Reconfig of the Carol/Don/Brent CNC or as I like to call it, the Big CDB.

[Brent Dowell]

Well, Haven't shown much progress the last few days, but I've been working on it. Found some things that must have come loose on the trip up to reno, so I've kind of taken it all apart to just add a little loctite to some things and make sure everything was tight and square.

For example, some of the corners opened up and were not quite tight to each other.


The Gantry wasn't sitting quite tight on the risers, and I noticed there are a couple of little anchor fittings that must have gone missing before Don got the machine.


Like Don, Once I got things back assembled I was finding that there was a tilt to the gantry that was driving me crazy. I tried several times to correct it, but found that part of my problem was checking it with a not so square 'square'. So I went to the pile of squares until I could find one that was closest to square.


I then took a suggestion Darren had made about using a laser level to make sure the bed was coplanar. I loosend up the corner bolts, put the laser on a support and used a little block of wood, a pencil and shims to make sure the bed was flat and level and then tightened everything down again.


And success, It ended up being perpendicular on both ends without a whole lot of messing arounds.


I also decided that if I do want to do a rotary, I'll do it along the X axis end of the machine, which gives me 4' of room instead of the Y, which would only give me 2' of room.

I ordered a new crossbar and some other fittings in order to make that happen.

While I wait for all that, I think I'll get started on the Electrical components next.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

At 2450Kg per caster it is a bit overkill isn’t it? Even if they were 245Kg. Maybe you took the saying “in case of doubt build it stout” too far

They are 2450 newtons, which translates to about 250 kilograms or a bit over 550 pounds each. I have similar ones on my 750 pound lathe, and they're rated at 550 pounds each. These should do great under the Big CDB.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Still plugging away slowly. The shop is still mostly usable. I'm really trying to develop the habit of using a tool then putting it away and trying to keep things in order.

Needless to say, I've still got a lot of room for improvement.


Today I laminated some sheet aluminum onto some ply to use as the backplate for the electronics enclosure.
Right now I'm playing a game of laying things out on the backplate to see how I might want to organize the electronics before I make cut the sides and box it up.



Trying to decide if I want to put the VFD Inside or not. The cool thing about the vfd is the control panel is removeable and can be placed remotely by using what appears to be a network jack. Need to do a little more research on that.

but it appears everything should be able to fit either way.



Next up will be to put some aviation connectors on the steppers and some end caps for them. Doing it because it's what Darren did, lol and I like stepper motors with removeable wires.

 

[Don Baer]

Brent, I kept the spindle away from the rest of the controls to lesson the chances of rf interference from the inverter. If you put the inverter in the same enclosure you might want to consider some rf filters.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Brent, I kept the spindle away from the rest of the controls to lesson the chances of rf interference from the inverter. If you put the inverter in the same enclosure you might want to consider some rf filters.

That makes sense. I do have some RF filters I'm going to use. I'd originally thought I would put it outside, so I think I 'll continue to do that. Thanks!

 

[Darren Wright]

Yeah, a noise filter on the power side of the vfd should be enough, but some ferrite rings on the spindle wires too should negate any noise

 

[Brent Dowell]

Well, Guess I'm going to have to take a pause and figure out how I'm going to mount my rotary access. Darren talked me into getting the same sort of mini lathe parts he got for making his.
It just kind of makes sense to do it now, rather than later.

I had a good sized Nema 23 stepper in in stock that should be just fine for this. The extrusions are just for demonstration only, as they would not be long enough to give me a full length across the front of the machine.

Didn't really make much of any other progress today as I ended up running to town this morning and helping my buddy do some wiring on his motorcycle this afternoon.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Decided that my current focus should be getting the bones of the machine ready for everything, so started going through it in detail. I feel like I should be making faster progress, but had a couple distractions and we got more snow today. Finding I can stand working out there in 40 degrees 'ok', but need to take some warm up breaks.

Spent the morning drawing up and working some cable chain supports. Went through a couple iterations, finally landed on this.


I got the new middle extrusion today so installed that and started going through the machine bolt by bolt. Found a few loose things here and there so took it apart a bit and just started torqueing things down to make sure everything was nice and tight.


Cut the pigtails off the steppers and installed some aircraft connectors.

 

[Darren Wright]

Looking good!