bit large now, with the new additions planned, I have approx. 30-40 more drawings to add, the reason we have been adding mach is we get a lot of people very new to cnc, and I mean new, and have tried to get them started in the right direction with one complete package, and being an OEM distributor of Artsoft products, makes us promote it whenever possible. I can understand your pain, we have been waiting 3 years for any high speed service to come to our area, satelite is our only option here, I will for sure split the download into a few parts, as uploading it is getting almost impossible
Nick

[hllrsr]

The SMT I am using is mostly used for hydraulic hard lines on heavy equipment. 5000 psi rated, 20000 psi burst. We use (literally) miles of the stuff at work, and I can get it from work at 75 cents a foot, or from our local metal supplier at $2.35/foot. I do not think it is chrome moly, as no special care is required after welding in order to keep the rating. The only chrome moly I've used had to be pre and post heated to prevent cracking or weak areas after welding.

The OTHER nice thing about this tubing, is with how ridgid it is, I can get an 18"x30" cutting area in a 24x48 foot print, without flexing, by setting my rails 18" o/c and my bushings 18" outside dimensioned, with the table having 6 inches of overhang either end.

The overhang rides approx. 3/8" above the end plates, allowing a full 30" of cutting travel, while having the guides spaced so as to avoid racking.
It sounds strange, but if you sketch it out, it works.

As far as High speed internet goes, I am in the Barrie, Ont. area, and Bell want $35k to provide us with DSL. They would have to replace the lines from the routing station to my phone box, (a distance of 1 mile) after already digging up my yard to run the new lines from Barrie, out to the routing station 2 years ago.
If it is available in your area, Look Communications have an interesting offer on wireless, but you need line of sight for it to work.

ATB,

Iain

[rockcliff]

Yes I am familar with the tubing your using, when you mentioned Hydraulic tube it dawned on me, yes that tubing does have a fairly good OD precision, it's very smooth about the same or smoother than ground shafting it should give good strong results, it's nice to see inovation, with these builds, you should see an email soon with info on additions to the plans, I live and work in Milton ON and we cannot get high speed from ANY provider not even wireless, it's equivalent to a black hole where I am, but I'll bet if I lived in moosejaw population 10 I could get High Speed with BELLony, anyway the word bell just raises my blood pressure, good luck with your machine and send some pics, if possible.
Nick

[boblon]

Hi all, TOTAL newbie here.

I've brought the Rockcliff plans and have trolled this board for a few weeks now. I'm planning on building the upsized version per the current plan set (barring any changes once the new plans come out if they apply).

I've purchased some Acme threaded lead screws and am now trying to figure out what linear bearing setup to use. I plan on mounting a trim router and doing mostly wood (possibly some light engraving in brass maybe).

With the upsized machine the talk of flex using the 1/2 drill rod is scaring me a little. The seamless tubing discussed sounds promising and I've done a little googling (sp) but being a total newbie am afraid I'm not looking at the right stuff, precision wise. Does anybody have a link to some of this that is suitable for this project?

I'm planning on going with steppers in the 200-300 oz range. Hope this is correct.

Anyhow this is a great site and just figured I'd introduce myself and dive in here.

Thanks,
BobL.

[lgroulx200]

Hi BobL,

I built my machine using 1/2 rods. I basicly just threw the machine together (rough plywood cuts, not cleaning the glue, no paint etc, lining everything up just good enough) to help me finish the current CNC machine that I was working on. I was also worried about the Z axis flexing although it took a good push to get the axis to flex.

I used the Rockcliff to route out my Y axis end plates including 7/8 holes for my skate bearings. The skate bearings fit exact where the ones drilled with my drill press are a little sloppy. As long as I laid out my work correctly, the finished parts were perfect.

I have worked on 3 cnc machines. The only machine to work as advertised was the Rockcliff. I am going to shelve my other project (along with countless hours and money, although I still enjoyed the time spent) and build a new Rockcliff.

Larry

[rlrhett]

Hi BobL,

I used the Rockcliff to route out my Y axis end plates including 7/8 holes for my skate bearings. The skate bearings fit exact where the ones drilled with my drill press are a little sloppy. As long as I laid out my work correctly, the finished parts were perfect.


Larry

How did you use the Rockcliff to rout parts for itself? I don't understand. Do you mean you made the parts with regular tools and then used the Rockliff to make the parts again?

[Jay C]

How did you use the Rockcliff to rout parts for itself? I don't understand. Do you mean you made the parts with regular tools and then used the Rockliff to make the parts again?

Reread his first sentence

I built my machine using 1/2 rods. I basically just threw the machine together (rough plywood cuts, not cleaning the glue, no paint etc, lining everything up just good enough) to help me finish the current CNC machine that I was working on. I was also worried about the Z axis flexing although it took a good push to get the axis to flex.

Jay

[snoyce]

May as well add me to the Rockcliff head count. I bought the plans a week or so ago and have ordered the (ebay) Rockcliff 3 package from MarchantDice, which should hopefully arrive on wednesday. I've also accidentally (twitching on an ebay auction prior to the Rockcliff 3 package being available) bought an extra set of ACME threaded rod if anyone in the UK is interested.

I started marking up the MDF tonight to cut tommorow and noticed theres a few measurements missing from the Metric plans. (eg. couple of dimensions in the gantry sides drawing). The measurements didnt seem critical so took a best guess.

Anyway question....

I was considering adding some additional bracing (for example on the outside of the gantry sides and boxing in the base) and also glueing it together with the aid of biscuit joints. Does anyone have an opinion about doing either.

Also do you think the machine would be able to handle the 500g proxxon grinder as a spindle?

Many thanks for all the excellent information on the forums here!

Steve

[hllrsr]

For the folks in North America...

If you are looking for low cost stepper motors for your machine, go to EBay and do a search for listings being run by a fellow called rcpretired.
He is selling 100 in/oz steppers from Laserwriter printers at a good Buy it Now price, I paid $35 USD plus shipping for a set of three.

His listing said he has a truckload of these for sale, and will sell any other parts from the printers also. I have NO connection with Ray, other than being a VERY satisfied customer and will not hesitate to order more from him when I need them for other projects.

HTH,

Iain

[boblon]

Steve,
That's pretty sweet being able to buy a package with all the platform hardware in it. I looked that seller up, but am afraid the shipping to the USA would be prohibitive. I have my lead screws already anyhow so I'll guess I'll keep on trying to piece the rest of it together.

In any event, I'm sure you will be well along with your project before I am even able to get started. I am very interested in how it goes for you as I hope to pick up a few tips being as we are both newbies in this game.

Hope you continue to post here as your progress and look forward to following along with you on your build.

BobL.

[cncboss6]

Hello, what is the ebay sellers name? I would like to check it out. Thanks, Pat

[snoyce]

Steve,
That's pretty sweet being able to buy a package with all the platform hardware in it. I looked that seller up, but am afraid the shipping to the USA would be prohibitive. I have my lead screws already anyhow so I'll guess I'll keep on trying to piece the rest of it together.

In any event, I'm sure you will be well along with your project before I am even able to get started. I am very interested in how it goes for you as I hope to pick up a few tips being as we are both newbies in this game.

Hope you continue to post here as your progress and look forward to following along with you on your build.

BobL.

Hi Bob,

I'm going to start cutting the MDF parts today and ill take pictures throughout the process. The log type entries on here have been really helpful and inspiring so hopefully someone will benefit from the experiences i have along the way.

The MarchantDice kits definately look like they will add some extra precision to the original design but also bring a few challenges. for example the leadscrews will need to be supported in bearings to make use of the motor couplers (i think, ill know more wednesday) and the pillow block attachments will space the moving platforms off the rails abit more than the original design. I also think the y+z platform is going to be challenging.

The kit does add to the cost but my plan is, i can get started with this machine to get some practice with the software side then in a few months i will be emmigrating to australia and then i can break down the machine and ship the non MDF parts with me and rebuild the machine in aluminium in australia and reuse alot of the components.

I'de post the link to the ebay auction on here but not sure it's aloud, if you search ebay for rockcliff on the UK site you will see the kits listed. also spoke to the owner on the phone a couple of times, very nice bloke. He mentioned they've had alot of orders for this kit since posting it.

Steve

[snoyce]

I've made some good progress with the MDF parts today and taken pictures along the way, i'll upload them tommorow. would it be better to start a seperate project log post or post them straight in this thread.

Steve

[kiwichris]

Hi-ho,

Just joined the site, and found this great thread. I'm looking to build a router, for cutting mainly plastic and wood, and possibly small brass or aluminium bits. I started the project about 3 years ago, and cad designed my own table, but spent so much time on the design part that I made it too complex to build without a CNC router. :-). This looks like a much better way to get into the game, so to speak.

Just a couple of questions before I purchase the plans, and scrap my own unbuildable design :-)

Are there thrust bearings on the lead screws? The steppers I have (3A 3.1V double stack salvaged from large printers) have 0.5mm end-float, and I can't tell from all the cool pictures if there are any.

If I scale up the X&Y axis to say 36x18" respectively, would 20mm shaft be rigid enough for a 36" X?

Using a good 1/4" trim router, could I realistically cut aluminium & brass with this type of design? Not worried if I have to cut at 5mm/min and 1mm cuts, as the parts woud be quite small model bits.

Thanks in advance for any help, and I promise to post pics if I finally get around to building something!

[rlrhett]

Was there ever a follow up to the post asking for more information on the Seamless Mechanical Tubing? Is there a McMaster part for them? Have the guys at Rockcliff incorporated the tubing as a potential alternative in the plans? Will anything called "seamless tubing" work, or what should we be looking for?

Thanks!

[boblon]

If there was I didn't see it. I haven't been able to find a source for the material they are referring to either. From what I've read a pipe is actually stiffer than a rod of the same diameter because of the increased surface area.

Maybe someone will clue us noobies in

BobL.

[lgroulx200]

Hi-ho,



Are there thrust bearings on the lead screws? The steppers I have (3A 3.1V double stack salvaged from large printers) have 0.5mm end-float, and I can't tell from all the cool pictures if there are any.

If I scale up the X&Y axis to say 36x18" respectively, would 20mm shaft be rigid enough for a 36" X?

Using a good 1/4" trim router, could I realistically cut aluminium & brass with this type of design? Not worried if I have to cut at 5mm/min and 1mm cuts, as the parts woud be quite small model bits.

Thanks in advance for any help, and I promise to post pics if I finally get around to building something!

Hi kiwichris,

There are no thrust bearings.

I am not sure if 20mm shaft is ridged enough if you make the machine 36".

I have cut aluminum with my machine. I had to cut slowly but was impressed with the results.

[lgroulx200]

If there was I didn't see it. I haven't been able to find a source for the material they are referring to either. From what I've read a pipe is actually stiffer than a rod of the same diameter because of the increased surface area.

Maybe someone will clue us noobies in

BobL.

HI BobL,

A solid rod is stronger then a tube of the same diameter. But increasing the diameter of a tube or rod greatly increases the strengh.

In Canada, I believe Metal Supermarket has seamless mech tube.

Larry