Well thanks to the vacation, holidays, and the drop in temperature it has been about two months since I have done any appreciable work on the machine, but I had a productive day yesterday and thought I would post an update.
I have completed all of the lead nuts and carriers, bearing blocks, and added a support to the bottom of the Y axis to firm things up.
Problems
I had some issues getting the Z carriage assembled and square, which was weird since it went together easily when I did the prototype. I think it must have something to do with the paint, so I will need to adjust the parts with a little more leeway.
Sitting on the bottom support are the bearing blocks that will go on the motor side of the lead screw, so thats 3 bearing supports on the Y and X axis.
The Z and Y slides are a bit tight, but I think I can do some fine tuning by tightening the bolts holding the bearing slides in to micro-adjust the tension. I have found that sides are looser on the ends, so I have had to tighten things a bit more than I would like too to make everything snug. Again I think the paint has something to do with this, as it was fine in the prototype.
I have had a few cracks develop when I tighten the clamps down on the pipes. So far I have just forced some glue into them and put a clamp on them, but I may look into to using something like Starboard (HDPE) for the clamping parts in the future.
Still left to be done:
1) Cut down lead screws and attach couplers.
2) Add supports to table and drill appropriate holes to connect it to the machine.
I picked up some EMT conduit that I plan on using to support the table, I was going to use some shelving uprights, but the conduit is much cheaper, if a bit more work.
3) Attach motors and electronics, and get EMC2 up and running.
4) Cut mounting brackets for the Ridgid R2400 router, and attach it to the machine.
Not sure when I will get more time to work on this, so the next update may be a few weeks from now.
Here are some additional pictures of the current state of the machine:
Hi,
well done on a great design.
I would be interested in seeing the plans for this if possible?
Colin.
I never released plans for the previous machine, I had planned on it, but I ended up redesigning it. I was getting ready to release what I had for the new machine when I was contacted by Joshua Updyke about using the plans to teach a class he was planning. I sent him what I had and he is making a very nice plan set with assembly instructions, non-cnc cutting instructions, solidworks models, and a bit more out of it. The plan right now is to combine his plans, instructions, solidworks files, etc. with my dxf, sketchup, Cut2d, g-code files, etc. into a digital download product and charge a small fee. The current release target is end of July, there will of course be an announcement when it is ready.