New vise works great!. I done some testing today.

I used a carbide V bit and the results were bad. I was going 500 mm/min and I suspect that was too fast. I will try with a 2mm bit when I finish building the new setup.

Here is the video and the result in detail (a bad cut lol)

 

OK a small update;

Took me almost all day today to disassemble the machine.

I could only finish part of the Z axis assembly today. Everything goes according to the design for now. 2 sets of 4 mini wheels inside the C-beam and 4 extreme wheels outside.. 2 spindle mounts with 4 M5X10 Low Profile screws on the back of each and 4 corner brackets for mounting them on Z plate. And finally 2 anti-backlash connectors on 8 mm acme lead-screw.

More to come by the end of this week... (New frame setup, new X and Y gantries, new control box and cabling etc.)

 

OK another update:

Finished the frame, the X and Z axis assemblies and stepper mounts. It has been a bit pain to fix the X gantry to Z axis as the screws were behind the backplate. But overall results are looking good for me so far.

Here are the photos from today's upgrade.

Merry Christmas to all.

Thanks for reading..

 

Another small update;

I have been working on adding 4 pin plugs to stepper motors for easier maintenance in the future.

I plan to bring all these connections to a front panel with female plugs and then make a connection from there to the control box.

The control box will be equipped with a Raspberry pi3 and 7" TFT touchscreen.

I also plan to use on the control box;
1-ON/OFF button
2- Emergency Stop button
3- Play/Resume button
4- Pause button
5- Abort button
6- Spindle on toggle switch
7- Vacuum on toggle switch







Thanks for reading

 

Hi Justin,

I can gladly share the specs of them but someone else did them for me so I need to find out first. They are really heavy (i mean really very heavy parts most likely made of iron or steel) I can also measure them and re-model them for you if you are interested. However my hands are really full right now and I have an upcoming leave for a week starting from Friday. Hope it is not so urgent for you.

I do promise I will provide you as much info as I can once I am back (I need to model them in fusion for my cam setups as well)

And yes bottom of my z axis clear all the clamps as I have been measuring them before fixing the z-axis.

Thanks.

 

Another small update;

I have done this front panel to house x-y-z-a axis connectors so that I can connect them to the "control box".

Next will be to plan and build the control box.

I would like to thank @Michael for his great support on describing me how to connect Solid State Relays to Xpro V2 controller so that I can turn my spindle and vacuum on and off.

As I will be using a Raspberry Pi3 and a touchscreen to control the machine any ideas to use Pi's GPIO functions over the machine is very welcome.

Here are the pics of the simple panel for front connections:





That's all for now and see you after 7th Jan as I will be off in Vienna to visit my daughters for the new year.

I will also be picking up the Pi, power adaptor, TFT screen etc while I am there.

Thanks for reading and wishing you all a very happy new year in a more peaceful world in 2017.

 

Finally I have some free time to work on the project again and the plan is to build the control box and make the electric/electronic connections this weekend.

Here is the plan for the control box:



Left to right; On/Off - Emergency Stop - Spindle Man/Auto/Off Switch - Vacuum Man/Off/Auto Switch - Start Button - Hold Button - Abort Button

There will be a 7" LCD touchscreen and a raspberry pi3 on the computer side. A mouse and a keyboard as well..



On the back there will be 5 PVC cable couplers for 4 axis cables and limit switch cables. One jack for z-probe output.. two power connections one for vacuum and one for spindle and a main power inlet.



When in auto mode the power sockets will be fed by the two Solid State Relays. In manuel mode the spindle or vacuum will be controlled by the toggle switch itself.

Raspberry Pi will be powered by DC-DC Converter. Click here for details

Click here for the details of the LCD screen



I plan to use plexiglas for the case.. just need to think how to have access to connections while I am building it.

A question; the main power inlet has a fuse option.. What ampere do I need to use for this setup? Any ideas?

Thanks for reading and wish me luck!

 

Today I worked on the control box..

I thought it will be better to have an aluminium top for the box. So I cut the 2 mm sheet to size and marked the folding lines with a marker. Then I marked the cut holes for the screen and switches. I had to move the screen to the left more from where I first planned due to cable restrictions and changed the locations of on/off switch and eStop. Used a centre punch, then a 6mm drill bit and finally a step drill bit to cut the holes to their sizes. I cut the screen window with dremel..

Test fitting;



Then bent it from two lines with 25 and 65 degree angles after cutting a 1 mm deep line from folding lines. Sanded with 60 grid sand paper then with 150 and finally 220 grid. I know spray painting does not give good results on aluminium but I wanted to give it a go with the mat black spray paint directly after sanding.

First coat;



First coat after an hour of drying



I used 3mm black plexiglas for the bottom and 2 of 3mm sheets sandwiched for the back panel as I want the back panel to be sturdy due to having two plugs there. I then cut the holes with step drill bit and a jigsaw. Glued the parts together with chloroform using a syringe. Chloroform is the magic component as it literally makes two plexiglas pieces almost like one after applying and it cures really fast.



This took almost all the day, so I sprayed the second coat on top panel once again and let it dry till morning and called the day. Will work more on the box tomorrow and try and fix the components in the panel so then I can move on to wiring.

Thanks for reading

 

Hi Mostafa;

I am afraid I don not have the parts list for the build. I may try and make one when I have time but once again I don't think I can do that soon. Sorry for that but I am really (I mean really) busy lately..

 

Here is another update from today's progress.. And its not going fast..



Box is shaping up...



Test fitting components and trying to figure the layout.. (The top lid is going to be fully opened when maintenance etc. is required. Only two M5 screws at the rear top are to be removed)



Rear setup...



I needed to make a raiser for the Pi so that its cables can reach to the touchscreen easily when the lid is opened.



And this is where I am right now..

Next, I need to make the side panel, figure out the cooling fan placement and start wiring..

Thanks for reading..

 

How does this setup look to you guys?

Specially the manual-auto wiring.. Do you think it is OK?

Any help and input is very welcome..

Thanks

 

Here is another update from today.. Hopefully the box will be finished by tomorrow evening..



First covered the metal frame of the LCD screen with black isolation 3M tape.. Then screwed it into its place and added a 3mm acrylic as back plate. This will protect the screen electronics from any damage. Please note I also added heatsinks on the chip and mosfets (just a precaution for overheating specially in summer time)



Added and secured the buttons and switches.. Had to build a riser platform for Pi as the HDMI and USB cables can only reach that way.. PSU is also fixed to the bottom of the case with 4 screws.



Started wiring the cables.. Cable management will not be easy when its finished but we will see.. Used a simple terminal to spread 220VAC to on/off switch, spindle plug and vacuum plug.



A sneak peak when the lid is closed..

More to come tomorrow.

ToDos;

- Open a circle on the back of the case to fix a 24V 80mm fan and a fan grill.
- Wire 24VDC to Pi, Cnc XPro V2 and button lights.
- Go through eStop in between Cnc XPro and PSU
- Make a riser stand for Cnc XPro as well
- Wire SSRs and their toggle switches to switch between auto and manual mode
- Wire Play/Resume - Pause - Abort buttons
- Cable management
- Finding a way for labelling

Thanks for reading

 

The control box is completed (well almost).

Everything works great except the pause/abort/resume buttons.. For some reason I got Alarm lock on Universal Gcode Sender and some error codes on Grbl ontroller. I am pretty sure I did the connections correct but I will look into that later.

For now the pictures;



After completing the wiring (Except the stepper motors and limit switches. That will be the next step once I make sure all is ok on the box side.)



Some cable management.. (Some more needs to be done there)



Another angle



Let there be light



Transparent side panels to have an eye inside the box...



The back of the box.. 80mm fan does a fantastic job and after 25 minutes of running a sample code no heating issues at all.. The plug on the left is dedicated to vacuum (or air cooling) and the one on the right is for spindle..



Universal Gcode Sender is up and running..



Installing necessary libraries and source code for GrblController..



Running Grbl Controller on Pi.. Tested with one of the test codes around 25mins.. No issues and I like the interface better as it gives a larger screen, which is necessary for small screens (7" in my case)

That is all for now.. I have a busy week ahead and an overseas trip next week..

Thanks for reading..

 

Hi @Hardwired ,

Glad you liked the build.

1. I am using CNC XPRO V2 to control the machine
2. I did not test the upgraded machine for backlash issues yet (I plan to wire it up and run the tests this weekend). But I did not experience any backlash issue on Z axis before the upgrade.
3. The problem with the XY plane was backlash resulting imperfect circles. Now during the upgrade I did my best to adjust the antibacklash pieces and used 2 of them on all axis. This should do it and hopefully it will be good this time.

Best of luck with your build.

 

Hey Michael,

Thanks and yes everything works like a charm. Today I will try and rebuild my grbl config,h so that the hold and resume buttons will act as a safetey door and cut the power to the spindle and vacuum outputs.

 

I am still on V9j.. I did try V1.1 but it looked like it had some issues when used with chilipepr's grbl workspace. I need to look further in that.

Instead, I uncommented line #137// #define ENABLE_SAFETY_DOOR_INPUT_PIN // Default disabled. Uncomment to enable. in 9j's config.h

I was hoping the blue feed hold button (connected to feed hold pin) would stop the spindle and vacuum through cutting the power via SSRs but that was not the case. I was in a bit rush to finish limit switch wiring and adding the bottom Y gantry support so I might not completed the steps to flush new config.h with Arduino IDE.

I will give it another go on Sunday.

Below is a video showing the final state of the build and resume/hold/abort functionality.

The pi starts the vnc server together with json serial port server and GPIO json serial server automatically on start so that a wireless remote control through any computer on the same network is possible. This is implemented purely being able to use a larger screen and avoid the need of mouse/keyboard connection to the control box. Although the box is perfectly usable standalone as well. Please note GPIO Json Server and Json Serial Servers are to be used with chilipeppr's grbl workspace if needed. GPIO server will have the ability to use GPIO pins on the Pi for various future implementations (not sure what yet and I am open to ideas).

This is the Y gantry bottom support to make the Y gantry a better integrated stronger piece. I only used a piece of strong wood sandwiched in between 2 20X20 v slots then screwed 4 ends to both of my Y gantries. (I know it would be better and stronger to use a steel plate instead but this should do for now.)

 

Yes it is momentary... I though it would be better use a momentary switch for hold/resume but.. I will try to push and hold on Sunday and report the results here..

 

Thanks @Michael once again for your great support through this build.

As a side note;
- using shielded cables on all motor and limit switch connections,
- using "C to Signal and NC to Ground" connection preference for limit switches
- winding the spindle power cord around the big green ferrite magnet (see 0:19 on video the green piece there)
- using another self locking ferrite magnet on AC power lines in the box

I had no false limit switch alarm locks during my initial tests.

Hope above steps did the trick and cut the EMI noise. I have another self locking ferrite magnet and I will add that one to the main AC power cord between wall and the box. The trick is to wind the cable as much as possible over the ferrite.

Hope this helps someone who might be having a similar false trigger problem due to EMI noise.

 

Michael, I was right, I was not able to upload the modified config.h onto xpro. Today I done that properly and it works like a charm!. (although for some reason I had to try few times and change the name of the library in Arduino IDE before I could successfully upload/update it)

So now when I press the hold button the movement stops and spindle goes off, when I press resume it starts the spindle then waits for 4 seconds (as defined in parameters) then starts moving the axis. So I am very much satisfied with the result there.

Though I have another problem now with probing.

When I connect the alligator clips to the bit and surface and enter the command

Code:

G38.2 Z-5 F10

it moves a bit and stops and grbl reports the probe coords before the bit touches the plate.
After trying to see what is going wrong (about an hour!!) I discovered when I unplug the spindle from the control box it works as it should. So the problem must be the signal from the bit goes over the spindle and its power cord to the plug on the box and from there to the SSR relay module and from there to xpro! So system thinks the circuit is triggered and probing goes all wrong. For now I will have to unplug the spindle from the box for correct probing. I doubt I can find a solution to this issue but then again someone on the forum may help with previous experience and knowledge.