Are you going to publish files? Please include BOM, source URLs, and actual costs.

 

Thank you, John. You've been very helpful, I'll try to follow your lead in making a 4 foot by 2 foot machine.

 

I tried the OXCalculator but as I tried to put the X axis length into the spreadsheet, it gave me an error message saying the cell was locked. When I tried to unlock, it asked for a password I don't have. I wrote @Serge E. and told him about the problem. Waiting for an answer.

 

What yellow boxes? My X, Y, and Z boxes are white. Here's a screen shot of the error message.
ere's a

 

Duuhhh....

 

You had me for a spin until I saw your screen capture in the Oxcalculator thread. I might of uploaded the spreadsheet with the Stepper+ tab open by default instead of the OXcalculator tab. I will double check when I get home tonight.

 

Hi Serge,
Also notice that the spreadsheet comes up both page off center and without scrollbars. Can you do anything to help that? Remember to save page on center with scrollbars showing. I'm using Excel 2007, but it shouldn't matter. An .XLSX is an .XLSX. Let me know if you replace the download.

 

I have to look into that aspect as it was not visible on my machines, maybe something to do with my screen resolution and the way the protection works ? The protection is on mostly to make certain the formulae don't get wacked as they are sensitive to column & row movement and do quite a bit of criss-crossing ...

Ideally, it's the CAD program which should be generating the BoM based on the design itself. But that would mean the individuals, like myself, would have to draw their OX with all the glorious details needed to generate a useful BoM. Instead of going web, a possibility is doing somesort of SketchUp plug-in ... which means getting into some fancy Ruby programming ! I'm not there ... yet.

 

I bought a C-Beam kit to do the same thing.
I was planning on mounting it backwards from the way you mounted yours so it works more like the existing design, with the beam moving. Do you see an advantage to doing it this way?
Only one I see is a fixed place to mount a dust shoe so it doesn't go up and down.
Looks to me like the usable travel would be limited to the length of the bit and a little of the collet.
Is that enough? Do you find you need to move the beam if you use a different sized bit?

Just curious.

 

I understand what you are saying, but I don't understand how it works.
Could you take a picture with the bit all the way down and another at maximum height?
Is it necessary to move the router down when you have a small bit?
I drill holes quite often with bits that have about 3/4" sticking out of the chuck and drill 3/8" deep.
Can you get your router down that far?
It's the minimum height of the bit that I can't get a handle on.

Not causing trouble, I like the idea and want to give it a try.
Not only is the fixed dust collection shoe attractive, I could use all the Z-Axis rigidity I can get.
Do I understand that you did the same thing on your OX with the regular Z-Axis?

I would just try it, but my OX is in a different state and I won't get back to it for four months.
I want to make sure I have everything I need to change it.
I have a standard OX with about 2-1/2" from bed to bottom of the X beam.

 

John,

I got it now. That looks like it's just what I need. I bought a 250mm C-Beam kit for the OX.
That should be long enough.

I've not been able to build a working Dust collection shoe up to this point.
When the brushes hit the table, it torques the Z-Axis a little, which really screws things up.
My next move was to angle the brushes out slightly to get rid of the problem, but with this setup, there isn't a problem.
Without the shoe, I spend more time vacuuming and cleaning than I do cutting.

I'm in the process of collecting parts to build a rotary OX.
It has around 6" between the bottom of the X and the bed, with 3" of travel to get to the middle of the rotary axis.
Hopefully, your idea will work for that, too. I bought a 500mm C-Beam kit for it, but it looks like I need to cut it down.

Thanks for your help.

 

John, can you describe how you mounted this to the X plate? You said there were holes that lined up, is it just the two center holes, or do you have a non-standard plate? Did you screw directly into the C-beam, or use tee-nuts?

 

Sorry for the late reply, with regard to the plates I had made, the extra holes in the X-Axis plate were the ones needed if you wanted to use 20x40 extrusion for the z-axis, turns out they are spaced perfectly to mount the 80mm section.

The later versions of the plate drawings deleted the 20x40 option. I still have the files I used around here somewhere if anyone needs them.

Cheers
Anthony

 

I got my C-Beam mounted and I am really happy with it.
It is much more rigid than the original Z-axis and is the perfect mount for the dust collector boot.

There is plenty of room between the bottom of the mount and the bed for anything I plan on doing.
If you look at the router, you can see there is plenty of room to adjust it up or down for different size bits.

I don't have very good internet where I am, so I don't get on often, but I'll try to answer any questions.

Steve Fox