Ah, that's interesting thanks - I hadn't thought along those lines. I've got the 24V PSU from Ooznest but haven't made any changes at all to the CNC board's pots - would it just be a case of me tweaking those? Forgive my ignorance, but can I do damage to the steppers or boards if I set those pots incorrectly?

Yeah, I seem to find a new use for those foam tiles every day!

 

No worries, thanks for the heads-up anyhow, I'll do some digging no the forum.

btw, I've been trying to work out what spindle to use - I'd settled on the Dewalt 26200 as that seems to be what most people in the UK use, but then I came across the Kress 1050 and from other posts I've seen I think you may have gone down that route already.

Any thoughts on the Kress vs the Dewalt for the C-Beam?

 

2016-02-16 18.34.37 by Michael Shore posted Feb 16, 2016 at 6:44 PM

2016-02-16 18.34.46 by Michael Shore posted Feb 16, 2016 at 6:44 PM

2016-02-16 18.35.03 by Michael Shore posted Feb 16, 2016 at 6:44 PM

I have a Kress 1050, one thing to watch is the height of the KRESS when mounted to the C-Beam machine, thedewalt mounts quite high on the body of the spindle, allowing the collet to be much lower than the bottom of the Z-Axis when lowered, however the KRESS is mounted quite close to the bottom of the spindle so limiting the amount of endmill below the Z-Axis.

Just added the images

My machine started out as a plain old C-Beam, but I love this stuff so Much I wanted to build my own bigger machine, so here is one of the stages it is going through during its junior months, cant wait for it to get to teenage and adult.

Planning on 800 by 1200mm ballscrew and linear rails on all Axis, but cost is limiting me to little changes at a time.

I have to Thank Mark and the guys at open builds for getting me into this.

Michael

 

it is sure heavy as well now, I have 1200mm rails on order, all being well they will arive tomorrow, and I can cut stuff again.

As for the X, well, it was a case of, I already had the C-Beam and screws, and ballscrews and supports are divorce material , well this month they are anyway. But now I have the rails en-route, I can get everything back together until I can afford to make a new frame and make it 800 x 1200, I reckon it is going to look pretty stupid with 1200 mm rails in the Y, Pictures will follow.

I do want to change the Z-Axis out for this but that will have to wait along time.

Michael

 

Ta for the info on the Kress guys - sounds like a good option and seems to be available for around £150. I've been looking at the Chinese spindles as well and they seem like great value, but I'd be a little concerned about the weight.

Any negatives on going for the Kress vs the Dewalt 26200?

 

Had a good look over it last night and nothing's loose - and the steppers seem fine (at least they can plot drawings repeatably with good accuracy). It just seems like the aluminium extrusions resonate a hell of a lot (seems worse at lower feed speeds), plus I found that the sound was being heavily amplified by the table it was sat on - when I lifted it off the table, it was much better. I think I'll plan on mounting it on an MDF baseboard and then have that sat on rubber corner feet.

I suspect that inserting some kind of snug fitting rubber piping in to the hollow centres of the extrusions might help but that's something for another day.

 

Hmmm, something along these lines might be worth a try:-

1842 Latex Rubber Tube Elastic 1 8mm INT 4 2mm EXT Diameter X 1M Dankung | eBay

Although probably better if I can find some solid stuff.

 

You might want to take a look at something like that (but female/female, and bigger):

http://www.tcbroschoppers.com/media/catalog/product/1/0/105-0109_1.jpg

 

By the way, I'm working on my own C-Beam machine on steroids Here's a preview:

 

Oh I like that. Love the linear rail mounting idea.

 

Now that is just mouth watering, I thought about going square linear rail, but I could not find anyone at the right price point for me.

I love the way it is so easy to mount the rail to V-Slot, I am stuck with 30 mm between fixings on the round rail, so I need 30x60 style extrusion if I want to mount it in line. I love and would like more pictures of the Z Axis if you would, and from the picture it looks like its a 8 mm TR screw what backlash are you getting on there?

Love it, keep up the pictures.

Michael

 

Contact me in a private message with the size you need and where you're from, I might have what you need somewhere (Well I just seen you're in UK... )

I'll take more pictures tonight

 

If you are stuck between the two just take a look at what the Kress can do, I found THIS.

I chose the Kress as it was what robocutters were selling as a spindle for the C-Beam, glad I did now.

Michael

 

Here's some pictures of my build, the green parts and the mdf parts will be milled from aluminum, this was for test purpose only

 

Wow, that is impressive and is big help thanks. Have you come across any videos of the Kress on a C-Beam milling aluminium?

 

Any sources for a reasonably priced mounting collar for the Kress 1050?

 

I know of 2 people that stock a mount for the Kress

Colin at Robocutters.co.uk
and
Brian at CNC4YOU.co.uk

CNC4YOU will deliver next day if you get the order in before 2:00. they are very helpfull and always answer the phone.

and when you are talking about the stiffness of the mount its not worth going cheap.

for the collets, I used damencnc.com, they also do a mount for the kress but it mounts from the back, so not sure, but you probably would have to cut a new Z-Plate, look under tools.

I have only found THIS video with a kress on a modified C-Beam machine, but I have not searched for that combination before, but I see plasma torch videos as well, the beauty of this build is you can do almost anything you want, you just have to have that small spark of an idea.

Regards

Michael

 

Thanks Michael, that's all really helpful info. I presume I'm probably just going to want to get a 4mm collet to go with the 8mm collet it comes with?

 

I got 4 6 and 10, but I now wish I had also got a 1/4, 1/8 and my chamfer bit is 5mm.

make sure where ever you get them from they come with nuts, Kress used to supply them separate, but it is recommended to keep them in the nuts, just get what you really need now.

I use GBRengineering for the Endmills

M.

 

I've been delayed for the last two weeks finishing my c-beam because a driver on my new XPRO controller failed. I've just gotten the replacement and wired it up exactly as Mark does on the build video. I'm using GRBL Panel as well. I purposely bought everything the same as Mark so I could duplicate his success with little experimentation.

Problem is two of my axes travel opposite of Marks. I don't know if this was the case with the first board as I didn't get that far. And before I simply reverse wires on the motors, I'm wondering how this can be. Anyone have an idea why my build that duplicates Mark's to the T would be different?

Mark instructs that we must reverse the Z axes wires and tells us how but also mentions it can be done it software. As it stands, my z axes is one that does not (currently) need to be reversed like Mark instructs. He saws motors can be reversed by swapping wires or in the software. I've not found anyplace in GRBL Panel to reverse motor travel. Is there a place to do this?

Thanks

Bruce

 

Don't know if this helps, but there's quite a lot of info there:-

5. Troubleshooting · Spark-Concepts/xPRO Wiki · GitHub

 

Thanks Razor, that tells me how to fix it but does not explain why if I follow Mark's build video to a T with the exact same hardware and software that a fix should be required. I hate to apply a "fix" that masks something else wrong.

It would also seem better to hard wire this fix rather that software which could be changed and the fix forgotten.

Bruce

 

So I "fixed" the direction of the motors by swapping wires. But still curious why my setup would be the exact same as Marks with the same result he had in the video.

Bruce

 

Without knowing the motors, they just might be wired with 1 pair the wrong way round. but the main thing is you got it fixed.

Michael

 

Thanks Kyo, at least good to hear I'm not alone buying the whole kit but not being able to follow the video exactly and get the same result.

Bruce