[Big S]

Got the Signfoam cut for the bed, its only half done though. I have something else up my sleeve yet Cheap router bits work great on the signfoam, just have to watch the speeds they are run at so they don't fly apart.
The ridges in the signfoam are where it is adjusted for the change in depth of the bed, its fits okay but needs a little sanding in a few spots to get it to sit really level.

Stepper motor specs pages, the 86HS2A118-308 is what is in my machine. Seems to be 1200 Oz/in motors.
http://translate.google.com/translat...fox-a%26sa%3DG
http://translate.google.com/translat...fox-a%26sa%3DG

and a couple of other random pics of things...anyone wanna try and guess what the last picture is of?

Shannon.

[cabnet636]

air hose connectors or locator pins, shannon i gotta what you are doing is great and i never know what to expect next!!!! jim

[Big S]

Three hours work and only some measly slots in the signfoam (nuts)!!!!!

Design work takes a while, I am not saying what the slots are for but it become clearer...eventually

Over 2 hours to draw and 45 mins to setup and cut on the work machine.

Shannon.

[Khalid]

good job done so far keep it up..

[Big S]

Today I have cut through the soft black stuff on top of the bed and separated the T-slot extrusions. The little skill saw and a 2mm blade makes really neat cuts. Cleaning the glue off the alloy was a bit of a pain. I may end up taking the black stuff off the T-slots completely as I think the vacuum will leak under where they aren't quite stuck down well enough.

Shannon.

[Big S]

The power 'may' be connected on Monday, the trench is covered over again with the cables in the ground for the three phase power. It just need the wall sockets installed and to be connected to the meter board.

Did a little more today, decided to take the spindle plate off and mill the bottoms of the holes flat instead of tapered. I also drew up some drawings for the new electronics cabinet and things like that.

Shannon.

[rocket67]

As Jim would say " CRANK IT UP SON!! "

Rocket.

[cabnet636]

CRANK IT UP SON!!!!


jim

here is my new router and spindle

[Big S]

We have the final power cables on order, along with some other 3 phase plugs.
We picked up a few of the switched sockets from Southern Demolition in Christchurch. They have piles of them there for sale at very reasonable prices.

I have made the new cover for the X-axis cable chain. The wires will eventually go directly into the new electronics cabinet.

Shannon.

[Big S]

See pic below, WE HAVE POWER.

The machine moves pretty fast, jogging up to 30m/min on the Y-axis and about 24m/min on the X-axis. I wouldn't cut anything at that speed as its near the limits of the stepper motors. Should cut Mdf at 10m/min easy.

I had to swap the outputs to the stepper drives and limit switches over as the X-axis was set across the machine and the Y-Axis along. Its now X-axis as the long axis. Also my fan for the spindle wasn't working, turns out that the internal plug had a pin inside that wasn't inserted properly in its connector at the HSD factory and was intermittant on the connection. The fan needs to run the whole time to cool the spindle, its fixed now though.

The tool release on the spindle doesn't seem to have the safety set up correctly. There is an output from the spindle that stops the tool being released if its turning, but it doesn't seem to be implemented as I can spin the tool holder by hand and it will release before it has stopped spinning. The HSD spindle at work won't release until its at a dead stop. I will have to fix this as a tool coming out at 24,000 rpm won't be pretty.

I have also been in contact with Kent (from Norway) about setting up Mach3 on our machines. I think I will get onto this reasonably soon.

Now to machine the bed signex flat (I have glued it all down) and to put the T-slots back in place.


Shannon.

[Big S]

Back to the workshop tonight and had another go on the machine.

I have yet to machine the signex flat, I did screw a piece of MDF onto it and machined it flat so I could square the spindle. A few shims made from something I found in the rubbish, an old spatula, got it pretty good and true. It wasn't very far out but is much better now :banana:

I then decided to try machining part of our company logo into the MDF. Painting it green first (while still on the bed ) helps with seeing the cutout. It was my first time running a file from Ucancanv8 and I managed to get the start point in the wrong location so i had to restart the file and now there is a chew out of our logo (nuts) The next try (in flouro orange no less) came out much better although I couldn't cut right through on the last pass (or would hit the signex) and had to cut the last mm with a box cutter.


I shortened the Z-axis homing tab (pic below) to allow a bit more travel, I also moved the Y-axis one slightly too.

Oh yeah, 4m/min is too fast 1/4" for el-cheapo router bits, I only broke two was fun while they lasted.

Shannon.

[daoneua]

The machine look well design.

[cabnet636]

i made this clamp using the festool table clamps! they lay flat at .625" and fit into a hole .7838" x .625 deep , they have a travel of .125" and come woth a matching holder piece per clamp, about 80.00us per pair but so far worth every penny
jim

[Big S]

I wonder if they do those clamps for T-slots?

I have got a more done on the CNC in the last two days, I have machined the signex flat and laid all the T-slots back down.

The signex machines well and it only has a few small areas that are still a bit low. The sign foam tends to change shape when you machine the hard surface off it so I machined it in two passes. I will also give it another 0.2mm pass once it has settled in a week or so.

I took ages to get the first T-slot extrusion down as I wanted it as straight and as parallel to the gantry as I could get it. I managed to get it within 0.05mm before I clamped the others along beside it. Once I was through with the clamping it had moved to within 0.1mm along the length.
Laying the next strips was easy, First I had to enlarge the countersunk hole slightly as the bolt heads were bigger than the originals. Then I cleaned the T-slot extrusion down with some fine sandpaper and wiped all the dust off. Then I clamped the extrusion in place, drilled the hole at 4mm through the signex and steel, then drilled the signex out to 5mm. I tapped the holes with a M5 tap and then put the cap screw in to hold down the alloy. Rinse and repeat about 80 times and there you have it, the bed is down.

I have to lift it again but it won't be hard to get down as all the holes are there.

I then proceeded to machine all the black stuff off. I would have left it but I want the vacuum to run through the insides of the T-slots, it wasn't stuck down flat enough to stop the vacuum leaking under it so it had to go. There were a couple of spots where the alloy wasn't sitting flat enough and got some impromptu machining Now to break out the turps and get all the Glue off the alloy.


Shannon.

[mhkwd]

Shannon,

Good idea about the moisture. I will definitely open it up, maybe even install a small electric heater to act as an anti-condensation heater.

We are in opposite boats, my electric should be done in the building before we have the OK to move in. Currently the shop only has single phase so we are working with the owner to get the service upgraded to three phase. The utility should have their end done by the time I get back from holiday.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas.

Spencer.

Hi Spencer,

I'm wondering if you are back from vacation and had a chance to fire up your router. I believe I bought the same router and configuration as you bought. My router should ship on 05/21 and I'm really interested in how your router is working.

Thanks, Mitch

[BC-CNC]

Mitch,

Yes I am back, was home for a day before driving eight hours to Vancouver to pick it up. Took a little while to drive back but made it in one piece, was slow going up the mountain passes though.

I have it inside my shop but I am still renovating the shop, tearing down walls, moving doors, new office floors, etc.

I am also still waiting for the local utility to come and replace the pole outside with a larger one that can support the weight of a new 3 phase transformer.

So unfortunately I have not fired it up as of yet. She sure does look pretty. Doesn't seem to be any rust and nothing visually seems damaged, except for a small nick in the bakelight table, but I haven't removed the spindle to inspect the tool holder yet.

I am off for the weekend camping with the family. My business partner is down next week and we are doing an online tutorial with RouterCad on Tuesday. We will be working on getting the shop finished and software figured out next week.

I will keep you posted, and will post a few pictures next week.

Spencer.

[Big S]

The pictures can't come fast enough

Shannon.

[BC-CNC]

Well here's a few to tie you over till next week.

Let me know if there is anything in particular you would like to see. I was upset that they shipped everything on the bed, after I specifically asked Taney not to. I had it shipped in it's own container so there was lots of room for the compressor and vacuum pump to be packaged separately if needed, but they did at least place a sheet of 1/4" hardboard over the bed before laying stuff on it. The vacuum pump which weighs about 650kgs alone was on top of an additional sheet of 1/2" plastic.

There was only a small nick/wear spot in the bakelight table where one of the compressor wheels wore through the 1/4" hardboard.

Not sure how level the table is yet, but really once the 3/4" spoil board is down and machined flat, any discrepancy should be eliminated.

[rocket67]

Spencer - Your ATC Excitech looks great.

I gotta save a bit harder and get me one of them!

A bit of a let down to see that they shipped it with the heavy items on top of the table, but as you mentioned - You can machine your spoilboard flat anyway.

There was not much room left in our container, so i can see why they ship it that way.

Can`t wait to see how it performs.

Congratulations

Rocket.

[Big S]

Looks great, I WANT ONE... Oh I Already have one It will be interesting to see how the Syntec system works out.

The two little guys don't seem too interested..yet

Shannon.