Stepper drivers, power supplies, terminal strips, wire, and wire ends all showed up today. I’m playing with an idea to mount the power supplies and steppers. Tell me why this won’t be a good idea.



Use a 2080 and a 2040 for a base, connected together, with 2 2080 verticals that the steppers will attach to. The terminal blocks on top of those. One power supply attached to each side. The arduino on a plexiglass top. And put a fan on one side blowing air through the center. The aluminum extrusions will act as a heat sink.. I’m trying to think what’s wrong with this and not finding anything. The aluminum will all be 250mm so there will be a slight gap between the stepper drivers.

thoughts on this?

 

Yes. Which is why I went to a 2.2kw spindle. It has an er20, which goes to 13mm. So my 1/2” will work. Sure makes running the spoiler board bit nice! 1/2” shank, 2” clearing per pass.

@cnc0014 No, I don’t. It all works fine, and when running there is no problem. Only issue I have is when I shut machine down. The Z tends to slowly drop, so I normally park it on a block if I’m shutting everything off.

 

I’m trying to keep it Openbuilds parts as much as possible, but I’ll play a bit more. That was first idea. As for heat, these steppers don’t even come with heat sinks so I was thinking that even the amount added by the extrusions is a step up from what they have. But agree that it would soak up a lot of heat. Maybe I’ll just say screw it and go get an enclosure to mount everything into. McMaster is only a short drive from my house.

 

Base board for the new controller is shaping up. I have an enclosure coming to mount this is. I’ll mount the GX16 connectors when the box comes.



The glove in the middle is just to hold the PWM to 0-10v board. Still need to mount the limit switch board, when I build it, later tonight. Hopefully I’ll have it all done for testing tonight.

the rest of the electronics will be done in the enclosure. Contractor, switches, etc.

 

New control box taking shape. Most of the base electronics are mounted. And I’m working on the GX16 connections.


Liking the results so far. Now need to finish it.

 

Machinist Santa showed up tonight at my house. The first of the new end plates arrived, to replace and combine the 2 c-beams and house the bearings for the ball screw arrived. These are the first set, with more to follow.

He even redesigned the plates for the x-axis to eliminate the angle connectors from the mix and use the bracket to mount to the uprights. Now I need to get the aluminum for him to make these new improved mounts.

I guess I’ve been a good boy this year



Machine is still running, so I guess these will have to wait. But, the bearings went from a 26x10 to a 28x10. I will try to get the CAD file for these, and the motor mount sides as well. For the X axis, the 2 narrow spaced holes will move out to the outer location, and then he will add 2 screw holes through the entire plate to attach to the side of the uprights using drop in T-Nuts and 50mm screws, so the X will have a 220MM plate holding it to the uprights on each side. That will take care of the Y and X axis. Lastly, I will need to do the Z plates, after I figure out how I want them to be.. Still using the 8mm ACME screw for the Z since I need to make a custom nut block for the ball screw.

 

Change in the electronics.. I have been playing with the arduino, and not really happy with the results. I am now changing everything to grblHAL running on a Teensy 4.1, using the T41U5XBB board by Phil Barrett. I will post more when I get the boards, and get it running. My intentions are to go to a 4 active axis, with the A being a spindle off the front. There will be 5 AXIS's run, with the 5th (B) being a clone of the Y axis.

 

i will document it up. I built the grblHAL for the system already, and set the basic configuration for it already. BoB should be her tomorrow or Monday. I am jumping in and building it to use the Ethernet connection as well, so now the controller can be in another room, away from everything.

I looked at the linuxCNC, and that may get used for the next machine. I am starting a C-Beam mill next.

another thing I’m doing now, since I have the free time, is build up a table, based off of the open builds design, with an enclosure attached to the top for this machine. Since I can’t get the length needed for the extrusions from Openbuilds, and seeing 80/20 is a short drive away, I will be using the 80/20 extrusions. I can have them cut to length, and setup for the connections I am looking to use. But, that’s another project.

 

New BoB arrived. Built out the basics and mounted to the backer board. Testing tomorrow.

 

I am using the Teensy 4.1 grblHAL BoB.

grblHAL Breakout Board Unkit for Teensy 4.1. by Brookwood Design on Tindie

This is the board.

 

The Z axis is now 200mm. I am working out the travel of the Z Axis some, so it may increase a bit more, but the 200MM is a good starting point.

 

For the X/Y plates, I am using 3/8". For the end plates on the Y/X, I have started the change over to 1/2" for the Y and 1" (Milled to 20mm) for the X. The X will have the attachments and end caps milled into one. Attached is the rendering for the motor mount side of the X axis. This will replace the angle connectors for the X/Y uprights into the end plates.

 

New plates cut on the machine. The ones my friend made were off a bit so I remade them. Here are the plates for the Y axis. Will install after I finish the X axis plates.






You can see the motor mount in the edge of the picture. This will sit nicely in the cut out and the short plates attach to the bottom and to the motor mount.

here is the motor mount side completed. And assembled. I am using the screw and mount for machine #2 so I don’t have to take everything apart yet.


happy happy. Joy joy. Almost done with the new plates!

update on the grblHAL. Had some problems with it and will need to troubleshoot it. Was working fine, then it stopped responding, so I changed back to the arduino setup.

 

New plates installed on the Y axis. Now I see how far off the original was.. I need to realign the linear rails on both sides to make it all square again. But, in the end, I will know everything is aligned, square, and strong.

Sorry, it’s a bit messy by the machine right now.

 

And, at 16mm thick, there isn’t a lot of whip. Even with the rotation and no tension in. But no, the fixed portion is the only part I didn’t make. The black part. The free floating side, I upgraded the bearing to 7001.

 

The motor mount has Angular contact bearings in it already, well 1 angular and 1 regular. The free floating side was upgraded from regular to angular contact. So I should be fine with that. Since I was making the new plates, might as well make them right! I think I will take the screw back off and have the end machined to allow a double bearing on the free side like the fixed side, and do the same. (1 Angular and 1 normal.)

For now, its time to take the machine apart again, install all the new plates, retram everything and make sure the linear rails are all good, and have some fun!