5' x 5' CNC Router Build

[Brent Dowell]

That's some next level thinking there. Big machine like that gonna need multiple switches!

 

[Darren Wright]

I got most of the switches installed tonight, but determined the type I have wasn't going to work on the X axis very well, so ordered a couple of plunge type switches that should come on Friday.

The Y axis home and limit switch


The Z axis home and limit switches.


And the Y Axis Slave Home switch. Having one on each side of the gantry allows me to square it by homing it.


I still need to cut some strike plates for the front and back of the tables for toggling the switches against. They will also act as stop plates in the even the switches fail to trigger.

 

[Darren Wright]

Spent time wiring up the limit switches and cleaning up the wiring.



The cpu cooling pump, radiator, and flow indicator showed up today too, so got them all laid out and a mounting board milled out for them.



I mounted them on the back of the gantry, used some extra silicon beer line I had on hand and connected it with the coolant line that came with the spindle.






I drilled a hole to be able to view the flow indicator through the board from the front as well.


Unfortunately I didn't have a 12v power supply big enough for the pump and fans, so ordered one, should arrive on Monday. I think I'm going to simply mount a 110v receptacle box on the back of the gantry and run an old extension cord to it. I think I'll have some need for power on the gantry from time to time, so makes sense to just install it there and can run a the 12v wall wart from it when it arrives to simplify the wiring.

I also have some 120mm fan filters coming, they will filter air being pushed through the radiator. I'll probably cover the other side with some steel mesh I have on hand.

 

[Leo Voisine]

Darren, is that spindle coolant flow indicator in an easily seen place? If not, it should be.

 

[Don Baer]

Darren, is that spindle coolant flow indicator in an easily seen place? If not, it should be.

Looks to me to be on the X axis gantry so unless the Z happens to be right in front of it it should be.

 

[Darren Wright]

Darren, is that spindle coolant flow indicator in an easily seen place? If not, it should be.

Yeah, the hole is on the right side of the gantry, where it won't be covered often. I may put an led back there to make sure it's lit up, but we'll see.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Wow! That's a lot of progress. Looks really good. Have you spun up the spindle yet?

 

[Leo Voisine]

I have mine right on the spindle in front where I see it all the time.

 

[Darren Wright]

I have mine right on the spindle in front where I see it all the time.

I actually have another on order that has a temp sensor/readout, I may install it up front when I get it.

 

[Leo Voisine]

I would love to have a spindle coolant temperature readout on my control panel.

I could not find anything in a reasonable temp range at a reasonable price.

What did you order?

 

[Darren Wright]

I would love to have a spindle coolant temperature readout on my control panel.

I could not find anything in a reasonable temp range at a reasonable price.

What did you order?

A couple of these out of China... https://www.ebay.com/itm/152620995501

 

[Darren Wright]

I got a late start today, but installed an electrical plug on the back of the gantry to power the pump and fans. The wall-wart I ordered that was supposed to come Monday, came today (woot), but need to go pickup some RV antifreeze to fill the system with.


I also 3d printed a little bracket to hold the barrel connector. I just drilled a couple of holes about 3/8" apart and looped a wire tie around it to secure it. The white wire coming from the pump is a tachometer sensor wire. I may see if I can get something setup with and Arduino to monitor it and display an red led or something if it's not running.


Lastly I spent the afternoon installing aviation connector ends on all the switch cables coming from the machine. I also pulled the Y axis drive connector that had a broken wire and repaired it. Lastly I installed all the switch panel connectors and wires. I just need to connect up all of them to the BOB.


I'm still waiting on a 10mm to 10mm shaft connector and the X axis limit/home switches. I may have a solution for making my current connectors work, but hoping amazon ships them soon. I'm getting close on having this running. I do need to pickup some more steel for the table, will hopefully get that done this week.

 

[Leo Voisine]

Thanks Darren I just placed an order

 

[Darren Wright]

I ran and picked up some RV antifreeze to use as coolant, got it filled it didn't take nearly as much as I thought it would. It only used about a quart and a half total, guess I'll save the other gallon and a half for pool closing in the fall.

So along with that I had to go through my spindle/vfd settings and finally got it to spin up, though I have some settings to change yet. Here is a quick test.

I also got the fan filters in today. They replaced the metal guards that came on the fans, but with the fans being right next to one another, I had to trim the edge off of each cover. I ended up just using some binder clips to hold them in place.


I re-used the old guards on the front side to help protect them radiator.


I still need to connect up the limit, home, and eStop switches. Also still waiting on two to arrive. I may try to go pickup metal on Wednesday to finish up the bed.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Love the sound of a spindle spinning up like that. Freaky quiet until you turn on the shop vac.

 

[Darren Wright]

I got the estops hooked up; most of the limit and home switches done; and the strike/stop plates milled out, drilled, and installed for the Y axis tonight.


I'm still fussing around with the settings in Mach3. for some reason the switches on port 2 are pulling active low, where port 1 switches are active high. Just need to do some research of my BOB and see what resistor/triggers they built into it. I also need to mess with the off-sets for homing/limits as once those trigger I can't reset Mach3 without disabling them or un-toggling the switches.

Things are getting really close to being able to start using it. I did do a dry run of a pretty large gcode file just to test everything out and was working as expected.

I may be replacing or boxing the plate for the Z axis as it does have quite a bit of flex to it, I put a dial indicator on and pulled/pushed on the spindle a bit I got several hundredths of an inch of play out of it.

 

[Brent Dowell]

I'm not sure I even want to see how much back and forth play there is with my z axis, lol.

Looks great!

 

[Darren Wright]

I'm not sure I even want to see how much back and forth play there is with my z axis, lol.

Looks great!

Thanks! It's about $30 for some 3/4" aluminum flat bar 12" long, then some longer screws. Could be that it's all in the bearing blocks, If so then it's just a matter of spreading them out. I'll lose some z travel, but should be worth it. Best to do that now before building to the final table height.

 

[Darren Wright]

I ran down to the steel shop and picked up what I think I'll need for the rest of the table over lunch. They are doing call-in orders only, you call them when you arrive and they have you pull up when it's your turn to load. I think that was the fastest I've ever been in/out of there. Of course I do tend to browse the show-room and drool over some of the tools they have in there. Oh, did get some 3/4" plate, if I still get flex with that I'll use the 1/2" plate to re-enforce it.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

I'm no expert, but I think if you're getting flex with a 3/4" plate steel bed, you're CNCing too hard, lol.