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A friend designed & built this CNC Mill / router... it's still a work in progress (apparently) but I thought that some of our visitors would appreciate it... First run videos with some wood & aluminium routing down the bottom of this page... |
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1 November 2009 (updated & corrected 28 Dec 09)- Construction method: Oxy set, 20 year old benchtop pedestal drill, 125mm angle grinder, cordless drill, hacksaw, 4 files, 100mm precision square, 600mm builders square, taps, dies, drills, screw drivers, alan keys, 200mm vernier, 25mm 0.01 resolution dial micrometer, 25mm 0.01 resolution outside micrometer, 600mm steel ruler, layout blue, sciber, soldering iron, magnifying glass, patience... Machine: Mach3 driven Makita laminate trimmer with variable speed (built into controller box) under NC control, 600mm x 450mm x 120/240mm with repeatability of 0.1mm, or 350mm x 450mm x120/240mm in high rigidity configuration with repeatability of 0.02mm. Controllers are (home) modified Pacific Scientific controllers delivering 3 x 62V (power zener regulated) @ up to 5 amps each (fed by large torroid transformers in separate housing, the small case on top of the controller, last picture on this page, right bottom corner) with facility for 4th axis built in. Microstepping is set to 10:1 (2000 steps / revolution - 1.8 degree motors). Not sure of the weight, but two people can easily lift it... thanks to the predominantly aluminium construction. It machines plastics, wood and aluminium at a decent rate. Even though the machine has not been "pushed" yet (so it is unknown how much it will take), a carbide 3/4" router bit with a 1/4"shank happily stripped 1mm from an aluminium plate@ 500mm/min. Apparently the poor laminate router was not particularly happy about that test though... Update: the machine has now successfully milled craftwood @ its maximum throughput (limited by Mach3's kernel rate..). Scary to watch when milling small pockets though... LOL.. |
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The base under construction - all aluminium |
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Stage II - X & Y axis complete |
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"Z" axis mounted (100 x 100 steel tubing) |
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The electronics |
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500mm of 100 x 10mm flat steel, an oxy set, an angle grinder, a square, a file, and patience... |
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NEMA 34 motor mount detail. The bracket is 10mm 6262 aluminium secured by 5 x 6mm machine screws. This stepper motor is a surplus Pacific Scientific bipolar Sigma "E" series (E31NRLT-LNF-NS-00) stepper delivering around 337oz/in. It is rated at 2.7A/phase and is fed by 5A @ 62V as multiple windings are activated simultaneously. At a top speed of 1500rpm, and twisting the 16mm zero backlash C7 ballscrew with a 5mm lead, the table can theoretically cover (1500 x 5) 7500mm / min or 125mm (5") per second in the "Y" direction whilst the "X" axis is driven by a surplus Pacific Scientific dual-stack beast with 3000rpm (also at 62V) & a screw with nearly 10mm lead, leading us to de-tune that one significantly lest the table decides to leave its mounts and find its own way home... The "Z" is a relative slouch as it has a lead of around 1.5mm and a very small Nema23 stepper.. but it's plenty quick enough (4,500mm/min max) when the juice is poured on whilst going some way towards protecting the rest of the machine against outlandishly wrong g-codes...perhaps we'd better consider watching our "g-codes" better or consider the installation of limit switches and mabye even a couple of z-axis cushions... The drivers are modified surplus Pacific Scientific 6415 units, but we'll cover them a bit later and show you how to do that...At 72V and 7.2A peak they really are an awsome driver if you can get them for the right price, especially with decent PacSci stepper motors... In all, the machine appears plenty fast and strong enough for now... |
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Videos |
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