What added taxes? They are in the EU - no cross-border taxes involved. That's the price you pay, plus postage.

 

I lived there for nearly 20 years in total... I know exactly what you mean

 

You can't legislate intelligence... no matter how hard Australia tries...

 

Did you hear that whooooshing sound? That was the sarcasm flying about 3 inches above your head... try standing up

Now, if you can keep your random posts about Australia to a dull roar, I will continue on with my router build.

 

So, after all the trials and tribulations, it's been a productive week.

Built the table for the router to sit on, built the basic chassis, the gantry, the X-axis, mounted the steppers.

Still waiting for the last of the extrusion to arrive and realised I need quite a few more right-angle brackets.

I could do with a much larger room to stick it in, too. at 2.3 x 1.5M, it's a big bugger alright. Still, I think it is worth it - the difference in size means a much bigger range of things I can make.

As I was paying such a huge amount for shipping over-length extrusion, I took the opportunity to order a lot of extra. I have enough (and enough plates, screws and such) to make a whole other machine at about 1.5x1M. Maybe look to a ball-screw machine for the new year to cut alloy, etc. Just need to order some extra wheels.

It's a bit of a bore waiting for the last extrusion to ship, but it gives me a chance to tidy up and work out exactly how I am going to operate the beast. I've been doing a lot of work on CamBam - there's a lot more work to go before I can even think I am passable, let alone competent. I've no idea how to do 2.5D, for example... but I'll get there.

 

I did. Interesting.

I don't have enough spare belt, but I was going to order a whole roll anyway. As it stands, it's my Achilles heel - I have spares for nearly everything except belt.

 

Tidying up my build room this morning, I unearthed a box of RC parts, in which was a pack of polypropylene wire protectors. It's a woven poly mesh that expands and keeps your wires safe from spinning props, etc.

Looking at my stepper leads, I could see how eventually I was running the risk of a short on my alloy Ox plates as it wouldn't take much rubbing before I was through the thin layer of insulation, so... protection was the word!

I gathered the stepper wires into a bunch and melted a piece of shrinkwrap over them to give me a nice smooth entry, plus I cut a couple of sections of shrinkwrap to go over the cable guard to tidy up the ends and prevent movement and unravelling.
Then it was simply a matter of feeding the cable guard over the wire until I had enough, snipping off the guard and heat-shrinking it in place. I think it made a tidy job.

This stuff is expensive when you buy it from cable and hardware stores, but funnily enough is really cheap from the computer modder places. I paid under 5 bucks for 10M of 3mm guard, which is fine for sleeving stepper wires, but not big enough for spindle power, etc. For those I will build up a reinforcement using heatshrink. That way, if it does start to abrade, I can just cut off the worn section and slide on a fresh piece of heatshrink - or look to something more durable, like a heatshrink/kevlar sandwich.

 

Made a lot of progress, but with the abysmal load times of this forum, I just can't be arsed updating that often. Openbuilds needs to review their hosting arrangements - the one they have now is pants.

• Strengthened the gantry significantly - lots of screws holding the two halves together. I am so used to stripping down and rebuilding the axis, if it deforms again, I will redo it with an injector and a gallon of epoxy and more screws.
• 'double-belted' the GT3 by gluing a run face-up into the v-track - so, much less stretch and spring over my 1.5M and 2.3M axes. Surprisingly easy to do and to make work, but so hard to upload a photo to show you, I gave up trying.
• Lots of abrasion resistance installed for wiring - again, picture loading precludes actually showing you. I used the stuff we use for multirotor and other RC wire abrasion resistance - woven PVC wire shield. Really cheap and easy. Just heat-shrunk the ends and it looks like it came from the factory that way. Speaking of wiring, I am using 4-wire 20AWG 'LED' cable - which just happens to sit perfectly inside the track without needing any restraints.
• While installing my end-stop switches I got accurate measurements for my maximum 'cuttable' dimensions: 1490mm x 2278mm. Happy with that.
• Waiting for delivery of Nema23 Z-axis plates - my spindle is bloody heavy.
• First time measuring the 'square' of the Ox - all corners within .01 of a degree of 90. Happy with that, too. Just shows what you can do when you calibrate your drop saw and take your time setting up your table.
• Upgraded my TinyG to bluetooth control - not sold on it. I have a spare TinyG, so I will compare the two.
• Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for the last few components to arrive - stuff I ordered on 22nd of September. Remind me to smack about any of you in the West that complain that their post takes a long time...

 

@Prauk yes I did and I have implemented it - brilliant! Such a simple, but effective mod.

Initially I tried hot glue - not a bit of it - the GT3 belt just wouldn't stick, so I used superglue and it worked perfectly.

The other advantage to double belting which hasn't been mentioned is that your anchor can be much simpler - the 'rack' timing belt takes all the strain, so no need to make the drive belt anchor anything special - it just can't slip.

I had all sorts of worries about the anchor belt filling up with dust, etc., but of course it is protected by the drive belt for all of it's length.

Very happy. For the 2.3m run of my Y-axis, I was concerned I was going to get springing back and forth, but now, not a bit of it.

Thanks a lot.

 

It's complete... but I need to take it apart AGAIN!!!! The design is bad in one respect - you need to have all the bolts for the Z-axis adjusted before you assemble the x-axis, as you can't do it in place. I only had them finger-tight and finished aligning the spindle, only to find that I couldn't tighten the bolts up - it's a complete X-axis disassembly to tighten 3 fkn bolts! Not best pleased.

 

Thanks. I always use a battery drill - learned that a long time ago

And good thinking about taking the axis off the gantry - I should have done that straight off - it isn't like I haven't had the damned thing off half a dozen times before

I will get it going and cut myself something out of MDF and sell this one to some other mug.

 

I'll build the next one before I sell this - probably JoesCNC or similar

 

This forum is incredibly painful to use unless you are on a PC. I've posted a lot on Google+

I try and stay off here unless I have a particular *****.