CNC conundrum...

[Don Baer]

AS you all know Carol was in the process of building a CNC and was able to get the bones put together before she got ill......



when she knew she was terminal we had many discussions as to what was to be done with all of her "Cool Tools" as she called them. Most of the shop went to a young man starting out in business, the son of her best friend Marilyn. The one piece of unsettled business was the yet to be completed CNC. Since she had already spent over $5000 on the framework she wanted to make sure that the alum pieces would not end up in a scrap heap. We had tossed around a number of ideas and since the young man starting out the shop had no desire to build a CNC in the end I ended up with the pieces to do with as I saw fit. Now I have been gathering up all the pieces and parts from her shop and have this to show.




Now it up to me to see what becomes of this. I am planning on re assembling it to find out what is need and also to try to figure out how I want to make best use of this. I believe that all that is missing is the electronics (motors, stepper drives and controllers and I will have a 3 axis something.

I am thinking several thoughts
1) Finish of the machine and have a 48x24 CNC router
2) Make it into 48x24 engraver
3) Make it into a 1200x600x200 3D printer.



Keep in mind I can't do wood working due to my health issues..
Right now I am planning of putting it back together to see what may be needed or is missing. I already know that I found the water cooled spindle but still have not been able to find the inverter for it.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Wow! That's a lot of extrusions.

Keep in mind, there are a lot of 'combination' machines out there. There is no reason you couldn't have it be a router with a laser added on it.

My guess is a 3d printer would require a lot more z axis, heated bed, etc that would make that more challenging.

We're here to help Don!

 

[Leo Voisine]

I know that Carol ordered a really nice water cooled spindle the same as the one I have. She may have gotten the controller to go with it.

It is about 4 hp, 220V variable water cooled with ER20 collet nose.

 

[Darren Wright]

Ironic that you posted this today, was just getting ready to start a 5x5 build thread I've been acquiring parts for.

You might ask Marylin if she can check Carol's emails for the CNCRouterParts email/site and see if she can find the original order to see what all it had received with it. May have included the Mach3/4 software too.

I think you have a lot of options. Though 3d printing may be a bit harder to do., however, with your weather you may not need the heated bed for part of the year, just a good flat plate of aluminum.

If you're running a dust collection on it you may be able to do a lot of stuff with it yet, woodworking wise that won't affect your health, taken the appropriate safety precautions.

 

[Don Baer]

Wow! That's a lot of extrusions.

Keep in mind, there are a lot of 'combination' machines out there. There is no reason you couldn't have it be a router with a laser added on it.

My guess is a 3d printer would require a lot more z axis, heated bed, etc that would make that more challenging.

We're here to help Don!

Multi Machine.....hmmmm it got a little over 2448" travel. How about a 24x24 router/engraver and a 600x600x200 3D Printer all in one... I did find a 600x600 (24"x24") heated bed and how many prints do you do over 8 inches tall ?

I know that Carol ordered a really nice water cooled spindle the same as the one I have. She may have gotten the controller to go with it.

It is about 4 hp, 220V variable water cooled with ER20 collet nose.

Yes Leo, I have the spindle with both collect in the original box but either Marilyn nor I have been able to find the inverter for it. We are checking to see if her son accidentally took it with him when he loaded up the woodworking tools.

Ironic that you posted this today, was just getting ready to start a 5x5 build thread I've been acquiring parts for.

You might ask Marylin if she can check Carol's emails for the CNCRouterParts email/site and see if she can find the original order to see what all it had received with it. May have included the Mach3/4 software too.

I think you have a lot of options. Though 3d printing may be a bit harder to do., however, with your weather you may not need the heated bed for part of the year, just a good flat plate of aluminum.

If you're running a dust collection on it you may be able to do a lot of stuff with it yet, woodworking wise that won't affect your health, taken the appropriate safety precautions.

Yes we have looked for the SW. I have the computer that Carol was planning on using and it doesn't have the Mach 3/4 on it. Still a few tings to look over at Carols house. Marilyn has been spending time with her family for the holidays but we will see what turns up after the 1st of the year.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Multi Machine.....hmmmm it got a little over 2448" travel. How about a 24x24 router/engraver and a 600x600x200 3D Printer all in one... I did find a 600x600 (24"x24") heated bed and how many prints do you do over 8 inches tall ?

Very doable I reckon. Just have to figure out how to replace the head on it. With as beefy as that is, you could probably mount the spindle, laser, and filament extruder all at once, lol.

Yes Leo, I have the spindle with both collect in the original box but either Marilyn nor I have been able to find the inverter for it. We are checking to see if her son accidentally took it with him when he loaded up the woodworking tools.

They aren't that expensive, but you will enjoy having a water cooled spindle. When I run mine, It's nice as quiet. The shop vac I have hooked up though makes me reach for hearing protection.

Yes we have looked for the SW. I have the computer that Carol was planning on using and it doesn't have the Mach 3/4 on it. Still a few tings to look over at Carols house. Marilyn has been spending time with her family for the holidays but we will see what turns up after the 1st of the year.

The Mach stuff is nice, but there are a lot of other controllers out there that would work well with it. Will need some beefy external stepper drivers though.

 

[Don Baer]

More pieces to the puzzle....

it looks like almost everything needed to make the machine move except the steppers. The Z axis is direct drive with a lead screw so this would be for the 2 X and the Y axis. The only thing missing is one of the motor pulleys. I may need to replace them anyhow depending shaft size of the motors I select.

 

[Don Baer]

and the good news is we found the inverter. Si I have a spindle with the controller. The motor has no name plats but the inverter says 3 HP so I believe the motor is the 2.2KW model they advertise. I have the original shipping paperwork and all it say is 1 spindle and 1 inverter....lol. The namual is with it but is in Chinese so I will have to see if I can get an English translation.. It does take 220 Volts single phase so I may sell this system and use the money to help pay for finishing the build and use a smaller spindle for my needs... well I stand corrected I went back and cheked the nameplat on the controller and it says 3.7 KW so it must be a 4 HP spindle system.. (HP=KW/.746, 3.7KW/.746=4.597HP)....hmmm closer to 5 but figuring 4 HP is close enough.... I try to find the english version of the manual...

 

[Don Baer]

I have pretty much made of my mind that it will be a 24x48x8 router/engraver/Laser and with the addition of a swivel knife vinyl cutter. I'll put off the 3D printer for now and just use the funds to finish up the machine.
I have the bones and just need to put together a stand and assemble the framework but I still have some unanswered question.
1. Motor size (like Darren leaning towards Nema 34)
2. Controller this will be dependent on what I choose to use for software, need to do a lot of research here. Not sure Mach 3 is the solution I want. I kinda would like the machine to stand alone without the need for a dedicated PC. May opt for a more intelligent front end I am just starting to investigate this aspect.
3. Spindle, should I keep the 4 HP water cooled spindle or opt =for something smaller. The 4 HP would require me to have 220 for the machine which complicates things and since I am not planning a production machine maybe something small would be more practical for my purposes. Also the water cooled spindle would require a water cooling system and that just makes the build more complicated. For my use I think it is gross overkill.

I will start a new thread on the build and leave this one open so the collective can help me out with the above questions.

 

[Leo Voisine]

and the good news is we found the inverter. Si I have a spindle with the controller. The motor has no name plats but the inverter says 3 HP so I believe the motor is the 2.2KW model they advertise. I have the original shipping paperwork and all it say is 1 spindle and 1 inverter....lol. The namual is with it but is in Chinese so I will have to see if I can get an English translation.. It does take 220 Volts single phase so I may sell this system and use the money to help pay for finishing the build and use a smaller spindle for my needs... well I stand corrected I went back and cheked the nameplat on the controller and it says 3.7 KW so it must be a 4 HP spindle system.. (HP=KW/.746, 3.7KW/.746=4.597HP)....hmmm closer to 5 but figuring 4 HP is close enough.... I try to find the english version of the manual...

Carol was at my house and we did some CNC machining while she was here. She liked my setup and my spindle. We went back to my source in China and ordered the exact same spindle I have. So I know what the spindle is. It is the 4 hp spindle. Very nice spindle in my humble opinion.

Show me the controller and I will compare it to mine --- it should be the same.

I use Mach3 on Win10 - but there are lots of choices.

I am going to look up a bit, but lately I have heard of a different computer design - Solid state hard drive - sounded like a great choice for a dedicated computer - not subject to dust.

edited in
Here is a sample of one. Mini-PC
I know a few people using this sort of thing. If I even need to replace my PC - it will be with this.
https://www.amazon.com/Fanless-Desk...1_16?keywords=computer&qid=1577987608&sr=8-16

 

[Brent Dowell]

Don,

I have a much smaller water cooled spindle, .8kw, but the controller is still 220. When I was looking, it was pretty hard to find a controller that worked on 110.

What size machine was Carol planning to build? I thought it was larger than 24x48? I'd be hesitant to cut it down too much. Heck if that's the size machine you want, you could probably sell off Carols extrusions/parts and pocket some change. I'm already wishing my CNC had a larger footprint.

I know I'm a broken record on this, but I really like using a raspberry pi to run my machine using cncjs. It lets you have your machine anywhere and control it from your existing computer wirelessly, or even with a tablet in the shop without having to have a dedicated 'computer' connected to it.

 

[Don Baer]

Carol was at my house and we did some CNC machining while she was here. She liked my setup and my spindle. We went back to my source in China and ordered the exact same spindle I have. So I know what the spindle is. It is the 4 hp spindle. Very nice spindle in my humble opinion.

Show me the controller and I will compare it to mine --- it should be the same.

I use Mach3 on Win10 - but there are lots of choices.

I am going to look up a bit, but lately I have heard of a different computer design - Solid state hard drive - sounded like a great choice for a dedicated computer - not subject to dust.

edited in
Here is a sample of one. Mini-PC
I know a few people using this sort of thing. If I even need to replace my PC - it will be with this.
https://www.amazon.com/Fanless-Desk...1_16?keywords=computer&qid=1577987608&sr=8-16

I appreciate your checking this, here is a picture of the controller and also the Nameplate. Another concern now is the nameplate states 3 Phase 220 input which is out of the question. I did locate an English version of the manual and will red it. Inverters take the AC input convert it to a DC then convert it back to a variable frequency AC output so it may be acceptable to power it from single Phase. I would be curious to see the nameplate on yours and how it is wired.

Don,

I have a much smaller water cooled spindle, .8kw, but the controller is still 220. When I was looking, it was pretty hard to find a controller that worked on 110.

What size machine was Carol planning to build? I thought it was larger than 24x48? I'd be hesitant to cut it down too much. Heck if that's the size machine you want, you could probably sell off Carols extrusions/parts and pocket some change. I'm already wishing my CNC had a larger footprint.

I know I'm a broken record on this, but I really like using a raspberry pi to run my machine using cncjs. It lets you have your machine anywhere and control it from your existing computer wirelessly, or even with a tablet in the shop without having to have a dedicated 'computer' connected to it.

I thought it was going to be a bigger machine also Brent but piecing the extrusions back together the machine has a 51"x 37 1/2" base footprint which corresponds to a 24 x 49 work area which agree to the CNC Router parts PDF file. I am doing a proposed machine design in sketchup I'll be posting soon.. I will be getting back to the collective regarding the machine controls much to do lots and lots of research..

Another curious thing is the pulleys for the x and Y motors all have 1/2" bore which corresponds to shaft size for the Nema 34 motors but the Z axis has a 3/8 bore which is the dia. for a nema 23 motor.......

 

[Darren Wright]

I thought it was going to be a bigger machine also Brent but piecing the extrusions back together the machine has a 51"x 37 1/2" base footprint which corresponds to a 24 x 49 work area which agree to the CNC Router parts PDF file.

So some of the extrusion parts must have not made it to you? The original image did show it assembled as about 5' x 5'. Either way I guess you have what you have.

 

[Leo Voisine]

Looks like INPUT is 220v - maybe single phase
OUTPUT is 3 phase - but that's ok.

Looks like the same as mine - but I will try to see the same plate you are showing.

 

[Leo Voisine]

I appreciate your checking this, here is a picture of the controller and also the Nameplate. Another concern now is the nameplate states 3 Phase 220 input which is out of the question. I did locate an English version of the manual and will red it. Inverters take the AC input convert it to a DC then convert it back to a variable frequency AC output so it may be acceptable to power it from single Phase. I would be curious to see the nameplate on yours and how it is wired.

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I thought it was going to be a bigger machine also Brent but piecing the extrusions back together the machine has a 51"x 37 1/2" base footprint which corresponds to a 24 x 49 work area which agree to the CNC Router parts PDF file. I am doing a proposed machine design in sketchup I'll be posting soon.. I will be getting back to the collective regarding the machine controls much to do lots and lots of research..

Another curious thing is the pulleys for the x and Y motors all have 1/2" bore which corresponds to shaft size for the Nema 34 motors but the Z axis has a 3/8 bore which is the dia. for a nema 23 motor.......

I think I remember her saying she was satisfied with NEMA 23 in Z due to the mechanical advantage. I disagreed with her. I had a machine with NEMA 23 on Z and had trouble with it.

Personally - I would not do NEMA 23 especially with a heavier spindle - but that is my opinion.

I am willing to show you anything you want to see on my machine.

 

[Leo Voisine]

Don,

This is what is in my machine - I believe you have the same as what I have. Model # is slightly different, but I think just a new revision of the same controller.

I do not have 3 phase power to my house at all.

 

[Don Baer]

Thanks Leo, I suspect the inverters will work on 1 Phase as wall as 3 Phase input. That is how most are made since the first thing the inverter does is convert the AC into DC then turns it back to AC variable frequency AC. It look like these unit will go all the way up to 600 Htz. I found an english version of the manual if you need a copy let me know and I'll E mail you PDF file. Thanks gain.

 

[Leo Voisine]

Thank you, I would like the manual