8020/MDF Hybrid Desktop

[CarveOne]

Looks really good Josh. I'm very interested in how your machine runs as I have some of Ahren's carriages on the way for my 2nd build.

CarveOne

[FandZ]

That looks freaking fantastic. I even had the wife check it out. I have to do an 80/20 build at some point.

I have a few questions. How did you decide on your gantry height? Without having an actual router in my hand, it is one thing that I'm debating on.

Also, I'm attaching a pic, Will you brace the rollers on the other side? Or is it stiff enough when torqued tight that there will be no bowing?

And man, that was a mean tease only posting a 7 second video. At some point your gunna have to give us more.

[FandZ]

Cool idea for the linear bearings, man bet that really cut down on the cost of your build. Do you think wear on the bearing surface will be an issue? Is the tubing aluminum or something else? Can't wait to see the machine put together.

-Josh

Of course, money wise, they really cost nothing. Maybe 5 or 7 dollars per roller going off of lowes prices and online bulk skate bearing purchase.

Right now they are on aluminum. But I do have steel square extrusions that they will be rolling on once the machine is complete. Lowes was out of the steel square when I was making them but they had an 8ft section for $10 of aluminum, so for a trial I went aluminum.

Wear on steel isn't an issue. Rolls great on steal and the strength is great. Aluminum shouldn't be done for rails. I Can tighten the roller assembly to a point where it bites into the aluminum, leaving a notable pivot for the rollers to snag on.

I'll probably redo the roller assembly in steel but the aluminum could be used for that.

[FandZ]

Hey Josh, I haven't started a build thread yet, but I have posted a few blogs on it. Here is the latest entry. My little eight legged freak can finally stand on its own.

It's not sexy but it has some grunt. Anyways. http://icrontic.com/forum/blog.php?b=111

[jwillhite]

Here are the cad files for anyone who is interested: http://www.cnc.draft-design.com/CNC_CAD.zip

The design was done with Inventor 10, the assembly file called "CNCA.iam" is the file you want to open, all the other files are the parts that make up the assembly... its not very organized.

There's a free Inventor viewer here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet...112&id=9627721

Just to reiterate the contents of the file are not a finished work, there messy and disorganized.

[jwillhite]

Looks really good Josh. I'm very interested in how your machine runs as I have some of Ahren's carriages on the way for my 2nd build.

CarveOne

The bearings are working great for me so far, there's kind of an art to adjusting them just right. I would plan on spending some time getting them dialed in. It definately depends on your machine geometry and the quality of the materials.. I wish the steel I got from speedy metals was a little more uniform in thickness. I can see a slight variance over the length of the rail, thanks to Ahren's forgiving bearing design though it looks like it shouldn't be a problem.

[jwillhite]

That looks freaking fantastic. I even had the wife check it out. I have to do an 80/20 build at some point.

I have a few questions. How did you decide on your gantry height? Without having an actual router in my hand, it is one thing that I'm debating on.

Also, I'm attaching a pic, Will you brace the rollers on the other side? Or is it stiff enough when torqued tight that there will be no bowing?

And man, that was a mean tease only posting a 7 second video. At some point your gunna have to give us more.

Thanks for the positive feedback. The gantry height I just figured based on the amount of travel I had and the location of the router/size of the bit to be used.. kind of guesstimated basically. I'm able to move the gantry up and down on the vertical Y pieces which is nice. I have a max Y clearance of around 8" I think .

Don't plan on adding any more braceing to the bearings those two 5/16" bolts should handle what ever I can throw a then... I hope.

haha second video coming up shortly. Not nearly as long as the one you were able to post, you must have a pretty fast connection for that to not take forever..

[jwillhite]

Hey Josh, I haven't started a build thread yet, but I have posted a few blogs on it. Here is the latest entry. My little eight legged freak can finally stand on its own.

It's not sexy but it has some grunt. Anyways. http://icrontic.com/forum/blog.php?b=111

hey checked out your build blog pretty cool, I almost did something similar.. I keep telling myself I'll get it all orgainized and posted but it never seems to happen. Great video you posted with the axis demo, looks super smooth that should work out really well. haha nice you let your kids in on the action they seemed pretty pleased about it.

[jwillhite]

so here's the machine with all working axis



you can't really see it but I just ran it through the EMC2 AXIS test run. Its running there at 120 in/min and 30 in^2/sec acceleration. Seems to handle that just fine I think I could crank it up quite a bit but want to enjoy it for a while before I break anything.

I've been looking at routers online... there expensive. I have these motors lying around from previous projects:

Here's the label:

Looked online and found a data sheet for them:http://www.specamotor.com/en/Dunkerm...eet_motor.html

There rated at 240 watt continuous use and 1629 watt peak use, that works out to ~1/3hp continuous and 2-1/8hp peak @ 3200 rpms. There very quality heavey duty motors I'm thinking I might try and get a Taig or Sherline spindle set up and see if I can hack everything together... I'll look here on the zone and see if its been done before.

[jwillhite]

Got an enclosure done and have been cutting some wood..



The dust is a real issue as it builds up on the bearing surfaces. I need to figure out some kind of dust control.

[FandZ]

Sounds like you need like you need one of those vacuum hoods. Saw dust really caught me by surprise too. It gets everywhere.