MIMF

Watched your video: Great.
I really admire your longterm commitment, keep it going!

Some more wiring in place. wire ties are loose and wires are not in tight yet as I still have to run my limit switches. I haven't quite figured out the brackets for that yet

Made my first cuts today A big ruler to measure the boys as they grow up. Got the machine running pretty slow at the moment. I really want some multi start screws on the X axis now!! I get a bit of whipping with it as it sits if I crank the speed up too much.

http://youtu.be/c3tS2NEnMb8

Kept it simple for the first thing made.

WOW! Cutting wood now! Congratulations upon your getting to this point. Your project was certainly an undertaking of considerable complexity, and you made it happen.

Oh, it's not done. I'm sure I'll slowly upgrade parts of it.

I need to finish the dust collection system and tidy up the wiring.

Then I'll watch for a good deal on a set of 5 start lead screws for the X-axis as I have to run it really slow or the screws whip badly. After that maybe new bearings if the skate bearing design shows me any trouble.

Great work for a totally home made machine!!!

You'll definitely want to upgrade to the 5-start screws to up your speed. At the speeds you're running, you'll blow through tools at an alarming rate!

I think I can up the speed if I improve my belt drive pulleys. the idlers wobble pretty bad and I think that is inducing the whip at a much lower speed then it might happen otherwise. I might try and add some more bearings to keep the screws under control too

I printed up some new idlers and it really reduced the movement of the screws. I should be able to bump up the speed quite a bit

The other pulleys can be improved quite a bit too.

Printed? As in 3D printing?

yeah, I run a couple of 3d printers at work

The new ones are PLA which won't stand up to heat well so I'll make some new ones on the lathe before spring comes. It should be plenty cool in the garage for a while

Hey Eric - send me the .stl files and I'll mail the parts back (I'm in the UK) - we use the Stratasys range of 3D printers so you can have anything from ABS to Ultem9085 and all points in between.

I can make some on a lathe too. our little UP! printer actually does really well. But thanks!

found out that the 1/4" router bit will cut a ways into a grade 5 washer.... set the workpiece zero in the wrong spot and ran the tool into one of the fixtures. fortunately I hit the e-stop before doing any real damage.

I scored some timing belts and pulleys from scrap in our production area I should be able to replace my 1/2"-10 single start lead screws with pulleys and really crank up my speeds on the X and Y axis!

I finally went to check the belt length and found that it is too short for the way I was planning to run it.... so I'll be moving the X-axis motor to the gantry. It is a bit simpler of a solution but it would have been nice to figure that one out before making a bunch of brackets that are now obsolete!!

So here's the 3d model of the X-axis motor on the gantry. I have most of the parts finished for it and need to buy one more pulley as I only have 1 right now. I'm doing a 2:1 speed reduction off of the motor. At 100 IPM I should get around 90 lbs of force on the X-axis and around 50 lb on the Y-axis. Should be plenty for this smaller machine. I'm running the belt where the X lead screws use to run and through the mounting hole for them. That way I can adjust tension and position from the ends of the machine easily.

The Y-axis belt is installed and needs to be tensioned but that's easy to do with a short piece of 8-32 threaded rod. Then I will tighten down the clamps and install the motor.



This one shows the jack shaft and one of the pulleys from the bottom of the gantry:



Here is the idler pulley configuration. They should line it up nicely with the belt clamps on the end of the machine. The 0.5" pitch Flex-e-grip belt is rated for around 300 lbs and has a pair of 1/16" steel cables through it so there shouldn't be a whole lot of stretch.



And this is what the X-axis belt clamps look like

Here's the side of the gantry with the x-axis motor mounted:



Y-axis motor and the belt configuration



And the Y-axis motor mounting

The new pulley has been ordered and is on it's way I should be able to pick that up in a couple of days. Then it is buttoning things up and adjusting my Mach3 settings.

I ended up getting different pulleys as the company had a minimum buy and I could get a more standard type belt and pulley for less then it would have cost me to get the pulley from them. So I have 2 pulleys, need to modify a bracket a bit and have the belt on order through ebay. I should be able to finish this thing up in a month or so