The relative humidity in my house is low and static electricity is an issue. I can go two steps from my PC to the CNC and get a shock that stings. I ground everything to protect the electronics from ESD. The bearings are conductive, so grounded the conduit at the ends with a small insert that fits in the ends of the conduit. I just stripped back a wire and ran it between the insert and conduit. The rollers have a wire from the bearing bolt, to the conduit, to the motor mounting screws. The middle assembly is grounding from bearing bolt to bearing bolt. The Z motor is grounded from the conduit, up the riser to the motor mourning screw (see pictures). I connected the ground to the negative terminal for one of the unused heaters.
Because of this problem, I didn’t want to use the exposed solderless connectors on the rollers. I made up two connectors by using male and female headers that I use for my Arduino projects. They are the same spacing as the stepper motor connectors that came with the kit. I just reverse one motor connection for the x and y motors so one of the motors run in reverse. The jumpers connect 3 male headers. I used the cables from the kit and put two female headers on each end of an extension (see pictures).
Yes, the 2 part ridged z seems to work well. When it is fully seated on the pins, it aligns nice. I used super glue to bond it together. The best I can tell using a square, the final assembly seems square.
I changed my plan for my table base. The feet are mounted to a solid piece of ½ inch MDF and I put the waste board on top of that. Holes were drilled under the feet so I lowered the conduit ½ inch into these holes, and with the waste board, it’s now one inch lower.
Now I am learning the software. I’m using Estlcam. I started testing with pen plots. My circles were not closing well, so I tightened the belts a little at a time until the circles closed perfectly.
Pen plots got old and I want to cut stuff. For learning and testing I decided to print a mount for my Dremel. I found an old piece of foam board and started cutting small tests.
I’m really happy with the way the MPCNC performs so far. I am having a lot of fun with this!
I think you are going about this the right way. I highly recommend start with a pen. I think you learn a lot that way, level surface, speeds, mount rigidity, how to use the software. Next step a dremel, who doesn’t have a rotary tool, on hd foam. Fastest, safest way to learn…
Thanks for drawing the logo I still love seeing them. I have been dying to do some sort of contest and I wanted to start small to make sure It worked fairly and yours gave me an Idea. What do you think a small cash prize $20-$50 for best logo picture with the machine in the pic. Just like the one you have there. People can submit there logo made with the MPCNC, plotted, milled, etched, whatever. Then If I can find some voting software, everyone can vote for the winner? If we get all the bugs worked out and no one cheats we can do a bigger contest.
The Boca Bearings contest was a lot of fun for me and I have wanted to do my own ever since.
They seem extremely strong beause the glow in the dark filament is nearly as strong as the carbon fiber type filaments out there. the tiny granuals of glow in the dark material is nearly as strong as the carbon granuals in the cf filament. it’s also just as detrimental to your nozzle as carbon or iron fill. so by the end of your build you’ll probably be replacing that nozzle
I outgrew my Dremel, so I screwed on my Harbor Freight trim router. The Dremel worked fine for learning with foam and wood, but it just couldn’t cut the acrylic. I read what I could find about cutting acrylic on the internet and determined the Dremel couldn’t handle the feed rate I needed, and didn’t have enough power at a slower rpm.
A few things I notice on this trim router. The fan that cools the router blows out the bottom over the bit. This helps blow away the chips near the bit. It also doesn’t have a built in variable speed, but I have it plugged into a variable speed controller. The best thing about the router is it only cost $30! The remote speed controller worked good for cutting the acrylic. I could dial in the speed between melting and chipping the acrylic while it was cutting some test cuts.
The picture below shows my first cut of a RAMPS box I plan to make out of acrylic.
are you using and end mill with a 1/4’’ shank or did you get an adaptor for the router to take 1/8’’ bits?
im debating between this and the harborfrieght cutout tool to start with
Sure I will share my files. I don’t know what files would be best to use. Depending on the thinness of the acrylic your using, you may need to adjust the design files. I have them in 123D (free program). I converted each part to a 2D SVG file, but some parts required two SVG files that needed to be flip flopped and aligned in Estlcam.
The acrylic I bought was 1/4" but it measured 5.08mm. The cuts that didn’t go all the way through are 2mm deep. The model is set up for these thicknesses.
Here are a few experiences I had making the RAMPS enclosure. I’m still learning, but I made it work.
I designed it in 123D, the same program I use for 3D printing design. I had some scale issues converting to DXF files, but I found 2D SVG import well into Estlcam. You need to select a plane on the part to create the SVG file. I notched the corners of the box, and these notches on the ends of the piece do not show up in the SVG. I had to make two SVG files on different planes to show all the lines.
I opened one in Estlcam, then inserted the second file into Estlcam. Then I had to move the second file and align it over the first file. Some times I needed to flip the image, so I needed to study the part to make sure I was milling the correct side of the part. Some places I had to use Manual Shape Detection to select the corners of the tool path. If I used 3D files, but this would have milled the surface of the acrylic and I didn’t want that. There may be a better way, but this way worked.
Cutting the acrylic was a bit tricky. If the acrylic started to stick to the bit, I had to pause the print in Repetier, raise the bit and remove the plastic (only use manual controls on Repetier so it can restart where it was paused). Then the print can be resumed. I read where dish soap and water can be used to help the acrylic from sticking, so I used this sometimes and it seemed to help.
I used super glue to glue the sides together. I did not glue the top or bottom. I used 2mm screws and nuts to mount the mega/Ramps to the bottom of the enclosure and the bottom is screwed down to my wood base with wood screws. The parts fit snugly, so I didn’t do any additional fasteners at this point. My fan faces the router, so I blow air out, so I don’t get debris in. The air slots on the other sides I use to run the wiring through.
I printed all my parts with a makerbot mini which seems to have about the same size limitations as your printer did and the only thing I can't print is the "Rigid Z". Would you mind sharing your stl for the 2 part version you created that seems to work well?
