new cnc machine startover post....

... i didn't get the 1800 mm maker slides, but got the 1500 mm extrusions ... i've picked up the mid-rail supports, ...

It took me a while to see how the extrusions are designed to be used. This photo series on Inventables tell the story, showing them used as supports for the waste board.

What are you using for the supports? My Y-axis rails will be about 58" long after I cut them down.
 
after looking at the pic of the finished 500 x 500 machine again (just to get my bearings), the waste board sits on top of the extrusions on the ends. if i were going the normal way (normal, here?!), i would be using the extrusion in the gap under the waste board to support it. but as it will be sitting on top of the torsion box/vacuum table, the extrusions will be overlapping the ends of the box, with the waste board sitting on top of, and being supported by the box. i'll work up a sketchup version in a little bit and post it to my build thread.
 
been a bit, but there is news from this front. got the new maker slides for the longer slide rails. now just have to wait for warmer weather to cut them. ordered up and got the bandsaw blade for cutting the maker slide rails. went to home depot and picked up the mdf for the waste board. but first went over to pop's to get accurate measurements of the box, and much to my surprise, it was 3/4" longer than i expected. had the mdf cut to 24 x 50.5 inches. here is a pic of how the work surface will look like, with a one foot ruler for scale.
 

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what i have planned for that leo, is that when i have an idea of the full size, is to make a clear plexiglass cover, hooked up to the dust collector.

Dan, yeah, cool. Sounds like a great idea.

I know that my machines runs constant for as much as 10-14 hours in a single day - sometimes more, sometimes less. Not all at once but easily 4-5 hours continuously, then stopped only long enough for me to change cutters - program and get started on another hours long run.

What has held me back on hooking up really nice dust collection is that I don't want to run my dust collector for that duration of time.

Soo, I just let the dust fly and I vacuum and sweep periodically as I need to. Been doing that since 2007.

Sure - I don't have the most "cool" method, but I don't kill my Dust Collector either.

I work in a manufacturing industry with TONS and TONS of CNC machines (metal cutting) and we do have some ventilation sorts of things. Hey, but they don't need to worry about electricity and the equipment is all up to the industrial standards.

My plan is to build an enclosure around the machine with a box fan and furnace filter. Also like in several industrial applications a computer station that protects the computer and control box.
 
got a bit more along with the set up here. starting in with the wiring, and trying to figure out where they were mounting the terminal blocks. got that figured out (thank goodness for zip ties!), and had a chat with the inventables gang (good bunch there!) about attaching the terminal blocks, and the fact that the nema 17's come with about 2 feet of wire, whereas the 23's only have about a foot (kinda hard to run the far side motor across the x axis). the solution is to mount another terminal block, snip the wires from a 17 (good thing i have 2 left), and run the 23's wires to the block, then the borrowed wires from the block to the other side via the x axis. since i have a terminal block in the shopping cart, along with the other goodies that i will need for this slightly longer build, i'll be able to get a bit more done. hopefully in the next week or so, when the weather is more cooperative, i can move this from here to the shop and finish up the build. also, i have been working with sketchucam, converting all of my state and car cribbage boards (with this bigger setup i may go with my bigger 120 point state boards), and celtic knot trivets, from sketchup to gcode. there have been some bumps that way, but nothing that redrawing a few here and there won't solve.
 

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got a little bit more done over the last couple of days. got the wiring started as far as i can with the motors and spindle. checked the gantry for squareness, and found that i had put one of the belt jobbers on the right maker slide for the gantry, and one on the right end of the wrong maker slide, easy fix. had to scrap all of the gcode for the trivets, and cribbage boards, as all of the items i've drawn up are in the wrong orientation (green is the y axis, red is the x axis, and blue is the z axis). i've already gotten a good start on reorienting the drawings to the correct directions. for any other corrections to the drawings, i will be doing them on the desktop (no sketchucam), and generating the gcode on the laptop. with the warmer weather (28 degrees at the time of this post, and almost 60 by next wednesday) i will be cutting the extrusion for the x axis drag chain, and the maker slides for the y axis rails. i'll have to wait until this coming friday to order the other items that i will need to complete the wiring and such. then over to pop's to do the final setup on the bench.
 

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Dan it's all coming together nicely.

The axis orientation should be:

When you stand in front of the machine:

You being the zero point

"X" plus is to your right and going away from you ---- "X" minus is to your left and going away from you

"Y" plus is in front of you and going away from you --- "Y" minus is behind you and going away from you

"Z" plus is above you and going away --- "Z" minus in below you and going away

That is the orientation for all the industrial machine I have worked with (many many of them) and that is that same as my two machines, and every other machine I have seen.

The CAM software is also in that orientation when you see an object on the screen.

If you do anything different then that - you will always be converting.

NOW - determining where the "front" if the machine is, can also be a trick.

When I first got my machine I thought the front was the side furthest away from the gantry - I was wrong. My machine has the gantry to the left side when "X" is at the zero machine position.

This gives me a limit in the "Y" axis of the width of the gantry = 24", but any length I want in "X" because I can feed material thru the machine.
 
:huh: i'm keeping it simple leo, z axis controlling the up and down movement, x axis controlling the movement along the gantry, and the y axis along the length of the rail. i had an odd feeling, and checked the x,y,z orientation of sketchup, and found that the blue is the z axis, the red the x axis, and the green the y axis. i found that the drawings were all in the wrong orientation, with one of the sides as the z axis, and with what should have been along the y axis was along the x axis, and sketchucam generated all of the gcode that way. now i have everything oriented the correct way, with the length to the y axis, the width to the x axis, and the face towards the z axis. now if i were standing at the "front" of the machine (for me, the side of the gantry with the spindle), the x axis will be going left and right along the gantry, the y axis will be going towards or away from me on the length of the rails, and the z axis will be going up or down, no matter where i stand. so far my limits on this setup is +/- 12" on the x axis, and +/- 48" on the y axis.
 
I didn't think what I said was complicated, but I guess it could be viewed that way.

I've been at this stuff 30+ years, so sometimes what I think of as basic is maybe not so basic to others - sorry for that.

I don't want to confuse anyone, with my experiences.
I have been at this a very long time in industry and pretty set in my ways.
This is what I do for a living.

Generally - the long axis is "X" - but it can be whatever you want it to be.
You do not need to subscribe to convention.

I know a lot of CAD systems do not align with the axis conventions of CNC machines and it can be confusing.

Personally - I would not reference the axis alignments of my machine based on a CAD software.
To me - that is confusing and not simple.

I don't know Sketchup - I use other CAD systems - mostly AutoCAD, Draftsight for 2D work
I use Solidworks for 3D.
Those systems do not align with CNC machining

I have also used several professional CAM systems, like MasterCAM, SmartCAM, AutoCAM, Partmaker, and Aspire.
Those systems DO align with CNC machining - and can also do most of the necessary drawing need for the part being designed.

I don't know the CAM system you are refering to.

From my point of view - not following convention is not keeping it simple - it is confusing.

Sorry for sounding like I am complicating things. Just trying to help.
 
I'm with you on this one Leo but then I used to have an Andi WFD CNC (used AlphaCam on it) and a kitamura vertical mill CNC and when programing them (wrote all the g-code long hand on the Kitty) that is how you laid everything out.
Which Cam program would you buy of the ones you listed?
 
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