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Darren's CNC - Rebuild

I spent some time this last week upgrading the motors on my CNC. At the time I built it the motors weren't as plentiful as they are today, and prices were matching demand, so only went with 80 oz/in motors at the time. Well, I saw that motor prices have dropped way down and was able to order some 425 oz/in motors for $39 each (would have been $200 each back when I built my machine). I got them on Thursday and installed that evening.

This is one of the old motors
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The new motors...
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I re-used the stand I built for the original photo booth I built for our 2010 Halloween party as the standing desk for the machine.
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The machine...
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I spent all weekend messing around with new software and trying to get things to move the right ways when they were supposed to. I finally got it to make some saw dust this afternoon.
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I also gave up on trying to learn the EMC software. As free as it was, I'm not much of a linux guy, so I found it less friendly to troubleshoot and a bit of a hassle to work on the drawings and transfer them to the PC for it. So I dropped the dime for Mach3 (after testing out the demo) and have been happy with using it so far. Also got a joystick hooked up to jog the router head around even.

The new motors are a little faster, but the original power supply was only 24 volt, so I've also got a 40 volt PS on order that should speed them up quite a bit.
 
Oh man i got to stay away from posts like this. I saw Dans and it pushed my buttons. If i was retired I think i would be a make enthusiast full time. My only issue is I want to go out and sell everything i see. :)

That plastic printing, oh boy that is real trouble....but in a really nice way.

How far we have come in such short time. I remember paying an absolute fortune to have some parts grown in stereolithography bath to get some sales samples made back in the day. For less than that single project today I could have purchased an entire large 3D plastic printing machine.

The only real issue thats an obstacle today is creativity. :)
 
Very nice design Jim! :thumb:

Rob, you are correct, imagination is about all you need anymore with these (once you learn some software). My wife was all for me getting it running again. She has a scroll work project she's wanting me to try, though I think I'm going to have to have a CNC plasma cut out what she's really wanting. ;)

Like Dan mentioned on his thread, there's not much of a reason I couldn't do a plastic extruding head on mine, just haven't gotten that far yet.
 
One of the things (besides time and other cooler additions like a rotary 4th or laser head) that has been holding me back from a 3D printer head is that unless you spend a great deal of money, the resolution on them isn't terribly good so you get fairly rough parts out of it, or so I've come to believe. I may be missing out on a whole range of extruders that can do a better job than what i've seen. So far, with the corrugated surfaces I've seen, the only way I'd want to do it is to be able to machine away those uneven surfaces to get finer details and more accurate parts off it.

There's an idea ... a multi-head machine that extrudes some stuff then machines it to fine tolerances.
 
Brown visited today, dropped off a new power supply for the CNC. I upgraded from 24 volts to 40 volts. Speed jumped from 15 ipm to 30 average. I did start to get some whipping in the screw, so had to slow back to 25ipm to run it reliably.

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Yes, Though it doesn't seem like much, double the speed is noticeable. I also figured out the spindle speed control in Mach3 tonight, still need to do some tuning of it, but at least have it working. So far I still have some frustrations in getting files edited, gcode created, and cutting; but much of it is just learning curve for me and lack of time. :rolleyes:
 
Hmm, I have to catch up on NC. I have an old store boughten one that I bought second hand long ago. Hope to get it running which should be just getting a computer to talk to it. As mentioned early in this thread, if using windows you have to shut down all the interrupts. This machine was running on an antique laptop then on a Vista machine. Not real interested in the NC anymore although I have considered the kind of things I could do with a dumb fourth axis to spin something while the NC whittled on it.

More inclined to get it running and put it up for trade for a mo-bigger lathe!

Hu
 
Well, time to resurrect this thread thanks to Dan and Bill, I got the bug to get my machine running again.

Last I used it I had just moved to Mach3, which works great and also updated the power supply, which had increased my speed from about 15 ipm (inches per minute) to about 25, but was having an issue with the Z axis losing steps and messing up my projects. One of the big problems I still had was the 1/4-20 all thread causes too much friction and heats up the motors, so I had to pause cuts and let them cool off to prevent this from happening. The faster stepper motors turn, the more they lose torque, so I'd have to slow down the speed enough that the router bit was getting hot and burning. It also doesn't help that they have never really been straight, so they whipped really badly when they started spinning too fast, causing them to bind.

I had planned on buying ball screws and just building a new machine, but happened to run across the Openbuilds.com site and saw they had a parts store. They happened to have some acme screws were of the right length and I could update all my screws for about the price of what one ball screw was going to cost me. So I now have screws, nuts, collars, and bearings on order to get my machine updated. With the 2mm pitch, it looks like I'll be updating to about 3 turns per inch rather than 20, so should help with it losing steps and overheating.
 
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Woohoo! That's cool!

What are the specs of your steppers and power supply, out of curiosity? If it's earlier in the thread and i've just forgotten, I apologize.

Edit: Well... duh me. 40v and 425in/oz ... you'll be fine with the higher lead screws. That was what i was after :D
 
Jason Beam said:
Woohoo! That's cool!

What are the specs of your steppers and power supply, out of curiosity? If it's earlier in the thread and i've just forgotten, I apologize.

Edit: Well... duh me. 40v and 425in/oz ... you'll be fine with the higher lead screws. That was what i was after :D
Click to expand...

Well, And I've decided to use the linear rails on this one that I've been hording for a while and do away with the gas pipe rails, so it should be a whole lot less friction in the slides and more accurate overall.
 
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