stargeezer published a new build:

Read more about this build...

 

Hi Tracy. I'm having issues loading files so I'll try a couple attachments.

 

I'll start the electronics soon, maybe tomorrow. My real question is what operating system I want to use. Mach 3 is easy enough, but I've been wanting to try Mach 4. Or perhaps CNCPC?

 

Thanks Mark. I couldn't have built it without all your hard work laying a foundation for it. The entire build was based on your concepts and parts. I just expanded on them.

Larry

 

Please keep in mind that all the parts used so far were from my used parts bins. I've been building and reviewing 3d printer kits for a while and if the printer was a winner, it got passed to a school kid. If it was a loser, it was disassembled and ended up in my parts bins. A couple small CNC routers have gone that way too.

The major parts are 3 - 500mm C-Beam Linear Actuator and 1-250mm C-Beam Linear Actuator like - C-Beam® Linear Actuator Bundle

The column consist of 4 - 20x80 V-slot, 2 - 500mm & 2 - 360 connected together with plates I cut. The reason for the 2 shorter V-slot was to make room for the OB emblem I cut into the sides and filled with white PVC and will backlight with LEDs. If you aren't going to do something like that, make all 4 20x80 V-slot 500mm long. It will be a little bit stronger that way, but not much.

The plates were all 1/4" aluminum plate except the large end-plates which are cut from 1/2" plate.

Lots of 5mm x 10mm and 5mm x 12mm flat head cap screws and tee nuts.

All the rest of the parts were Open Builds Parts that can be found in the parts store.

Now the hard part, the electronics. I don't mean that putting it all together is hard, it's not. I mean that deciding what to use is hard, and then there the firmware and software that's hard.

 

Thank you for the kind words. More to come.....

Larry

 

That's true my friend, except I always seem to need more ports than a uno can offer. Such as full spindle control, all functions of the VFD, coolant pump and fan controls, max temp. control, limit switches on both +&- movements, and so on. I always run out before getting the motors powered up! That's the main reason I started using the Warp9 ESS board that can split up to three parallel ports that can be routed to three BOBs.

And the fun goes on....

Larry

 

Awesome! That's why I built it, hoping to inspire others to to take my simple mods to the great OB machine and add some of their great ideas to it too. Then it gets better each time it's copied.

A current change I'm playing with is flipping the X axis over and screwing the X plates to the Y plates. This offers a couple improvements to the design. First it keeps the plates and joints under the cutter for more support. Secondly it helps to keep sawdust out of the screw and provides a wider area to screw the cutting table to. The more support for the table, the less cutting errors will exist.

Have fun and please show us what you do with it!

Larry

 

As I mentioned a few days ago, I really wanted to flip the X axis over so that chips can't build up in the screw. After I flipped it I discovered that there was interference that kept it from sliding all the way, limiting the x travel to 10". In order to recover as movement as possible I needed to mill off about 1/4" of material from the C-Beam end-plates.

I had a couple salvaged red plates that had some bad nicks on top that could be cut off so I switched to those. A few minutes on the mill and they were ready to be reinstalled. I'm adding some pics of the process and as you can see, I now have 13" of movement. This makes my total movements X=13" Y=9" and Z=5.5".