[CarveOne]

Had a friend who is a state electrical inspector come out and look at how I wired up the inside of the shed. All good and to code. Need to run the drop from the box in the house. Dug the ditch today. Hope to get power flowing tomorrow.

Sounds like you'll be happily popping those breakers any day now. :cheers:

CarveOne

[Arbo]

Hopefully. Between yesterday and today, I dug a ditch, laid conduit, pulled wire, filled ditch.

Need to wire overhead lights in shed, and then final connection from where the cable enters the house, to the junction box.

If I'm not too stiff tomorrow I'll hook it up, otherwise I'll wire the lights and insulate.

[Arbo]

Shed insulated. Good enough until I get a buddy to come buy and help osb the inside.

Started tapping the tslot. Wow, that's a good bit of work.

[Arbo]

bottom bits together, attaching x rail next.

[Hdale85]

Looking good already! Looks like you are over building to the DIY standard That's the point of DIY anyways right!

[Arbo]

Thanks.

Have the x rail frame together, and just sitting on the supports. Need to do a lot of drilling to connect the supports next.

Then drill and attach the x steel rails.

[Arbo]

Base all bolted together, steel rails just sitting in place, as well as two extended carriages sitting on one of the rails (hey, sometimes ya gotta play )..

[Arbo]

X rails mounted. Ahren, how 'tight' should the carriages be on the rails?

Also, From end to end, I have a difference of just under 1/32 in the width of the rails from outside edge to outside edge... do I need to get that out? (guessing I do)

Putting together the carriages.

[CarveOne]

X rails mounted. Ahren, how 'tight' should the carriages be on the rails?

Also, From end to end, I have a difference of just under 1/32 in the width of the rails from outside edge to outside edge... do I need to get that out? (guessing I do)

Putting together the carriages.

The short answer is yes, definitely. Match up the rails with respect to each other as close as you can. It will determine how fast the carriages can be made to run, and how much preload you can set the carriages for.

You're going to have a very nice machine when it's all tuned up properly.

CarveOne

[Arbo]

Preload? Hmm... guess I better look that up.

Have some more work done. Had to make a different hole in the carriage for the R&P as I had a bolt running through the current one.

[CarveOne]

Preload? Hmm... guess I better look that up.

Have some more work done. Had to make a different hole in the carriage for the R&P as I had a bolt running through the current one.

The adjustable screw bearings are what is used to load the bearing against the rail a little to get zero free play.

Now I'm downright jealous.... R&P drives and racks!

I've been discussing this with Ahren this week with respect to my 4" vertical X axis rails.

CarveOne

[Arbo]

Ah, yeah, I adjusted them for no play. Getting all 4 right, and the y piece attached and all straight was a struggle at times...

But I have the x and a axis together, and have been running it back and forth with Mach3. Fast, or slow and smooth, far too much fun.

You are upgrading yours to r&p on the x right?

[Hdale85]

Is that the R&P kit they will be releasing? Or did you fabricate that? You know this particular style of build requires very little tools and it's quite nice.

[Arbo]

The R&P setup is from Ahren at cncrouterparts.com. I think he has made a few changes and is close to release. The rack is from McMaster (or MSC, can't remember).

I'm sure he'll poke his head in here and let you know more.

[CarveOne]

Ah, yeah, I adjusted them for no play. Getting all 4 right, and the y piece attached and all straight was a struggle at times...

But I have the x and a axis together, and have been running it back and forth with Mach3. Fast, or slow and smooth, far too much fun.

You are upgrading yours to r&p on the x right?

Yes, definitely the X axis and maybe also the Y axis later. The issue that I have is to mount the drive on the narrow edge of the carriage since my wide carriages rides on the top and bottom edges of the vertically mounted 4" rail. From watching Ahren's videos and seeing your photos I think I won't have too much of a problem. At first I just assumed that the drive's plate would have to be redesigned. Now I'm thinking that it won't. My rails are bolted to the work table with 1/2" all thread rod sections and large 1/2" nuts. These nuts may be in the way of mounting the racks. I have thought of a couple of ways to get around this problem but I'm hoping that the racks will need to be positioned below the nuts. I'm almost sure that the racks will need spacing out away from the rails by some small amount. Since all of my 85 pounds of gantry weight will be supported by the top carriage on each end of the gantry and the pinion gears will run under the racks, I shouldn't have any lifting issues with plunging the router into the material being cut. It looks like I can get away with removing the lower carriages on the X axis altogether (but I'll do that only if more clearance is needed for the R&P installation).

The Y axis axis requires an upper and lower carriage, but the bolts in the rail are only 5/16" and I can deal with those easily enough.

I will reuse the 1/2-10 5 start screws that are currently on the machine to upgrade my Solsylva 25x37 machine from the 1/2-10 single start screws it has now.

CarveOne

[Arbo]

I considered doing it on the Y axis as well. But at this point don't recall why I decided against it.

Been out playing with what I have so far.

Marked up the 1/4 steel for the y carriage for drilling, and was going to mark up the steel for the z axis as well... then realized something wasn't right, the 4" wide piece I ordered for the z axis was only 3 1/2".

Came in to look at my order sheet, and I did order 4", so fired off an email to them with details and asking how they planed to resolve it. I figure I won't hear from them until Monday, and then there is shipping time.

So I'll drill and hook up the metal for the Y, put together some carriages for y and z, a few other minor things. But then I'm on hold.

Perhaps I'll go find a box to mount the P/S and G540 in, as well as the relays for turning on/off the router and get that together. Could wire the home switches for the X as well.

Have to read about Mach3 and see if since my A is slaved to X as a second X, I can just have a home and limit switch on the X side. I'm guessing it should work that way with a slave drive.

Here's a quick video of movement, think it was set at about 100 in/min. Still in queue for conversion on Vimeo, so will be another 20 minutes or so until it's viewable:



Picture of marked Y steel and too small Z steel.

[Hdale85]

How much travel will you have on the Z?

[Arbo]

I believe I figured just over 5 1/2 inches.

[ger21]

Have to read about Mach3 and see if since my A is slaved to X as a second X, I can just have a home and limit switch on the X side. I'm guessing it should work that way with a slave drive.

If you use a single home switch, then you need to check a box in General Config "Home Slave with Master". If you use two switches, Mach3 will home both sides separately. This allows you to use the homing routine to square the gantry if it becomes slightly out of square.

[Arbo]

If you use a single home switch, then you need to check a box in General Config "Home Slave with Master". If you use two switches, Mach3 will home both sides separately. This allows you to use the homing routine to square the gantry if it becomes slightly out of square.

Hmm... Perhaps I'll use 2 home switches in that case. Better safe than damaged.

Mounted the Y steel. Put together the rest of the carriages. Test fit the tslot for the Z, once it was on straight marked it as it will have to come back off. Cut the 4' piece of rack I had to extend the 6' part of rack so the rack runs the whole X (wish it just came in a longer piece). Got that aligned and the machine test run over it. Like a glove.