Have you tried au.dhgate.com?

 

Thanks mate, I had a bit of a look. Good to know they're an option.

Thanks Kyo, I ended up getting some off ebay just to be safe. It was $13 for 10. Locally here in Australia they're $14 each from a bearing shop

Great job on the design mate, I just brought all the components to do a custom 1m x 1m build. Can't wait!

 

Like Kyo said, all of my plates have precision counter-bores so non-flanged bearings can be used. I am not sure about the Openbuilds plate tolerances, but my holes are press-fit better than +/- .001", so the bearings will not move while machining.
I have a lot of custom parts for the sphinx on Ebay under chrisclub1.
All the metal I use is 6061-T6, 6.6mm thick.

 

hi
can anyone tell me how much this build cost ?

 

You have probably seen it but they sell the Sphinx in the Openbuilds store.

 

As Corey stated, the mechanical items can be purchased as a kit from openbuildpartsstore.com . That is probably the most cost effective approach. About two years ago I spent about $1700 sourcing the individual components, including the stepper motors, stepper drivers, and control board, but not including cables, the spindle or the spindle power supply. There were also other miscellaneous costs for bulding an electronics enclosure, dust collection tubing, etc.

Tom C

 

so for 1.7k i'm better with shapeoko xl then ... cheap plus support and warranty

 

Sphinx 1050 with power supply, wiring kit, 4 steppers and controller (Xpro V4 - blackbox is same price) is 1532 dollars.
Alex.

 

how that compare to this one ?
Buy D.600 CNC Router as Construction Kit | STEPCRAFT, 1.239,00 €
stability work precision etc ?

 

Absolutely not. The Shapeoko XL is a poorly designed machine, with low quality parts. You are WAY better off with a Workbee or Lead machine than a Shapeoko or an Xcarve. Just as a for instance, the Workbee has 48 polycarbonate wheels, where the Shapeoko has 20 soft nylon wheels. Nuff said...

MG

 

and that stepcraft ?

 

I don't know a great deal about the stepcraft, but I notice they mention a Dremel or Proxxon as the spindle. These are basically engraving tools and do not have the capabability of a router or spindle. It suggests the machine is not capable of handling the weight and power of a tool capable of substantial machining.
I can only refer you back to @Metalguru's message above. I have a workbee 1010, leadscrew machine and can vouch for it's ability to machine wood (including hardwoods) plastics and aluminium (provided you use an alloy suitable for machining).
Alex.

 

I've heard some good things about the Stepcraft, but also some bad things. Their spindle of choice is their MM1000, which might look like a Dremel but is actually a German made 1.4 HP spindle that is very good quality. It costs 3 times what a Dewalt DWP611 does. Overall, a pretty nice machine. Things I don't like -

• they use pretty flimsy looking extrusions for the axes, and round metal rollers. That's got to have some play in it.
• You have to use their spindle.
• they use small pancake style stepper motors. Can't imagine they would have as much torque as the NEMA23's in the WB kit
• integrated electronics - all one board. If you blow a stepper driver, its hundreds of dollars to fix
• same price as the Shapeoko, but better quality for sure
• made in Germany - Support America!

Still think the WB or Lead is way better bang for the buck.

MG

 

I had just come across Stepcraft today, and overall I think I prefer the openbuilds designs as well, that being said that ATC they have developed for their kit looks pretty sweet.

 

I build my own inspired by kyo and I thing being a complete noob, it came out excellent. I used all solid material and water cooled spindles etc and machine does wonders

 

Question for anybody who built this....what is the positional accuracy of this machine? What is the repeatability?

 

I customized mine and made a 1000x750 . Works very well with 1.5kw spindle
Quite accurate after you do your initial calibration

 

Depends on how you build it. Should get +/-0.1mm accuracy, repeatability around the same, if you use 1/8 microstepping the theoretical resolution is around 0.005 mm per step but not really attainable.

MG

 

If I build this, I plan on getting the premium plates for this this to eliminate the v wheels and stiffen the frame a fair bit. I was hoping a deviation of 0.01mm or better. Then again, I'd probably get some clearpath servos that can have upto 12,800 steps per revolution....

 

Premium plates? What are they?

It's a wood router, why on earth would you need 0.01mm?

The tolerance on the extrusions alone is 20-50x that. If you notice, no precision mill is made with extrusions. It's just not possible to achieve that level of precision with an extruded, bolted together frame

If you want a milling machine, get one, but a Workbee ain't it...

MG

 

Is there any good documentation or videos on calibration someone could point me towards? I'm searching Google, but I think I'm missing the right term or something. years ago, I built this exact build to a T then got incredibly busy with work. Due to the break from working on it, I'm a little behind the curve.

I ran some test cuts yesterday. I carved out what should have been a 40mm circle then measured it. It came out closer to 46-47. A 50mm circle came out at exactly 60mm. It shouldn't be a miscalculation in the tool diameter as I created a the circled in Fusion 360 and told it to mill out the inside tool dimensions were correct. The cut is just too big and seems to scale with the size of the cut.

I'm clearly missing something. Any idea what?

 

Your GRBL Steps/mm calibration values are probably incorrect. Check out my Blog entry on calibration:

GRBL Settings and Calibration – 3D Tech Works

MG

 

This is perfect, thanks!

 

Another good video

 

Hi Kyo,
Any chance you still have this drawing and can show the underside. I cant quite get my head around how you might do this.

 

This has been great to follow. So far it has made my life so much easier. Especially on buying all the hardware.
The only thing I have noticed is that on the BOM there isn’t any 27mm m5 screws mentioned. However in the build manual there are multiple points where 27mm is needed. All I would like to know is how many 27mm m5 are needed in total ?