Another orange and black stainless build!

Hi,
Just thought I’d make a quick post for my nearly completed build. Orange and black seems to be the colour scheme of choice!

That was it set up just to test the electronics. It’s running on the SKR1.4 Turbo mainboard with TMC2208 stepper drivers in UART mode.

I cobbled together a torsion box frame out of some scrap MDF to make a more stable base which is nearly finished. Just need to get some sheets of ply to cover it with.

and fear not here’s the end of it’s first Crown drawing…well not it’s fisrt crown, it’s first successful crown!

Crown drawing

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It’s alive! Made my first cuts at the weekend. No major issues, slight wiring issue which was causing the dual endstops to not work properly but a quick switch-a-roo sorted that out.

Going to get the setup all dialed in now and tidied up. The wiring needs organising, need a box for the SKR 1.4 and get the base and a spoil board set up. Think I’'m going to go with a T-nut setup on the spoil board unless anyone has any better suggestions?

Here’s a quick video First cuts!

So I built my MPCNC in Oct 2019 (first timer here). I had decided on the same thing, but recently slightly changed. Let me elaborate.

First Spoil Board

I saw a lot of impressive spoil board solutions but went the t-nut for the following reasons:

First Spoil Board Issues

Yes, it work fine. But here are a few things I did not like:

  • I wanted mine to be flush on the backside when I inserted them. So if you look at the T-Nut it has a tapered collar and then a base. It’s a bit of a chore measuring all of this and doing test fits. However, really not that big of a deal.
  • I did not enjoy pounding them all in. Plus, probably cause I did not do the above step perfectly, not all hammered in identical. In other words, maybe not all as flush as I wanted.
  • Although the spoil board did work fine, I found some of the bolts did not thread in easily. I am not sure if this was because the nut was at angle, or the collar got slightly crushed during insertion and hammering.

Second Spoil Board

I made my second spoil board (now 1 month old) the same way but found the following:

Hope that helps, just my initial experience.

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Hey James,

Thanks, for that detailed response! I would prefer threaded inserts but I was worried about how well they’d hold up in the MDF. Are yours holding up OK?

So far, but I have not worked them hard. Here is how I look at it and advise:

  • In the scheme of things, worst case, they suck. The MDF and inserts are relatively cheap.
  • Due to the nature of MDF, I tried to install once, and NOT back them out. If you adjust them in and out trying to make them “perfect”, the MDF will just wear out and fail.
  • I do find so far, I am not getting the binding/crushing effect that I did when the T-Nuts went in. Meaning my bolts general seem to thread nicely.

Having said all that, you can always test. I did some test fits before doing the whole board. Get some scrap MDF and try both if you can get small quants of either solution.

Right now though, if I did another spoil board, without researching yet another solution, I would again do my 2nd option described above.

Cheers mate I’ll have a play around and see what works best, maybe over the weekend!

I really like the look of your build @random_maker

As for your spoil board I recommend using T-Slot tracks, rather than nut inserts.

My table is 3ft x 4ft, what I did was buy 3ft T-Slots, cut my spoil board into handful of 3ft x 6inch strips that have the T-Slots between them. This allows me to replace smaller sections of the spoil board.

This photo is an (early) example of me installing the spoil board on my first table.

I routed out a groove in the table itself so the T-Slots would sit lower, with just enough sticking above my table to create a guide for the 6inch spoil board parts (which you can see one on the far right installed in the picture); but if I did it again I wouldn’t inset them so deep.

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Isn’t there a chance of “hitting” the T-slots if you have a workpiece that spans more than 2 of the slots and you need to thrucut?

I may not have been clear and the picture isn’t great at showing it.

In my original design I routed out grooves into the table itself, set the T-Track in those grooves with just enough sticking up (1/8 inch) to act as a guide to put in the 1/2 thick strips of the spoil board. This means that there is 3/8 inch of “meat” above the T-Track. The picture I posted is with just the table (no spoil board parts) except one on the far right side thats a bit hard to tell that its different.

When I redo this, I am not going to cut the groove, which with 3/8 inch T-Track and 1/2 inch MDF, that will still leave me 1/8 inch of “meat” to cut into before hitting any of the tracks.

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Ah, then I get it!

Looks like mine, except, you know, NICE. My t tracks are 3d printed, so my spoilboard strips lay over the tops. That keeps them from flexing up and breaking when I REALLY want to crank down.

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I like these solutions best because if you really damage a section, you can easily replace a single strip rather than live with it until it’s bad enough to justify building a whole new spoil board.

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WHEN

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Hmmmm ok so now I’m leaning towards t-track. Really appreciate everyone’s comments. I think I might even go for a hybrid version. I really like the concept of just being able to swap out a smaller section when you mess it up rather than having to do the whole thing. :partying_face:

What is that you are cutting out there?

It’s pretty great. Replacing a section is as easy as cutting a strip on the table saw and then screwing it down. You can even pre-cut a few replacements so they are ready to go.

I did go a step further and I have threaded inserts on the table itself, so I can bolt the strips down. You can see these in the picture I posted. I did this so that I wasn’t constantly screwing directly into the table in the same spots each time I swapped strips out.

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@thedevilsjester This was my original plan but then I realized that it was going to add ~$130 to my build for Inca t-slots and my table size. Do you have a more cost effective recommendation?

I thought you could get generic t slot track from amazon or banggood. I love incra stuff, but I can’t imagine it would be that different from the cheap stuff.

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Print some. There are 3 or 4 versions on thingiverse. You can see it sticking out the end on the left. If you only vcarve, it might be good as is, but you’ll have do be gentle. Mine started to crack after repeated flexing (or maybe it was my overconfidence).
That’s why I have the boards on top now. I can REALLY crank those suckers down with zero worry. Had to stretch these a little in the z to make them sit level with my 1/2 inch spacer boards. Gives extra room for sliding my boots already.

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