General

General postings usually pertaining to topics of miscellaneous origin

6 Week Progress Report

So right after the last post I did a bunch of work in about two weeks and was to the point were I was just about ready to run, and then nothing…  this update has been sitting in draft mode for 2 weeks so I decided to force myself to finish it tonight, so here we go.

The first thing I decided I needed to do was to wire up and test the surplus motors I bought.  I used  22ga  4 wire security system wire I found out home depot, I used this wire on my two previous machines without any issues.  Using the documentation over at the Lin Engineering site, I was able to easily wire the motors up as bipolar parallel.

Then with a bit of remorse, I reclaimed the electronics from the Rockcliff Mini Model D, removed the extra parts (4th Axis – Probotix side step and MDFLY breakout board) and wired it all up to the remaining Xylotex 3 Axis controller.  After making the necessary changes to the EMC2 configuration, I ran a few quick tests and everything just worked… this is the first time that has ever happened, but I guess 3rd time is a charm after all.

New build… Here we go again

It has been a month since I did my first cuts with the new machine, and yet those very cuts were already the start of the next machine.

I started by creating a new cad project and importing all of the pieces that I felt worked from the old project and then began modifying them to eliminate things that did not work as well as I would have liked.  I then proceeded to make a number of changes I thought would make the machine better and easier to assembly.  I think the results are a little mixed, I really like look of the new design, and I think it will be easier to assemble and more sturdy overall, however I nearly doubled the number of cross dowel connections being used which adds complexity to the production and build process.  

I decided to make another attempt (my 3rd) at using Sketchup to assemble things in 3d to try and catch any errors before I start cutting.  And thanks to a Goggle search which turned up this blog entry:  In Sketchup… How to Import & Trace 2D CAD Drawings, and another 9 months experience playing around with cad programs it actually worked this time.

BSR1v2 - ISO
BSR1v2 – ISO

The machine was designed with a 24″ x 48″ cutting area in mind, but it should be easy to build up to a 24″ x 60″ cutting area (~36″ x ~72″ foot print), the one shown has a 12″ x 36″ cutting area with a foot print of ~24″ x ~48″.

I have also used a combination of the Google SketchUp Web ExporterCreate Image ruby script, and tweaking of the javascript from the web exporter to create a rotatable 3d graphic to show off the machine, please take a look and tell me what you think.

One step forward, one step back.

For the most part is has been too cold to work on the machine for the last month or so, so I have not made a lot of progress, and I managed to crack part of the Z axis while testing the machine.

First the good stuff:

I decided to mount the power supply and electronics in a cheap storage container, which is exactly what I did with my last machine.  I used an x-acto knife instead of a drill this time, and did not any issues with the plastic cracking like I did last time.  However using the x-acto knife to drill this many holes by hand did lead to a couple of good sized blisters, there is a better way I am sure.  This part is pretty much done with the exception of a toggle switch on the power supply AC so I can turn it off without unplugging it.

Case 1
Case 1

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This is just a place for me to put various things that for some reason or another I want people to have access to.

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