A truly majestic machine! How has the routing been going? Do you get any sway, side to side, on that amazing Y axis? I might have brought those L brackets further up on the inside of the Y rails myself. How is the accuracy at the extreme ends of the table. Do you get much run-out error? Would love to see a video of the machine in action! Well done. May the chips fly for you. Gray
Nice! Looks good! I'm mid build with a beefed up version of the ox, 1500x1500. If you haven't done it yet, I would highly recommend bolting (or bonding somehow) your two x gantry beams together. You can fit 3 20x80's on the original ox plates for your x beam, that would help as well. I imagine there is a decent amount of twist when the router is pushing or pulling. Even with the 750mm width ox I ran into issues before I had everything dialed in just right. The router would slowly just start getting deeper and deeper until the steppers would jump the belt.
I'm in mid build of 1500x1500 (still machining out the plates on my Chinese 3040 mill), how did you bolt your x axis together? Do you mind posting pictures of it? Thanks!
thanks for the reply. Did you use m5 bolts too? I'm going to use 2 20x60x1500mm rails. Do you think this will be sturdy enough to handle routing aluminum?
No. I use 3x 2080 over 1000mm bolted together and cant do alu over 50ipm. 60 shouldn't be used on anything over 750mm
Agreed. 60 at 750mm is the absolute max. I'm sure people have "cut" aluminum with longer than that, But your going to run into all kinds of issues. You will have lots of twist in all directions, and your cuts will not be smooth or very accurate.
If you have a 3d printer, or access to one, these make lining up your beams much easier V-Slot connector . I used them to hold my x axis beams together then I drilled through one and into the other with the bit that came with my 5mm tap. Then, I drilled through the first layer with a 5mm bit and then tapped the other layer.
That's not good news to me... all I bought was 20x60s for my x axis. And c beams for the y. I'll print one up. Thanks for the tip. I am also making my x plates 3.5" taller with the plan of height adjustability. I'm thinking of mounting my 40w laser tube vertically on the gantry like what I saw at buildyourcnc,.
With a laser there is no cutting force, shop for that application it would probably work just fine. I'm not saying what you have planned won't work, it just might not be the results your looking for. Taller y plates will also put more leverage on your x beam, allowing even more slop translated to your tool tip. What plates are you planning on using? I have been making several versions of plates trying to figure out the most strength with the least wheels. What do you need room for that your going with taller plates? I remember that was the first thing I wanted to do with my first ox, but I never needed more room. Now I'm trying to make the shortest plates for the strongest machine
Actually I raised the height and just added mounting holes to it, so I can still maintain the original height of it with the capability of raising it. I did more height with the plans of also attaching a 3d printer head and maybe in the future I wanted to print high and bigGerman than what my mendelmax 3 can fit.
Your plate set up gives you lots of options. Not sure if you have joined Google plus, but there is a group on there with tons of ox info. plus.google.com Search for ox cnc
No I haven't joined yet. I will. I'm just a newbie learning cnc. I cut that plate using 1 2.5mm 2 flute ball end mill at 800mm/s at 0.12mm DOC no problems. Now I broke that bit because I forgot about the finishing cut on my settings to set it at 0.1mm and I left it at 1mm. I'm trying to cut the 2nd plate w/ a single flute 3mm. And keep breaking bits, I'm on my 5th one now... I guess I'm pushing my 200w spindle at 0.14mm at 500mm/s..... I'm going to try cutting at 0.12mm at 500mm/s.
I never got the 400 watt to cut aluminum like I hoped it would. I did have some success with a single flute at max rpm, 4mm/second. .3 or .4mm depth of cut. Plunging speed had to be very low for the endmill not to walk. Something like .4mm/second. I know that's painfully slow, but it's all I could get to work with aluminum and a stock ox with 400 watt quiet cut. BTW I think your mixing up mm/minute sms mm/second
Oh forgot to mention, it's really hard to cut aluminum with ball ends mills. I have really good luck work 1/8" end mills from fastenal, about $7 a piece. Where did you get your end mills from
See.... That's not good speeds, even on mine, i get 0.4DOC at 800mm/min and that's slow. Industrial machines can do like 1" at 7000mm/min or regular ones 1mm at 2500mm
I'm sorry I meant mm/min. These are the bits I used. 5pcs 1/8" 3.175CNC Milling Cutter Two Double Flutes Tungsten Spiral Ball Nose End Mill CNC Router Bits 2.5*15mm http://s.aliexpress.com/Nriq6rMb (from AliExpress Android) 0.13mm doc at 850mm/min and 200mm/min plunge rate. With my 200 spindle on the 3040 cnc machine.
I ran out of the 2.5mm 2 flute ball end and transitioned to 3mm single flute. I got the sweet spot for the 3mm at 0.08mm doc at 450mm/min. Took forever to cut the 2nd ox y gantry plate. About 8 hours but it was very smooth cut and machine wasn't struggling at all at this speed. What's the power rating of your spindle to get the 0.4mm doc at 800mm/min? Accdg to my free feed and speed Android app, the ball end mill will cut faster than the flat end. What are you guys experience on this?
hello i am absolutely impressed with your machine! amazing work my friend! i'm in the process of designing and building a 2440x1220 work area cnc that will be used to cut wood, mostly mdf and maybe some hardwoods. i would really appreciate some input regarding the x-axis linear motion mechanism. from the pics it looks like you raised the belt and slid a pulley under it to achieve linear motion? is the belt grooved? what's the distance between the grooves? can you send me some more detailed pictures? also, are those NEMA34 steppers? my email is [email protected] thanks in advance!
Sebastien, Can you please show some pictures of how you mounted your dust shoe (seen in the video) to the side of the X carriage? I see the vertical 20x60 and I am interested in doing something similar, looking for good ideas in making the shoe easy to take and adjust up and down. Regards Gary