1510 Workbee upgrade to HGR20 (picture heavy)

Hello,

i started with an OX, upgraded to Workbee and now i want to further upgrade to get rid of the wheels and later upgrade to 1610 ball screws

originaly my OX had belts, but i could not mil under an angle or at the wall to safe space, so i upgraded to 8mm screws
the wall mount had prolems with aluminium cutting, all the coolant was running down

my Current Workbee



hgr 15 vs 20
I choose 20 oder 15 because the newton kilogram numbers were twice as big and the price was also lower on the 20s

i finaly after years of yes and nos ordered the linear rails in a heartbeat, they should arive friday or monday
i have already done some thinking of how to place them on the beams

i just did a simplified drawing
* green plates already existing form openbuild will cary over like the spindle mounts or i need to maschine on my own, prefale 10mm first wood, than aluminium, and maybe later plasma cut steel plates
* blue linear rail
* red wagoon
* white m5 screws
* violet Vslot beam
* orange anti acklash nut
* yellow the spindle or corners

x and z axis

the y axis are currently makeing most trubbles

the far left design i abandoned because i would loose again x workspace
OX almost 900
Workbee 800
HGR just over 700

What i also dont like is, i need that long y plate just to mount the anti backlash nut thing to the system, any ideas?
How terrile are my design ideas?
my favorit is the far right at the moment, maybe place the antiabcklashnut between waggon and x beam?

regards dave

ps: i will update it regulary, whats comeing next, the rails and cleaning of them

 

maybe i should have posted it in the build section

 

the hgrs came yesterday, but i was to tired from work to open em up.
i checked now 8 waggons, 3 superb, 4 very good and 1 slugish and all of them smell like 200year old chineese surplus
for the good ones i will only use "brake" cleaner and the slugish one needs complete disassembly

i also improved my design, it looks a little wierd

on the far left the original workbee plate, but it would have not enough z travel for anything...
the simpliest solution to make it work would be some 60x40 aluminium brakets, the thickest i could find are only 6mm thick.
i also draw a 5mm spacer between bracket and waggon, so when fliping the bracket upward i could squeeze the anti back lash nut block between waggon and plate, so the lead screw would be a little protected from dust and chips. for future upgrades like the 1610 ball screw, it could sit directly on the waggon/braket, without much drama

currently there is one big problem, for this z axis alignment the routermounts would block the waggons, so the routermounts need to be slightly machined slimmer in the rear where they conect with the c beam, so they are only 80mm wide.

currently around 10 inches of z travel, so when doing a rivertable where the wood is 2 inches thick plus 2 inch tool length, there would still be 6 inches z travel, lowering to 7 or 8 could be enough too

to compensate the height i would screw 20x40 profiles to the y plate to make it stiffer or between waggon and x axis, like it is seen on bigger machines like the "avid pro cnc"

one pro of this setup would be, i could attach the y rails direclty without needing to re sqare the base
one con all the weight and forces get into the corner bracket(s)

and when its finished i dont think it will be a workbee anymore, it will be a workhornet or a workBEAR

 

some more "designs" for the y axes

i think a real good solution would be to put a 40x80 on top of the original c beam or to get a 40x160 instead, to properly center the linear rail onto the profile.

 

i went to the next generation, i think this is the most promissing, it keeps the length of the x beam and workarea above 800

feels like working on a tank tech tree

i think i will order stainless steel "laser" cut plates for the gantry 300x180x6 90bucks

 

i made a testcut to see, where i am

looks good, made some minor adjustments here and there
i saw that the stepper mounting positions were/where not optimal, in some configurations they would block other screws

 

you are not prepared

the shop where i buy aluminium also sells diffrent kinds of "u" beams, i found one 60x40x4 that fits very good to the x axis
the pink plates are the workbee 125s, theoreticaly i should put the whole z thing on with only 4 screws

i had to do 26 diffrent designs to find the right x configuration, that fits my gantry
two were good but needed to remove the rear faceing 90° corner brackets
two were 40x80 beams, but they only have two screws and cant use the 20s corner support brackets

the y axes are updated and finished
the x side is finished
need to finish the x axis and start tomorow the z axis

 

i hate waiting, started two weeks ago, should have been finished two weeks ago
design, resdesign, order wait, find out parts dont fit
redesign, order wait, ...

 

i had an idea last night, to place the rails on the sides,

but on the top version i would loose too much workarea in x
but in the middle i can place the wasteboard/maschineboard on top of it
bottom, the c beam are laid flat, to safe height

and this is how it looks drawn together

rails and screw are protected against dust/chips
to help with left/right forces/torque/twist/flex i place a 20 vslot profile on both plates
with this build i would safe around 100 bucks and drilling 150 holes and tapping 50 threads for the rails

 

i cleaned up the thread with thumbnails so its easier to read

and

i made a testcut



i have to change the left and right antibacklash block holes to fixed ones, because i cant screw them down, so the plastic blocks will get bigger holes, so they can be adjusted.
because of cutting the gantry plate in two halves out of one plate, i can afford even a 10mm plate instead of the usual 6mm ones, and there is enough length over on the lead screw to make it so.

one thing i need to make is a place for the cable chute thing, maybe i could put the rear x plate inside, and make room for a 40x20 beam on the rear of the gantry

 

the shop i'm ordering my plates doesnt have 10mm or bigger in stock
so i have to make it from 6 or 8mm "thick" ones
i switched back to a previously plate design, because the long "L" style feels to floppy/wobbly

i increased the plate wideness from usual workbee 160 to 200mm for a better center of gravity to increase rigidy

 

today the plates came
because the workbee has so little z height
i flatend the area and machined a hole trough the table

where i can put the angles, so i can precisly machine the holes


before, i tried to centerpunch all holes and then drill them, but only one hole is in the proper spot, all other have an offset

if u ever thoughed about a printnc machine, find someone drilling the holes precisely into steel for you

 

update
i finsihed milling the gantry plates out
i finished the hgr20 gantry plate brackets
made a test fit with some spare beams
i finished the x plate

to do
8 "offset plates/standoffs" for the nut blocks
2 "offset plates/standoffs" for the z linear rails
2 corner brackets for x axis
2 corner brackets for z axis

first gantry plate perfectly machined in 30mins

i desgined it, so i can later also use 60x100 steel beams
i also wanted to make changeable stepper mounts(similiar to the print bee), so i could easily switch from 8mm lead screw to 16mm ball screw

but it would currently cause to needing longer lead screws again so i droppt that idea

the second plate took 2 weeks an unlimited amount of code 31
if u are lucky only the blackbox disconnected it self, re plug the usb, connect and start zeroing
but
when u are unlucky, restart the pc and everything

i already saw this problem on milling the corner brackets
1, 2, 3 and 4

1, 3 and 4 went perfectly, but the second pi**ed me of a couple of times, i did nothing diffrent from the others

on the gantry plate it happend the second time, that the z axis went "full retard" - so i stopped everything and prioritate on the z axis
i think the best upgrade for a workbee is to get rid of the wheels on the z axis, for x and y it doesnt matter but for z its a must have

combined x plate

on the drawing table i saw it a long time ago, that the hgr20 waggons would crash into the router/spindle mounts

so i made 4mm standoffs between linear rail and c beam
this is the easiest method of solveing this problem
the x plate is 160x160mm - i'm useing two waggons on each side

other pics

 

yes its a c beam, but i add a 20x40 in the slot, the 40x80 would have caused problems with a prior design with the stepper mounts, and the 40x80 has diffrent corner brackets and a diffrent placement of nut slots.

placeing the rails on the front(face) makes the gantry "longer" from back to front, but placing them on top and bottom, makes it more rigid in my opinion, it reduces torque/rotation/twist around the x axis. it also makes the z axis higher, comeing from the "OX"(86mm) the upgrade to workbee(125mm) increased "stiffness" of the z axis by around 50%. and my 160mm adds onother 30%.

my lead screw on top will be naked, it was cheaper to put it on top, if material and money was there i would have put it in the back, were it is more covered from dust/chips.
so i ordere a plate, and makeing it on the back would cost twice, placeing the screw on top, i can machine two plates out of one material.

 

@Banjopete there is a more apropriate beam for hgrs the 200x69 beam

i dont know if it is allowed to post it here, so i seperate it from my answer, in case it gets deleted
but costing 100bucks per meter i rather replace it with 60x100 steel beams, they cost the same as the c beams