I'm direct driving if I find torque is low I will up the motors but only after I deal with the electronics I'm going to fill the cavities in my extrusion with 35% epoxy 15% carbon fibre powder 50% aluminium powder which will add 4kg's and cost ~£50 my gantry will weigh close to 20kg's in total lol but I think the rail will take it without blinking and make the machine far more capable.by Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
On microstepping something for perspective for ballscrews only, belt drives are different beasts. I have a 1605 ballscrew which means 16mm wide 5mm per rotation travel. So I take a standard 1.8° motor which is 200 steps per revolution with microstepping single step resolution's are 1. 5/200 == 0 microsteps 0.025mm 2. 5/1600 == 8 microsteps 0.003125mm 3. 5/3200 == 16 microsteps 0.0015625mm I cby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
What puts me off the duetETH (Or similar) boards is the built in steppers if one blows you have hassle. Not sure if you can bypass the onboard stepper drivers easily. Although cut the right traces and creative soldering anything can be done When I start spending over £50 I start to think about buying second hand stepper drivers I see on ebay for ~£50 each and a suitable board (Ethernet based prby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
Thinking about upgrading to 4 TB6600 drivers (~£20) to get more out my nema 23's. I have 3* 3 amp nema 23's 1.9nm and a 350w 24v power supply already, I have a smaller nema 23 which I might use on the z axis or I might get another 1.9nm nema 23 (£21 delivered).by Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
Quoteo_lampe Mine looks the same, but mentioned 4 bearings. Don't know if it makes a difference? From what I heard on other forums the 4 bearing ones are quite a bit better I'm hoping this is a 4 bearing one (There are clues in the listing but we shall see). I'm pretty certain whatever I get I made the right decision going with a spindle instead of a router, next is get a collet set and some endby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
Slowly getting there Left to right BF12 mount to T slot extrusion Nema 23 mount to T slot extrusion (Will bolt into 2 rows of T nuts) Last 2 are DSG16 to gantry mount drives. Will print to scale to manufacture these but the gantry will be CNC'd. Ordered a 2.2kw spindle today ?by Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
QuoteVDX ... the cavities in the common extrusion profiles aren't wide enough to give much of stiffness - better search "light" types with big caities and thin walls. You can use any 2K epoxy resin with sand - it should be roughly 6% of the resin, compared to the sand volume, for highest stiffnes values ... My gantry has a large cavityby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
What I'm also considering is filling the cavities inside the aluminium extrusion with epoxy resin to strengthen everything up but have no clue which resin I should use.by Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
Quoteo_lampe I think 3mm steel will be strong enough to reproduce the brackets in 10mm aluminum. It's like "pulling yourself out of the mud on your own hair" ( quote from Baron Munchhausen stories ) Why tooling plate? Tooling plate is ground flat both sides, aluminium plate is surprisingly wobbly (20mm thick over 1m can be up to 0.2mm deviation) so I'm using tooling plate to mount the gantry tby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
I think you will have a very nice cutter there, I've just ordered aluminium tooling plate to make my mounts from cost me £90 delivered plus the processing costs (we shall see next week but a friend works for a large cnc firm and is going to get it done on the cheap). I went with 20mm thick unsure how that compares to 3mm steel but my gantry will be heavy as I'm going to strengthen it with 10mm sby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
I'm sure that it would work very well, I was considering raising and lowering the gantry arm like a prusa but not this time maybe next build. Means 2 motors, 2 ballscrews and supports/rails for z axis but has the advantage that you just bolt the spindle mount to the gantry and flex on the gantry is reduced (Like a vertical machining centre). Having a z axis for your laser is also great as the chby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
quick fix with a vice and some scrap aluminium one of these bearings is 1 of the fixed ones can you tell whichby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
finally started to put it together Mounting plates will be made this week Some of the bearings were wonkyby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
I'll be interested how it works? I have a spare ramps, mega & steppers but I also have an uno so I bought a cnc shield (£3.50). I have a 24v power supply so it's probably easier to use the cnc shield as I would have to do some minor mod to the ramps to use the 24v power supply. I'm sure I will end up with the same make of inverter but I haven't bought the spindle/inverter combo yet so will reby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
I just got my spindle mount for a 2.2kw and was shocked how big the mount is alone lol, water cooled is best way if you want to stay sane as they are far quieter but have a lot of other advantages as well. Make sure you get a pot for the vfd to control spindle speed but sure you're on it The extrusion can take the weight no problems but it's the flex, if you have access drill press and are ok wby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
That's a very good price for the frameby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
He never said what he had to hand if he had a shapeoko kit to hand then yes he should build one. If he has nema 17 and 8mm smooth rod then he's going to have problems. In the UK shapeoko kits are not that cheap (I'm guessing all of the EU) £1000 for such a small build area I can build something with ballscrews, linear rails all round & 4 nema 23's for a similar price obviously though ifby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
I went the ballscrew and linear slides but originally I was looking at something like this If I was to belt drive I would definitely try and make a belt and pinion. I agree with o_lampe though but I would fit a 2.2kw water cooled spindle (I am) instead of a router.by Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
Quoteo_lampe I'm also concerned about dust and debris contaminating the rail carriers. My mgn12 have dust covers on the sides, but you can see the balls from below. They should have greasing point the greasing pushes debris out (It might be blanked off and you need to add a grease nipple mine are) but mounting the rails sideways on outside the frame also reduces debris and of course a dust shoeby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
Quotecozmicray Perhaps this should be titled "very expensive British build" Confounds me how a $21 USD item becomes $130 (100 pound) in UK They make sure you don't use anything outside the island? but The proper UK linear slides should thrill the Queen? £99.00 with the £500.00 Economy Delivery (used Rolls Royce) Where is the linear rail production factory located in the UK? Alternativeby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
I was going to go makerslide route but £100 ($130) delivered by the time you factor in the extras needed for makeslide +P&P to get the same sized profile sourced in UK would cost 80% of what the hiwin's cost so it was a no brainer. at this price for 2 1500mm Hiwin rails with 4 blocks makerslide became a lot less attractive, especially as it was EU shipped and I had them within 3 days no taby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
Got ballscrews now, next step make mounting plates & a z axis and we can start assembly. I've had the motors (Nema 23's all round) running from an Uno, CNC shield & Polou stepper combo with 24v but will be buying a proper driver/breakout setup soonish and will get a 2.2kw spindle next week. Making a simple gantry design I haven't cad in the ballscrews yet as I needed to wait for themby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
I've got a mendel I'm upgrading to a graber I3 and rebuilding it teaches you so much that I'm also building a cnc router as well which I would not have the confidence for if I hadn't rebuilt the printer. Coming with no instructions makes it that much more fun working out how everything fits togetherby Desertboy - Prusa i3 and variants
3d printed mill lol when people start talking shit like this you start to think that converting that wobbling drill press is not such a bad idea lol. I'd like to recommend silverline drill bits for this type of machineby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
Santa came twice today Bearings for the supported rail am very very happy with them making me reconsider how I build the bigger one. When you have 25mm supported rail it's a different beast to 16mm crap they build the chinese cheap ones from. Hiwin rails are too small for purpose but were cheap 15mm but they are 1500mm long with 4 blocks. They will do for now but they are on the upgrade listby Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
I bought a cnc shield v3 for the arduino Uno (This is only temp solution to get working) once I feel better off I will change to T6600 drivers with a breakout board so I can use either linuxcnc or Mach 3 and increase the amps to the motors. I'm going to drive this with 1 24v supply (have a 350w) and the arduino powered by the usb.by Desertboy - RAMPS Electronics
Thanks for the replies, I think I understand how to modify the ramps board. I looked at the grbl shield but I want to keep my budget low and I can buy a ballscrew with mounts for not a lot more than that and I would like to use 4 stepper drivers so I can drive the x axis with a driver for each motor to get the full 2 amps to all motors. If I understand the GRBL shield it has only 3 drivers so altby Desertboy - RAMPS Electronics
Hi I'm building a cnc milling machine and I want to control the machine using a spare set of electronics I have to keep costs low. I have a spare Arduino Mega 2560, ramps 1.4 & 5 Polou stepper drivers. I already connected a couple of the nema 23's to my ramps board of my printer and drives them both fine will be looking at motors' around the 2.3 amp range as I know these drivers will only dby Desertboy - RAMPS Electronics
Changed the bed size a bit so should get 120cm*80cm build area, will be using 2 slides each for both X&Y, at moment looking at side mount for the slides as pictured.by Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping
That is exceptionally good value and a reasonable build area it's too small and under powered for me but a couple of years ago I would have loved to have this. Excellent toy and good intro level for teenagers onwards.by Desertboy - CNC Routers, Mills, and Hybrid RepRapping