[1Jumper10]

Next came the home sensors. They installed pretty easily but the hard part is always the electrical connection. For me it is anyway. The targets arent shown in the pics.

Also, one of the parts I might re make when it's up and running is the drive tensioners. Machine up some that are a little more refined and send them out to be plated or a similar coating.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[1Jumper10]

The servos arrived Friday. I removed the gearboxes to mount them but I'm waiting on some Loctite 638 before I can. More later...

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[1Jumper10]

Waiting on 22ga/ 8 cable and some 16ga/2. I've had a little time here and there and I mounted the E- stop switch, air filter and regulator, air blast fitting on the Z. The air supply system is complete except for one fitting. I used 1/2 nylon tube and push lock fittings for the primary line. It "T's" off at the regulator to get reduced for the air blast and continues on to a hose connection under the E-stop so I can have an air hose handy with full line pressure. I left room by the regulator for a future fogger/ lube system.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[rocketflier]

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

I would do something between the wire and conduit so the vibration/rubbing doesn't wear through the insulation.

[1Jumper10]

I dressed up all the edges of the conduit so it wasn't sharp.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[NIC 77]

So the air blast is for cooling the bit and possibly adding oil mist cutting lubricant?

Is there any other reason for the air system, or is that the only purpose? Were you thinking of a vacuum hold down as well?

I'm right now sourcing the parts for the pneumatic counterbalance on my Z. Not sure if I should use the push in fittings like you have shown, or traditional barb, clamp, and quick disconnects with a standard compressor hose. I'll be running at 90 PSI and below. Do you have much experience with those kinds of fittings? I have none, that's why I ask. I see you are also using them on your spindle coolant.

What kind of limit switches are those? Those look much better than the ones I have.

Nice work as always.

[ger21]

Push to connect fittings are pretty much the only type used on industrial machines. There are probably 150 of them on our Morbidelli. There's no reason to use barbed fittings and clamps.

[mactec54]

So the air blast is for cooling the bit and possibly adding oil mist cutting lubricant?

Is there any other reason for the air system, or is that the only purpose? Were you thinking of a vacuum hold down as well?

I'm right now sourcing the parts for the pneumatic counterbalance on my Z. Not sure if I should use the push in fittings like you have shown, or traditional barb, clamp, and quick disconnects with a standard compressor hose. I'll be running at 90 PSI and below. Do you have much experience with those kinds of fittings? I have none, that's why I ask. I see you are also using them on your spindle coolant.

What kind of limit switches are those? Those look much better than the ones I have.

Nice work as always.

The pushlock air fittings I designed and manufactured almost 50 years ago, that's how long they have been around, 90 PSI is considered low pressure, I have used the same design also for hydraulic use, tested to 4000 PSI , for the off the self pushlock fittings, these are well suited for your use, this type is suited for air water Etc, just don't expect them to work correct if you want to disconnect them all the time, as the end of the tube will get damaged and need to be trimmed for a fresh end to seal in the Oring

[1Jumper10]

So the air blast is for cooling the bit and possibly adding oil mist cutting lubricant?

Is there any other reason for the air system, or is that the only purpose? Were you thinking of a vacuum hold down as well?

I'm right now sourcing the parts for the pneumatic counterbalance on my Z. Not sure if I should use the push in fittings like you have shown, or traditional barb, clamp, and quick disconnects with a standard compressor hose. I'll be running at 90 PSI and below. Do you have much experience with those kinds of fittings? I have none, that's why I ask. I see you are also using them on your spindle coolant.

What kind of limit switches are those? Those look much better than the ones I have.

Nice work as always.

Hi NIC77 -

You can see in the pic the air nozzle that rides on the Z. The air blast comes out there and its more for chip removal than cooling the cutttng bit but I'm sure it will remove some heat. I am considering running a second nozzle down the opposite side of the spindle for misting. I'm just not sure what system works best for that. I have zero experience with fog lube and misting systems. I've also just started thinking about a work table surface and I'm leaning toward a vacuum table at the moment. If I go with a vacuum table I'll probably use a vacuum generator and an accumulator tank which will also demand a lot from our air compressor. The only hurdle to a vacuum table for me is the expense of the work surface which would probably be a sheet of phenolic. Pricy! So I need a robust air system on this machine and I've had a lot of these components on the shelf gathering dust for years.

For your pnematic counterbalance you cant go wrong with the pushlock fittings. Like MacTec said, they last forever and they dont leak if installed properly. Also, I've bought air cylinders off of E bay and I've never had a problem with them leaking. Even the cheap ones like Bimba work perfectly. Festo, SMC Parker are high quality units that WILL work a long time. I've got lots of pneumatic fittings and a couple cylinders. PM me and I'll send you some if you can use them.

The limit switches are Pepperel and Fuchs Proximity switches I bought as a kit from CNC router parts. I could have saved some money by doing my own research and looking around but I wanted reliable switches. CNCRP is in business to make money so they were'nt cheap but I'm confident they will work well for a long time. Plus, having them available from the beginning made it easy to incorporate them into the design. A lesson learned from my previous two machines where the sensors and their placement were an afterthought that wasn't easily added at the end.

[NIC 77]

Hi NIC77 -

You can see in the pic the air nozzle that rides on the Z. The air blast comes out there and its more for chip removal than cooling the cutttng bit but I'm sure it will remove some heat. I am considering running a second nozzle down the opposite side of the spindle for misting. I'm just not sure what system works best for that. I have zero experience with fog lube and misting systems. I've also just started thinking about a work table surface and I'm leaning toward a vacuum table at the moment. If I go with a vacuum table I'll probably use a vacuum generator and an accumulator tank which will also demand a lot from our air compressor. The only hurdle to a vacuum table for me is the expense of the work surface which would probably be a sheet of phenolic. Pricy! So I need a robust air system on this machine and I've had a lot of these components on the shelf gathering dust for years.

So are you planning to cut alot of aluminum then? I don't know the system that works best for that either. With my first build I tried spraying lubricant as the bit was cutting, with a hand held sprayer, it didn't make much difference. Only when I went faster and shallow with a sharp carbide bit did the performance improve somewhat, and I say somewhat because it was sloooww (low MRR, shallow cuts), and I burnt out a few routers that ingested aluminum flakes over time. All things I am trying to correct now on this build. Some people swear by the misting. I personally don't know. I am thinking of a pump and flooding coolant constantly over the work piece. But then you can't have a mdf table top, and you need a catch reservoir at the bottom, etc. If you do the misting, please let us know if it helps.

It's certainly worth the time to think about work holding. I really like the system that Biesse has with vacuum table sliders on rails. I have to wonder if you have to have the entire table top as a vacuum, or if you could just have certain strategic sections with embedded suction cups and a traditional mdf spoilboard.

If you were only cutting flat plate or sheet on your router, I also wonder if you could get away from using a traditional table and spoilboard all together, and just have a grid of suction cups with valves to turn on or off certain sections of the "table". Obviously the hard part would be the alignment as you wouldn't be able to use your machine to surface the spoilboard.

I'm sure you'll figure out what's best for you. I've never done it, just thought about it.

For your pnematic counterbalance you cant go wrong with the pushlock fittings. Like MacTec said, they last forever and they dont leak if installed properly. Also, I've bought air cylinders off of E bay and I've never had a problem with them leaking. Even the cheap ones like Bimba work perfectly. Festo, SMC Parker are high quality units that WILL work a long time. I've got lots of pneumatic fittings and a couple cylinders. PM me and I'll send you some if you can use them.

That's some good info, and that's very generous of you. Right now, I'm looking at 10mm OD, 6.5mm ID tube, I'll only need a handful of fittings. I'll get them added to the pneumatic cylinder order, the guy I've been speaking with said he'd throw in a couple for free, so probably it will cost me $5-$10 for fittings on aliexpress, about the same as the postage would cost from the US. I might need a 3/8 BSP (female) to 1/4 NPT (male) adapter. I'm finding the threads on aliexpress are "G" type which I understand to be the same as BSP. Are the threaded ends of your push to connect fittings NPT? Well, it's only one fitting that needs to be NPT if I use an old air compressor tank for a reservoir. But, I will probably use a 2.5 gallon fire extinguisher, so that will have a weird fitting on it I'm sure. For the cylinders, I'll be using 32mm bore, 300mm stroke.

Thanks to mactec54 and Ger21 for their comments also.

The limit switches are Pepperel and Fuchs Proximity switches I bought as a kit from CNC router parts. I could have saved some money by doing my own research and looking around but I wanted reliable switches. CNCRP is in business to make money so they were'nt cheap but I'm confident they will work well for a long time. Plus, having them available from the beginning made it easy to incorporate them into the design. A lesson learned from my previous two machines where the sensors and their placement were an afterthought that wasn't easily added at the end.

I'm thinking of moving from normal switches to proximity switches. For cabling to the limit switches, in the past I've used high quality audio cables and connectors. They worked well. I saw them in a thrift store, $10 for big bundle of them, the good quality gold plated heavy gauge ones, and I scooped them up.

[TeknicTom]

Hi 1Jumper10,

I saw your comment about the Pepperel and Fuchs proximity switches as well as the mention of the high price tag. Many of our OEM customers have moved away from using limit and proximity switches, and the associated wiring, in favor of using hardstop homing.

The ClearPath motors have a function called hardstop homing. There is a hardstop homing setup menu in the MSP software where you select the direction of travel, acceleration, and velocity (as well as some other options) of your homing move. This allows you to move gently into the end of travel and use that location as your virtual limit sensor. You can also set up an automatic offset move in the step and direction mode to be used as your home position. This not only provides a more repeatable homing location than a sensor but it also allows you to eliminate the cost and complexity of sensors and wiring.

Even if you have the sensors already installed, you may want to try this function out to see the accuracy that it provides.

For more information, see page 104 of the ClearPath User Manual: https://www.teknic.com/files/downloa...ser_manual.pdf

As always, best of luck with your progress

[NIC 77]

Tom,

That sounds like a pretty handy feature. With traditional steppers, when you power down the system and then power it back up, you need to reset your zeros. Everything will have moved a bit. I normally accomplish this with and electrical connection edge finder.

If you wanted to resume a job half finished and used the global homing limits as your zeros, this could be very handy indeed.

The big thing I see with this is for a dual driven gantry. In a dual driven system with both motors continue to run until they hit their respective ends of travel? Or do they both stop when one of the two hits it's end point?

If each individual motor will continue until it hits it's respective end point on a dual driven system, then this is a very nice feature to keep the gantry always in the same square to the table. I have heard of other ways to do this, but, certainly, if your servos can do this on their own, then that could be quite helpful to always keep things in the same square.

Always interesting to hear about the features of your products.

So the motor it's self will remember where the limit is and make a stop independent of the control software? Pretty cool.

[1Jumper10]

NIC - I dont know if I'll end up cutting a lot of aluminum but I want it to be capable of doing it well if I do.
I've had good results milling aluminum using single flute end mills. I tried the 3 and 4 flute end mills but a couple times I ruined bits trying to cut deep slots. I was spraying WD-40 for lube and compressed air to clear the channel. When I realized how hard I was trying to succeed I figured I must be doing something wrong. Much better results with single flute bits.
I'll have to check out the Biesse system. I'm really just starting to research vacuum work holding. It's just some extra plumbing and would really work nice for Sintra board.

All my air fittings are NPT. Mostly 1/4 NPT. I do have an SMC electronic air regulator that can vary pressure via a PWM electrical signal. It has 1/8" NPT ports and is brand new. Only problem it works at a pretty low pressure range. If you can use it I'll send it to you. I thought it might be useful for a system like your making.

Unless you're an electronics genius, be sure to get the sensors that are compatible with your break-out-board. NPN, PNP, NO, NC, 12V, 24V, and a few other characteristics I'm sure I'm forgetting, have to be compatible with the voltages and inputs your board handles. Theoretically, proximity sensors are more accurate than hall effect and reed switches. I made some hall effect sensors ala Roman Lini's design here on the zone and they were very repeatable. Probably better than .001" repeat-ability.

[1Jumper10]

Hi TeknicTom -

I am familiar with the hardstop homing feature and in fact I used it on my friends router. I've got the gantry CP's set to home upon first enable. The gantry hard stops homes to the end stops and the machine is perfectly square, and it stays square. I plan on setting up a similar routine on this machine with a few differences. I'll set up hard stop homing on all 3 axes' and then set the movement limit from the home position to function as my travel limits. I cant really get away from (that I've been able to figure out) using homing switches because UCCNC software needs to see all axe's homed before its fully functional. So the software homing routine has to be done or positioning macro's wont work. I.e, I cant call the macro to automatically move to the tool change position because the machine only knows where that position is at relative to the home position. If it was never software "homed" it has no point of reference. No doubt the CP encoders would be more accurate than sensors, I just cant see a way to get away from them from a software expectation standpoint.

Progress has been slow but steady. I've been waiting on wire and after receiving the wrong wire (22ga 8 PAIR, instead of 22ga 8 conductor) the data wire for the servo's arrived today. Those are the last wires to run and I'll be ready to start tuning servo's. However, I've got to run a 220V circuit back to the part of the shop where the router is. And since the electrical system in the shop was badly in need of an upgrade, it necessitated a shift from CNC building to electrician. Yesterday and today Installed a larger breaker panel, 2 more 220 circuits, upgraded the welder outlets and tripled the number of 110V outlets. That should all be done tomorrow. A new air supply system will also go in (Dad got a SWEET Ingersol Rand compressor) but not till after the router is moving at least. I plan on tuning servo's in about a week.

[1Jumper10]

Tom,

That sounds like a pretty handy feature. With traditional steppers, when you power down the system and then power it back up, you need to reset your zeros. Everything will have moved a bit. I normally accomplish this with and electrical connection edge finder.

If you wanted to resume a job half finished and used the global homing limits as your zeros, this could be very handy indeed.

The big thing I see with this is for a dual driven gantry. In a dual driven system with both motors continue to run until they hit their respective ends of travel? Or do they both stop when one of the two hits it's end point?

If each individual motor will continue until it hits it's respective end point on a dual driven system, then this is a very nice feature to keep the gantry always in the same square to the table. I have heard of other ways to do this, but, certainly, if your servos can do this on their own, then that could be quite helpful to always keep things in the same square.

Always interesting to hear about the features of your products.

So the motor it's self will remember where the limit is and make a stop independent of the control software? Pretty cool.

NIC77 -

Thats how I square the gantry on my friends router. Both motors continue to their respective hardstops then back off a distance that I've set up in their firmware. It works very well at keeping the gantry square. They can also be set to only travel a certain distance from the hard stop. I.e. your max axis travel. This functions as a travel limit sensor. If they receive a command to travel outside of this limit, they'll trip the high level feed back and on my friends router this stops motion and the software goes into reset.

[NIC 77]

NIC77 -

Thats how I square the gantry on my friends router. Both motors continue to their respective hardstops then back off a distance that I've set up in their firmware. It works very well at keeping the gantry square. They can also be set to only travel a certain distance from the hard stop. I.e. your max axis travel. This functions as a travel limit sensor. If they receive a command to travel outside of this limit, they'll trip the high level feed back and on my friends router this stops motion and the software goes into reset.

Nice feature!

[1Jumper10]

Wiring. Tedious but making progress. The control box tips up for easy access. Back at it.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[pippin88]

In linuxcnc and mach3 you can just software home if you don't have home switches.

So you could hard stop home and then just do software homing (I.e. current position = home). I'd be surprised if UCCNC absolutely required home switches.

[OlfCNC]

In linuxcnc and mach3 you can just software home if you don't have home switches.

So you could hard stop home and then just do software homing (I.e. current position = home). I'd be surprised if UCCNC absolutely required home switches.

Yup, if you set the home pin to 0 then UCCNC is doing that too.

[1Jumper10]

Yup, if you set the home pin to 0 then UCCNC is doing that too.

That would be great if it did and still allow the macro's to work correctly. Of course, that would also mean I spent $200 on home sensors when I didnt have to. Gerry is the expert at UCCNC hopefully he'll weigh in. Pippin88 and OlfCNC thank you for your posts. If UCCNC software can work without home sensors while the CP servo's hard stop home that would make a better machine. I remember WhiteWolf and DDGitfiddle asking similar questions more than a year ago and I didnt know how to make it work back then.