[Fozzy]

Hi All,

As requested in another thread I'm posting some pics of the machines we have built over the last 23 years. All these pics are of machines that are in use every day...i'll have to dig back through my records to find pics of how our first cnc machine over 23 years ago looked, i was very young then but remember one been controlled by a Commodore 64.


Hope you like the pics, the smallest machine has a working area of 18"x12" and is about 12years old, the grey machine is about 8 years old and has a working area of 29"x29"(and could really do with some gecko drives, our mosfet stepper drive boards in it are a little tempremental!). Finally the large router is our latest addition, its table is 3Mx2M and hasnt been fully finished yet.

Cheers
Simon

[cncadmin]

Very nice thanks for sharing!

[fyffe555]

Interesting machines.

The grey (machine looks as though theres an upright screw at each end of the gantry? Can you adjust the gantry height?

How is the gantry axis driven on the large machine? there looks to be a leadscrew at each side? with some support or spacers? how's that work? If there is a screw at each end how are they coupled. Since this is 3m what sort o speeds are you running?

thanks

Andrew

[Fozzy]

The grey (machine looks as though theres an upright screw at each end of the gantry? Can you adjust the gantry height?

I'd forgotten about that, Yes it is adjustable, you can get 12" clearence over the bed and the Z axis has a 6" travel which is great if you have a bulky item to fit under the bridge or you need to fit a rotary table/vice etc. but to be honest its been a few years since i've moved it...got the machine nicley trued up and dont want to medel

The big machine as you noticed does have twin ball screws to drive the gantry, these are driven by 2 steppers connected to the same drive, seems to work a treat as for speed we currently get about 2m/min but are expecting to get that up to around 3-3.5m/min when its properly setup.

Almost forgot, the ballscrews are supported by nylon spacers that are pushed and pulled by the gantry, with stops 1/3rd of the way in so they are supported at all times.

Simon

[fyffe555]

Simon, thanks.

So the spacers stop whip on the screw(s) - 3m is a loooong ballscrew after all, but how are they pushed and pulled? Nice solution. What do you use for drivers?

Andrew

[Fozzy]

Yep, they are long, sounded a lot smaller on paper than when they arrived!!

They are pushed by the gantry, which forces them past a sprung ball bearing type device, this holds the spacer whilst it is been pulled back, when the spacer hits its stop the ball bearing retainer simply pops over it.

Its working OK so far but time will tell if its an A1 soultion or not.

And the drives are Gecko G210's used in fullstep mode.

Simon

[fyffe555]

OK - thanks.

Let us know how it works out at faster speeds. I like the simple, effective solutions. Trouble is I can't often think of them!

Andrew

[Halfnutz]

Why run full step mode? Are there disadvantages to microstepping?

[ViperTX]

Fozzy the Commmodore driven machine....was that to cut musical organ parts?