It's been a while, I admittedly found myself lost with other things and decided to re-inspire myself back into this project by making a stand for the CNC machine. It's easier to work on it now because I can just roll it wherever I want it, and I don't have to sit on the floor to fiddle with it.
That's the bare frame, here's how the mill sits on top of it:
The frame as admittedly a little pricey. However, I do not have a welder, and I was in a hurry. I crunched the numbers and got a quote on steel for the job. Steel prices are currently 3 - 4X higher than the last time I bought steel! (presumably due to COVID). So, all in all, aluminum extrusion beat out steel on price because I did not have a welder. I like that I can easily change things up in the future with the aluminum extrusion without cleaning, welding, grinding, and painting.
With all of that behind me I started wiring again. I am not happy with this at all, so please don't judge me by this work! The solder joints are bad because I did each joint like 3 times. Before labeling everything on the back I made mistake after mistake on where to put the wires.
I am also not happy with the wire management. I used silicone wires and they are wayyy to flexible. They don't hold a large enough radius for me to use them for this purpose again the next time. As unhappy as I am with this it should be functional:
heat shrinking wires together for better management:
Now I have to work on spindle control wiring and axis control wiring. There's a lot to do there. Challenges coming down the pipe include:
1. All axis and spindle wiring (simple enough). 2. Spindle control (the OEM control sent some kindof a "keep alive" signal even at 0 RPM). 3. Programming to use the original axis sync signals to check for missed steps. 4. Linux CNC setup. I've never setup a MESA card setup before.
Excited and in a hurry to get it done! Have to use this to finish a large CNC router I'm building with a friend. Also gotta finish soon because I just purchased an EMCO compact 5 cnc lathe! The lathe as the original controls but no PC? I think the 2nd gen could operate without the PC? I'm not sure. I saw mention of people doing some programming with linuxcnc or another PC program to just send the drip feed or something right to the machine but the link in that thread is dead .