Spent all day putting it together and just had my first successful test!
The belts are pretty bad right now had to daize chain some zip ties to make up for the gap because of a failed initial cut, but the whole thing still works and a new belt is on its way and will be replacing that mess come tuesday!
Overall it was a very easy build, I kept thinking things were missing but I’d always end up figuring it out after a few minutes, and Ryan helped me with a bunch of questions to help keep me on track.
Just need to rangle all those wires make a bed for it and get that new belt!
The way you have it setup is generally the back, or rotated 180 degrees. It makes changing bits and tools more difficult. No harm in it if you prefer it that way.
Yea. I noticed when I got it all running, I have some nylon wire covers coming, tuesday as well, probably take the whole thing apart and change that as well.
And yea, I put it together in about 10 hours of just straight focused work on it with small breaks haha
Almost done, routed out the test crown pattern with some foam board as my first test with the router and it worked great! Just have a few more clean ups to do and still need to get a wood bed for the middle (right now its temporary) waiting on home depot to fix there plywood cutting station
Yup, there is enough space to expand it another foot or so, which I might do in the future once I’ve got the hang of this! The chain was this one: Wire Chain 20mm by Snille - Thingiverse
haha…yea the hatchet was being used as a hammer, till I found my hammer.
Here’s my last step (at least for now till home depot can fix there plywood cutting station so I can finish the bed) I used an arduino and big beefy solid state relay (25amps/250volts) and an arcade button with an LED inside to show power state to create a power button for a plug mounted on the CNC machine! Which is used to power the CNC machine itself, plus an additional plug for whatever is being used!
Time to finish up my first design, and get this thing dancing!
I found a local place to buy Baltic Birch plywood (the 60x60 stuff). They cut it down to fit into my car for free on their table saw. Bb ply is expensive, but it mills so nice. Like sugar cookie dough. And the edges are acceptable to the wife.
Well, after a few more weekends, and a lot of experimenting, its finally done, I have my spoil board all setup and my vac system running as well as a few clamps that work with the spoil board. I’m ready to finally start doing stuff that isnt just directly related to the machine itself haha.
Enter the comment, “That hose is going to mess with your Z axis!”.
Seriously though, if it works, then fine, but if that hose pulls on the Z axis even a little, then the bit can start being angled, which can cause it to have less accuracy, but worse, it can cause it to bite off more than it can chew, which can mess up your carefully tuned CAM. That’s the paranoia in me though, wood is very forgiving, so as long as you’re going very slow, and aren’t diving too deep, you should be fine. You might get into trouble if you’re cutting deep into materials, and if you suspect the hose, then pull it off, and manually collect the dust while it’s running.
Looks good though. Can’t wait to see what you make!
hose is designed to allow it to disconnect before causing any amount of strain on the Z it also slides up and down the PVC pipe quite a bit very easily before it actually gives up and detaches.
What he is getting at is you will have an easier time getting rid of the pvc and connecting the flex hose directly to the shoe, the PVC is known to cause issues as it acts as a lever arm at any length.
I’m not trying to be negative. Feel free to prove me wrong. Just looking out for you in the future. If something seems fishy in the future, especially involving either deep cuts or cuts away from the middle of the machine, try it without the hose. I’m sure you’ll get a lot of miles on it before then.
it also slides up and down the PVC pipe quite a bit very easily before it actually gives up and detaches.