[Hawkeye]

Hey guys,
First let me start by saying I've been a member of this forum for a little while. I had plans to start my own CnC machine about 1 1/2 years ago. I am in the military and have just a little over 22 years in. Well as I got hot and bothered on making my machine, the Army decided to send me over to the Big SandBox (Iraq) for a year. Now I'm back and have spent the last 3 days trying to catch up. I have some plans and some ideas....Let me know what you think.

1. First and for most, I really appreciate Jeff at Xylotex for his quick response to my purchase. I got the 4 Axis Unipolar Drive KIT and I am looking forward to putting it together....Here is the link:

http://www.xylotex.com/Unipolar.htm

2. I have download JGRO's plans and must say I am VERY impressed. I plan on using it for the most part for mine. JGRO, Just a suggestion but is there any way you could use some of those great colored CAD shots in your PDF, I am very mechanically inclined and your plans still had me scratching my head for awhile. Again...Just a suggestion.
(Still Excellant Plans....Kudos). :cheers:

3. I have quite a few stepper motors that I was collecting before the jump over the big pond, so I have that covered.

4. I have started bidding on quite a few Linear Bearing systems on Ebay and hope to be able to use them in place of JGRO's "Skate Bearing/Gas Pipe" setup. I would like to make this one as smooth and rigid as possible. I hope to use it to machine quite a few parts that I will need for my Aluminum one. My goal is to have one for wood, and one for light Metal/Aluminum Machining.

5. I have already gotten a copy of CamSoft and demo versions of Mach 2...Itching to try these things out.

6. I have numerous spare computers and have decided to use and old P2 with a huge 6 Bay tower case I had laying around. Here's my first question:
a. What do you guys think of putting all of the electronics into the computer tower? I want to put in a second PC Power Supply and dedicate it to the Servo/Driver Board. I have plenty of room and I am even thinking of install a big E-Stop button on the top front of the tower.

7. At the moment I am just collecting alot of the small odds and ends. I hope to start building by the middle of February. As is the custom on this board, I will post plenty of pictures and document my progress.

In Closing, I would like to thank all of you guys for the inspiration and the technical guidence that so many of you are so willing to part with.

This is Truely a Great Board,
George (AKA Hawkeye)

[BigDaddyG]

George,
First of all - Thanks to you - For your service!

Sounds like you have a good handle on what your doing. Yes, you can use a computer tower (I have seen others use the same approch). Good idea to stay away from the pipe and bearings, camsoft and Mach2 - Good combo!

It looks like you have the basics covered. The most important tool you have is your common sense. The rest will fall into place, and if you have anything come up along the way, just ask.

Best Regards, and Thank again.
Glen

[Hawkeye]

Thanks Glen,
I hear it alot lately, But I still appreciate the thanks from every single person that says it.

Thought of another question:

b. Most of the threads I have read have said that 12v for the steppers are fine but 24v is better. Now since I am installing a second 12v power supply in the tower can I get away with putting both Power Supplies in series to get my 24 Volts?

Never Mind - Got My Answer...Boy that Search Bar is Great , Isn't It?

Just a Thought,
George

[Hawkeye]

OK,
So Here's A Start. I got the 4 Axis Unipolar Kit and put it together.
It took me 3 hours, but I am a perfectionist and could probably have done it in an hour and a half.
Here is what the kit started out as:

[Hawkeye]

And a shot of what it looked like 3 hours later:

[Hawkeye]

Here is a shot of my X, Y, and Z rails:
BTW: does anybody know who sells just the pillow blocks...I have 4 Thompson Super 20 bearings and want to just get the Pillow Blocks to load them into? (They are ID: 1.250" OD: 1.998" Length: 2.62)

[Hawkeye]

Would you know it, I came home after a year over seas and the Ol' Lady decided to put all of my goodies in boxes and put them in the Garage....Dangit!!!
Well I decided to go ahead and get a new set of Stepper motors instead of digging through all of those boxes...
Got all 4 of these for $126.50 (w/S&H). They are 116 oz PowerMax's.
Did I get a good deal?

[Hawkeye]

This is the Power Supply I was thinking of...
This is a fan cooled 24V DC power supply that will provide up to 25A. It is made in the USA by unipower corporation. Input voltage: 120VAC or 220 VAC, 11 amps/ 6 amps, frequency: 50-6- HZ. Output voltage: 24VDC, 25A. Maximum output wattage: 600W. Haven't bought it yet, but would this do me alright?

[ger21]

Did I get a good deal?

You don't really want anyone to answer that, do you?

Xylotex sells 3 for $80, so add the 4th + shipping, and you're in the same ballpark.

[jgro]

I do have some more images of my router on my website: http://www.nconnect.net/~jgro Hope these help.

jgro

[Hawkeye]

OK Guys,
I'm having a brain fart on ohm's law.
I want to put an LED indicator on my 24v 3a power supply.
What would the Voltage drop resister be rated at? Ohms/Watts?

BTW - Making great progress will post pics soon.

Thanks,
George

[jeffs555]

The resistor is calculated as (supply voltage - led voltage)/led current. A typical led would be rated around 2 volts and 20ma, so (24v-2v)/20ma = 1.1k . Power is equal to voltage times current, so (24v-2v)x20ma = 440 mW about a half watt.

[Hawkeye]

Ahhhh....Said the Blind Man....Now I remember....LOL

Thanks,
George

[ViperTX]

Hawkeye,

Thanks!

Looks like a good supply, it'll work outjust fine. So, with LED, what you are trying to do is limit the current to the maximum before they glow...and that is usually 20 milliamps....so the resistor value = supply voltage / 20 milliamps. The only time you need to concern your self with the voltage drop is when you string them up in series.

[Hawkeye]

OK,
So here is a before and after of my Controller Board.

[Hawkeye]

I've been working on putting the controller board into a case and making my cables, (Sometimes being a Perfectionist is a curse).
On the Front View you can see a Enable switch for each axis, a power switch,
and an LED for indicating Power Supply and Controller and of course a fan.

[Hawkeye]

on the back view you can see the Power Supply inputs, the parrallell port cable, the 4 axis cable jacks, and the one going horizontal will be the Limit/Home switch jack.

[Hawkeye]

And on the inside you can see the nest of wires. I kept the 4 different axis a seperate color to tryand make this idiot proof in case I needed to fix anything or for troubleshooting:
X = Red
Y = White
Z = Blue
A = Black

[Hawkeye]

This weekend I should be making an "MDF" run. WOO-HOO. All of the electronic portions should be ready to go. Still been putting off spinng up any of my motors though. (LOL don't want to jinx myself)

[Hawkeye]

Well couldn't resist any longer. Wanted to test my controller and power supply so I hooked it all up, started TurboCnC (Jog Mode) and WOO-HOO they worked. Well the X, Y, and Z did. had to add the A Axis, configure the Step/Dir in the software and after fooling with it for a while still couldn't get it to work. Hopefully it isn't the board, and just something I missed in the axis configuration. Oh well 3 out of 4 ain't bad.

George