You're welcome

PS. If anyone is in need of some OX plates I'd be happy to do up a set for someone (I'm U.S. based). I myself used the garolite material for my ox and it has worked out well. I even machined one of the side plates for the OX in aluminum today (on my OX) and it turned out nice (maybe not quite as nice as Robert or Chris's. I think due to the belt backlash, but entirely serviceable).

 

What were your settings for the aluminum plate on the OX?

 

I used 6061 .26" thick. .025" per pass @30ipm 7ipm plunge. Single flute 1/8" carbide endmill (inches... i know)

 

Also, question (dont have any lying around) the eccentric spacers, whats the OD of the shoulder that goes into the plates? I see that the store has two varieties now 6mm and 1/4 whats the diff? Height? 6mm and 1/4 is nearly the same. Also, will this affect how I have the ox plates spaced?(I spaced them closer)

 

John, did you make your own side gantry pieces. If not, where did you get them and could I order a set?

 

I got them from Chris Laidlaw on ebay. His seller name is 'chrisclub'. Just go to ebay, type in "Openbuilds Ox" and you'll find his listings. I am impressed with how nice they are. Well cut, accurate and nice finishing.

John

 

Thanks John. Just placed an eBay order!

 

Talking about the plates of Chris! Just received mine of him and I have to say it's a very, very nice job he did on it. They are looking nice with the black V-slot profiles. Waiting for just a couple of more parts (hopefully end of this week) and have to find a new tap and some screws etc. locally this week. The weekend is going to be building time. I probably will start a build topic to show the results.

 

Got my last part today. My 8mm Threaded Rod came in. I only ordered 1, but got 2. Mark, can you please let me know how to send the $$ for the 2nd one? I'm likely going to use it when I build the 2nd OX for my Dad. He keeps emailing me "Is it done yet?" LOL

 

Wooooot! Thank you Mark! Honesty totally IS the best policy. Even when it gets you in trouble with the wife sometimes. ;0)

 

All parts are now curing for assembly

 

Just wanted to let people know I have laid in an extensive supply of Openbuild parts at Opensourceluthiersupply.com. Check out our site. Thanks

 

Did the mechanical build this afternoon and evening. Everything fits good and I have less than 1 mm difference on the Y between total front and total back position. Some fine tuning on the wheels have to be done to get them really perfect. Tomorrow I will make a thread for this build and post some pictures. Still waiting for the stepper drivers to arrive and than the electronic part will happen.

Thanks to the excellent videos of Mark, all the good info and feed back on the forum and last (but not least) the excellent machined plates of Chris.

 

Wow! Those look awesome!

 

Hey Mark.
Quick one for you. It turns out that my lock nuts for the threaded rod are too small. They don't fit on the 8mm threaded rod. How do I go about exchanging them? I managed to get my TinyG hooked up last night, and performed some of the built in tests. This thing works great! So far. I just need to find a good procedure for configuring, and calibrating everything.

 

I'm retired. I have followed the Phlatboyz on and off since the beginning, and haven't visited for a long while. But I spent all day yesterday, well into the night, pouring over this site.

Originally the Phlatboyz printers were being used mainly for cutting foam board for the construction or RC foamy planes. That's where my interests were. I wanted either a Phlat Printer or CNC router. Besides PhlatBoyz, I also was a frequent visitor to the CNC Zone forums.

It's only within the last year that things have been really coalescing in this maker space arena with 3D Printers and CNC routers and laser cutters. What 8020 did for extruded aluminum frame, Mark and others are doing in inventing economical components like V-Slot Wheels and Channel. So now you don't have to spend large sums of money, or go a million different places to acquire parts. You can shop in one spot and buy you parts that simply bolt together into a well proven design.

It's has always been this monetary and complexity aspect of the hobby that has kept me from pulling the trigger.

This OX is really something. It's really the evolution of the Phlat Printer into something way more useful. And to have an extensive build video that you can watch to see what is involved is really the best.

So I'm going to spend all day again brainstorming and scouring this site.

I do have a few questions:

1.What's a good router in the $100 to $200 range...I don't need anything larger than 3 to 5 lbs..
Bosh PR20EVSK Colt, Dewalt DWP611 seem to be popular...any others?
The quieter the better.

2. I know Chris makes OX plates as well as router holders. If Chris sees this, I'd like to know if the same router holder would hold different models like the Bosh Colt and Dewalt DWP611?

3. I have no way of cutting the V-channel to length. I'd like a full 2' x 4' cutting area if at all possible. I think the large OX will do the 4' ok, but is a little shy on 2'. If I could get a full 24 to 25 in cutting width area, that would be awesome. I realize there would be some channel material left over. I don't think Mark does custom cutting, but maybe one of his distributors does.

That's all I have for now.

 

It turns out

Hi James,

Virtually all routers have a slightly different diameter and I like my clamps to be +/- .002" of the actual diameter, so I make a new design and program for each router mounting kit. I've shipped about 40 mounting kits so far and 611, Colt and Makita 700/701 make up over half of them. These are all roughly 2.5" diameter. The Bosch 1617 and Dewalt 618 in the 3.5" size make up about 20%.
Then there are a few using spindle motors on their OX.

[email protected]

 

"I'd like to know if the same router holder would hold different models like the Bosh Colt and Dewalt DWP611?"

Funny you should mention this. A builder and I spent almost 2 months on this very issue. I knew the diameter of the 611, but he had a Colt, and his caliper was broken so he couldn't measure the diameter, but he had heard the diameter is the "same" as the 611, so he told me to ship him a 611 mount. Needless to say, it did not fit, but we found the issue with his calipers (a bad battery), but then the Colt mount I sent got lost in Customs for two+ weeks, so I sent another one. One would think this is the end of the story, but no, he sent one of the unused mounts back, and I thought it was the 611 mount, so I sent it to a builder with a 611, but no, it was a Colt mount. That Colt mount has more frequent flyer miles than I do.

Chris

 

I guess mine are similar, I saw a picture of those some time back, but I think mine are simpler and better

(and my Mounting kits are designed to attach your router very rigidly to the Z axis of an Openbuilds OX CNC... no new holes required)

 

Here's some pictures of the mount Chris made for my spindle.

 

Indeed very interesting, thanks.

 

I had the same issue; they where 6mm. Not sure if I miss ordered or not. I drilled the holes to 8 (first 6.5, than 7, 7.5 and 8) and that worked fine.

Fred