Here Goes Nothing

Got my first moves in today. Still working on cable management.

Working area 13.1 x 13.1 x 4.5, 0.049 stainless rails

 

I wanted to build something semi-portable, so I designed some adjustable feet

I didn’t like any of the available RAMPS enclosures, so I designed my own.
Available for download: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2510861

Time to get it dirty I think. I look forward to breaking many things.

5 Likes

Very Nice!

I love that case as well as the feet. Nice work.

Sweet! I just printed out that case this weekend. Just the case, top and fan shield. I think I’ll try milling the end pieces out of some quarter inch hdpe, cause you know, cause I can! :smiley:

Ryan man, this is quite a machine! I did myself a favor and added a touch-off plate using some copper clad FR4 and added a menu item to the LCD controller to trigger the probing routine (and another item to set the X and Y axes to zero and engage the stepper motors to hold it in place). The following lines were added to the ultralcd.cpp file:

MENU_ITEM(gcode,"Probe Z", PSTR("G90\nG28 Z\nG92 Z1.36\nG0 Z6 F500"));
MENU_ITEM(gcode,"Set XY 0", PSTR("G92 X0 Y0\nM17"));

Just change “Z1.36” to whatever your plate thickness is. I inserted these items after the “Auto Home” option (around line 1715 in ultralcd.cpp). I really should disable the autohoming item… I’ve hit it accidentally and found myself lunging for the E-stop.

That heart-crushing moment 3 hours and 10 minutes into a 3 hours and 20 minute program:

Z axis crashed into the clamp and… ok honestly that’s really obvious now. Second attempt ended well but was slow going. 1/8" single flute endmill, 18.0mm/s, 1.5mm z step. What kind of rates are you guys using for HDPE or other plastics?

This was inspired by some project on inventables… I traced the profile of my dad’s bass guitar and cut this little tray out of 1" HDPE. I think I still have plastic shavings in my ear - this stuff gets everywhere.

Nice post! I don’t remember it being that easy to add a menu item, I need to play around with that, super cool. We have all had the job go bad at the end it is such a bummer.

As for speeds you will be much better off to go slower and deeper instead of faster. With plastics though 5-7mm DOC seems to be the limit before you can start running into chip clearing issues without air assist. Some stuff I do is 10mm and I have done it full depth and two equal steps, just depends on how clean you want the edge.

Were you able to disable the auto home? I’ve accidentally hit it several times and ruined several projects because of it. I’m going to add the end stops to help but I’d really just like the auto home disable or moved in the menu.

Look for
MENU_ITEM(gcode, MSG_AUTO_HOME, PSTR(“G28”));
in ULTRALCD.cpp. Comment out the line by adding // at the front of the line:
//MENU_ITEM(gcode, MSG_AUTO_HOME, PSTR(“G28”));

For me, that line showed up in two locations and I commented out both of them.