Osprey CNC upgrade

Leo Voisine

Member
Messages
5,703
Location
East Freeetown, Massachusetts
Well, this is the first real upgrade to my machine.

I had predetermined this upgrade long before I bought this machine. When I was machine shopping this upgrade was one of the top reasons for wanting the rack and pinion system. The insides of the machine are W I D E open.

Also one of the reasons for the height of the feet I put under the machine is so I could "fit" stuff inside the machine.

Well here is the beginning of the upgrade.

When I bought my smaller 24x24 machine for $250 it was on an aluminum extrusion frame table. The 3" square extrusion as well as other sizes made up the WAY oversized table. The top was a 5/8 thick 6061-t6 plate. The aluminum alone is with well over $1500.

Sooo - I cut the 3" 8020 to fit inside as cross members. I am going to bolt it to the steel machine frame with 1/2-20 hi strength bolts and 1/4 steel plate as washers. It's going to be an engineering overkill, but hay - it's what I can do.


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I removed the "T" track table top. There are 14 sections. I will cut the sections to make the front part of the machine available without removing the back section. OR They could be opened independently.


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I do NOT plan to mount my Porter Cable dovetail jig in the machine - this is just to show some intent.

I DO plan to build a more versatile fixture to mount on the machine as I need it.

The new Aluminum Extrusion cross members allows for vertical clamping. The machine bed allows for horizontal clamping.

I am finally getting to building kitchen cabinets and there will be many drawers. To start I am building two cabinets with 4 drawers each. I want to get the machine upgraded to make the drawer dovetails.

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If I really needed to I could put this whole cabinet in the machine and do CNC to it.


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This is the stuff I was thinking of when I was thinking about upgrading from the 24xc24 machine.

I ordered all the nuts and bolts and other hardware I need. McMaster is so fast I am sure I will have a lot of it next week.
 
It will be really interesting to see some of the cabinet work as it goes, that's one area of CNC I can really see the possibilities but can't quite visualize how they should be done.

The mounting options your modification provides is pretty interesting. Having all that space to move things around seems like it offers a ton of really interesting possibilities for doing large batch jobs at weird angles..
 
Very cool Leo. I've got a little overhang of my spindle an have always thought about doing a dovetail setup there. I'm currently doing some drawings for cutting stiles for louvered doors, which will need some holding jigs. :lurk:

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Very cool Leo, i like overkill :)

Just a thought but since u have the machine you have nothing is stopping you from machining your own full width dovetail template based on the porter cable unit. This way you could have say three draw sides mounted at once and be changing over parts while the machine is onto the next one. Would be heck of a productive and no down time once setup. I bet to set that up for a guy like u would not take much.

You should take look at what Frank Howarth is doing with his on his youtube channel. He did something similar iircc.
Here is a link to his new self build kit he put together. You need to look at some of his stuff since this for clamping.
https://youtu.be/dY8v0j6uEJc
 
I watch a bunch of fellow CNC shops. I have watched Frank for a few years. He is in process of building a new CNC routerparts machine. He may have finished it by now. There are others also. I also like what Roger Webb does. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVbRweyeFzc6j7_VYQjwxYQ/videos.

First time for me, but I did cut out the 2 four drawer cabinet carcasses on the machine. I had a full sheet of 3/4 Pine Ply on the machine, and on the table saw (outfeed table?). I did it in sections, but had it all laid out on full sheet. Scrap was minimal. Not much usable out of the scrapwood. It is incredible how well that worked out. I measured the plywood at .704, I cut the dados at .710 The fits were great, flat, square, parallel, perpendicular. Assembly, was perfect. Cutting out the carcase parts took MAX 1/2 hour, including dados and rabits. I did the sides, back, spacers, top and bottom shelfs and toekick. The backs were out of 3/8 and the rest was 3/4 (.704). I have a 92" pantry cabinet next.

It was a WORLD easier that trying to muscle a 4 x 8 sheet of ply on a table saw, jig it up on horses with guides, router dado guides and all of that sort of thing. Heck, the traditional can be saved for the knuckle draggers. All I want is nice cabinets. For that matter, I don't really care to make cabinets, I just happen to need them and I cannot afford to buy the ones I want.

Of course there are parts that are better done on the table saw and miter saw. The face frames never saw the CNC. I like to 1/8 roundover all the corners. The router table is better suited for that.

Like I have said before, CNC is just one of the many machines in the shop.

For the drawers I can do the Porter Cable jig. Works great and is pretty foolproof.

I have ideas for other stuff as well as standard doves for drawers. There are other interesting sorts on joints and cool stuff. Imagination takes over sometimes. (eyes rolling around in the head)

I can pretty much easily work on something full 4' long mounted vertical, maybe a little more. Table to floor is about 35" + 10" inches between table and bottom of gantry + about 10" of "Z" axis travel + or - tool length and maybe squeeze a little more with some creative ingenuity and crossed fingers.
 
So when you're cutting the cabinet parts on the CNC you're just using an upcut bit or?? No problems with tearout on the edges?

It seems like this would be the bees knees for euro style faceless cabinets, you could cut & do the 32mm setup very very cleanly..
 
So when you're cutting the cabinet parts on the CNC you're just using an upcut bit or?? No problems with tearout on the edges?

It seems like this would be the bees knees for euro style faceless cabinets, you could cut & do the 32mm setup very very cleanly..

The world I have lived in for the past 40 years has called it a right hand spiral 30 degree helix solid carbide end mill. But yeah an upcut bit. If it is sharp there is little to no tearout. I put the panel face down, so that I can also cut the dados and rabits with the same cutter at the same time. I use a 1/4 inch cutter for the entire job. With panels face down the net result is the same as a down cut bit on the cutout for the face. Wow that sounds muddy clear. Only one setup, for the complete piece with dados and rabits.

Not sure yet on the Euro hinge pockets - maybe. Cutting the pocket would be very clean. I would just need a fixture, but that is simple to do. Yeah, this is sounding like the thing to do. Jostling the door panels around on a drill press is also a bit of a pain.
 
Thanks!

The world I have lived in for the past 40 years has called it a right hand spiral 30 degree helix solid carbide end mill. But yeah an upcut bit.

:D I live in a slightly simpler world in that regard so forgive me...

I put the panel face down, so that I can also cut the dados and rabits with the same cutter at the same time. I use a 1/4 inch cutter for the entire job. With panels face down the net result is the same as a down cut bit on the cutout for the face. Wow that sounds muddy clear. Only one setup, for the complete piece with dados and rabits.

Yeah makes sense - you're more or less guaranteeing a clean cut on the face with this setup...

Not sure yet on the Euro hinge pockets - maybe. Cutting the pocket would be very clean. I would just need a fixture, but that is simple to do. Yeah, this is sounding like the thing to do. Jostling the door panels around on a drill press is also a bit of a pain.

Yeah I was just thinking production wise you can drill the pin holes and cut the hinge pockets and ... all in one pass... which would be pretty amazing! Even doing it as a second pass, you just need a indexing fixture which ends up pretty crazy fast in comparison to most alternative solutions.
 
Well, I tried something new today.

As part of the upgrade I needed to cut access holes into the welded steel frame. The steel is low carbon steel and not all that thick. It should be a piece of cake, but these routers are not machining centers and not really designed to cut steel.

So the cutting parameters

1) I just happened to have - 5 flute SGS TiAln coated end mills.
2) I ran at 8000 RPM
3) I ran about 20 IPM
4) I used a spiral ramp infeed at .002 DOC
5) I used Tap Magic cutting fluid

No problem at all.

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The hole is 1" wide x 3" long.

I will be bolting the 8020 with 2 - 1/2-20 High strength bolts. I am making special washers that are 1/4 thick 1" wide and 3" long. Each washer will have 2 holes for the bolts. The bolts will go through the 3" square 8020 extrusion with the special washers and very very very tight.

All of this so I can make CNC dovetail joints. I have seen some really cool joints out there. I will not be bound to the restrictions of a template.
 
That will work! I hadn't done any metal until last year on mine, just did some aluminum, but won't hesitate to do it again. I will work out a better splash pan before doing it again, other than the mess it cut well.
 
I have more pics and videos but have not had time to compile a youtube session.

Some history that is not shone here:
The TEE slot segments on the table are all individual segments that are 2" wide and about 54" long.
I cut them in half and added new 10-32 countersunk holes. The cut was 1/8 wide and I moved the front segments 1/8 north to but against the now new rear segments. I did not cut the two outer segments. That made the fronts uneven.

I trimmed the front with my circular saw.

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Though not as neat as I would have liked, it is pretty neat.

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Then I used the machine to drill all the new tap holes.
I tapped all 36 holes with my Bosch Battery drill. Made short work of it as it was 10 seconds at best to tap each of the 36 10-32 tapped holes.

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Made a new access hole in the right side same as left side.

When I put in the bolts I could not fit the 3/4 socket in the access hole. I just turned on the spindle and manually moved the machine with the hand pendant and widened the access holes like the machine was a Bridgeport. No problem - very simple.

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All ready for the next stage of the operation. Locating the 3" square extruded beams.

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I roughly located and held in place with clamps.
In this view you can see the access slots I made in the extrusion. I made the slots on all 4 sides so I could insert the "T" nuts into the "T" slots in the extrusion. I will have ready access; top, bottom, front, back on both sides. Plenty of places to be clamping.


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In order to get the beam in alignment with the "X" axis I lowered the spindle in the bracket on the "Z" axis and used a 10" long drill to get down under the table to help with the alignment. I gently touched the extrusion so the drill turned freely by hand and just touching the extrusion. I then zeroed out the "Y" axis, backed the "Y" away and moved "X" to opposite end of extrusion. I then moved "Y" back to zero and moved the extrusion to gently touch. I clamped and rechecked both sides. I would call that, within .001-.002 in about 48".

I then transferred the hole pattern from the extrusion that I previously drilled onto the machine frame. I drilled the 1/2 holed in the frame from underneath with my battery drill and a 1/4" bit. From that I put a 1/2 but in my battery drill and opened the holes through the access holes from above.

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I put the 1/2-20 fine thread high strength bolts in the access holes. I previously made some 1/4 CRS spacer washers to span the extrusion so I could crank the torque on the bolts and not crush the extrusion.

Used the drill alignment again and got the extrusion back to the .001-.002 alignment.

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In order to align the top extrusion and bottom extrusion I needed a "PRECISION" square. This is to align the top and bottom extrusions to be perpendicular to the table. I "know" that cutting the square on my machine is better than my flimsy framing square. It is FAR more precise on the 90 degree. I sanded it and rounded the edges a little. When I am done I will 1/8 roundover the whole thing on the router table. I may do some fancy "V" grooving and will Poly it. After all this IS a really nice square. 24" inside, 28" outside.

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This is how the square will be used.

In my estimation, this vertical champing is much nicer than Frank Hogsworths vertical clamping.

More to follow.
 
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