Okay thanks.

motor mounts
 

Hey Gerald,
I am intsalling the Y motors and I am thinking that the only way they will fit without the motor cap screws hitting the gantry endplate is to countersink the two top holes in the motor plates. On the drawing M5 10 200 you can see the geared motor mounting bolts protruding past the nylon bushing. The direct drive look like they mount from the opposite side and the motor plates are tapped, so there is no problem there with them.


I bought the 20 pitch pinions and the 7.1 geared motors. Will that be okay or should i order larger pinions? Speed cutting is not necessary to me but I also don't want it to be like watching evolution happen. haha

Ed,
The 20T and 7.2 gearbox combination is what I have on my machine. I have been very pleased with the cutting speed and performance of the machine thus far. I am averaging (per book value for the bits) about 120 to 180 IPM. Rapid moves are set at 225IPM. The larger pinion would allow for quicker rapid moves, but I haven't noticed a huge difference in total cut time since I tend to optimise my cutting files for the shortest moves. I must say, it's far quicker that my old 1000 series Multicam with the 3:1 belt reduction units to the rack & Pinion. Yes, Gerald, I will be doing a pro/con shoot out based on data from both machines here in the near future. I still have access to my old machine, thus, I am setting up a benchmark test to perform on both machines for an accurate analysis.

Ed,
The countersunk heads are exactly the right solution. As Gerald mentioned, be sure to NOT exceed the length of the machine screw when replacing the OM cap screw. Bad things will happen if that screw is too long and cracks the gear case. Use caution.

Ed, you discovered my error a couple of hours after someone else - it was discussed on this forum only hours ago. Your countersinking proposal is the correct solution. http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...0590#post10590

When you say you "bought the 20 pitch pinions", that would be correct for everybody. The diametral pitch must be 20. . . . . . but I think you meant to say that they have 20 teeth. (similar numbers but different property/meaning).

Start off with the pinions you have, and take it from there. Sean sounds happy with them. Realise that your PC must send pulses 50% faster than for a 30 tooth pinion, so don't skimp on using an old/slow PC.

I picked 30 tooth as the main design point (motors hanging level, middle of slots) so that there was some leeway to either side from there. 20 teeth would be the minimum one could go, and already I would then be nervous of the slots are long enough....

Okay thanks Gerald I was confused as to where exactly 0,0 was supposed to be. the crossbearing channels on the bottom of the table were a throwing me off as to which end of the table was the 0 end of the table. I studied the drawing yesterday and I think it finally sunk in and what you are saying here confirms it. It takes me a little longer to wrap my mind around this stuff. I guess that is a good think because it keeps me thinking.

I will countersink the top motormount screws today, funny that I decided to use all metric bolts for my MM but the Oriental motors which I would have guessed be metric, are actually 1/4 20 screws haha.

Sean,
I found some tapered head 1/4 20's at lowe's that are 3/4" long which overall length looks to be about 1-2mm shorter than the threads on the ones that came with the motors. I think they will be perfect, I started to get the 1" but remembered that the ones that came with the motors threaded in quite a ways before they tightened so I went with the shorter ones.

Feel like I am on the downhill side of this project now.:)::D:)

some progress here
 

Making a little progress. Seems like more time waiting for parts than actuall work on the machine. I made a little box for my computer home. I used furnace filters on both sides so that the computer can stay cooler. I couldn't get the cable chain to make a tight enough bend mounted to the 6" channel so I made a little bracket out of 1/4 x 3 flat to deepen the area, so that the chain is flush with the top of the rail.

little more
 

couple more pictures. This red paint is heresy.:D:D Probably will cost me a couple gold stars ;)

Looking gr8 Ed.
Red Color, it means U R out of MM # Race ;)

Nice pictures Ed!

qestion on layout
 

Gerald, I am trying to decide if it will be easier to just move my cable chain support and turn the table 180 degrees from where it is sitting or add a support channel.
I got to looking at how far the gantry travels on the rails and I need to ask you something that will help me decide what to do.
My table looks exactly like the drawing 10 10 000. the stops and proximity holes look like in the drawing. When I slide the gantry down to the end of the x axis the center of the gantry are about 1-3/4" from reaching the end of the MDF board. Is the router offsett that much on the z-slide or did I make a mistake there also?
If I did everything correct (on my crossmember layout) I will just move my cable chain support to the opposite side and turn my table around, if I totally screwed up and got my supports wrong I will just add another support channel on the 0,0 end and move my support board to the added channel.

The center of the router sits about 4" off the center of the gantry, away from the side that has the cable chain, towards the y-motor.

The center of the router should run 2" off the spoilboard to both ends.

Adding a channel is not a neat solution - the spacing will be uneven underneath and you could curse it when you want to add a vacuum system under the table.

I count 7 screw holes in the side of the one main beam (for x cable chain support) to be moved to other side.

You made my day, I was hoping you would say that :D:D.

Double-check what I said - I am making too many mistakes these days. :(

Missing washer? M5 10 200 A
 

Part #17 - 20 x 8 x 2 Teflon Washer

http://www.mechmate.com/forums/attac...1208560509.jpg

HI David,
I used the teflon washers between the motor plates and the gantry. I used them in two places, they are on both the swivel point bolt and the slotted hole bolt. Hard to see them from that photo.
Thanks for asking, you never know when I will miss somthing or fail to notice one part of the plan because of being so focused on another part.

Are you guys spacing the router mounts away from the z slide plate to clear the bearings, bushings and bolt heads? My router mount for my porter cable is about 1-3/8 too wide. I have some aluminum flat bar I can make a spacer out of. I could cutt the part that is too wide out of the mount but I think it would weaken the mount alot to do it that way.

Ed,

The short answer is no. I cut and modified the cornors of my router mounts so they wouldn't interfer with V-rollers. Lots of meat on the cornors.

I'll try and post pic when I get home.

Ed,

Here's a pic of the router mount. I cut/modified the corners interfering with the V-roller hardware.

Attachment 1369

Yet another professional work in progress:)

I forgot to mention that the power cord to the router will change. The gray shielded cable will terminate inside the router.

I was just experimenting with the shielded cable, shrink tube, etc. :o

Thanks Greg. Looks like from your photo that there would not be any room for a spacer unless I used a different set of mounting holes in the car. I will trim my mount up like you did yours to clear the rollers.

When I cutt my y rails I had some problems. I tried using 5-1/2" cutting disks and they flexed on me during the cutting. The angle iron edge had waves. My x rails worked great but I used 4" cutting disks and they were alot stiffer although I had to change blades alot. So I remembered Rick a Superior bearing said the freight on the y rails would be alot less than the x rails so I ordered enough rail to do my y rails and my z slide.

If I build another I will spring for all hardened rail, I like it better. Here is how I did the z slide.

I hardened my pinions with a carburized oxyacetylene flame to a medium red and quenched in water soluble oil/water mix. It worked well, with this method there is no need to temper by reheating after the initial treatment, the water soluble oil/water mix cools slower than heavier oils like gear oil or ATF and are less likely to flare up. I wouldn't recomend doing this unless your sure you know what your doing, it is easy to melt part of a gear and make it unuseable if care is not taken on the heating process. However, if you do this method you will have to sand the inside of the gear to remove the deposit on the surface of the steel or the gear will not slide onto the motor shaft. Left pinion is hardened, right pinion untreated.

The other photo is the box that I will mount on the gantry and has my proximity relays. The proxy wires, e-stop, and pause/resume wires will run from locations on z-car and gantry to this box.
From this box a 7-core will go to the control box. 2 of the 7-core wires will bring my voltage to the box for the relay's and proxy's. One of the 7-core wires will be the GND wire going to the BOB The other 4 wires in the 7-core will e-stop, pause, resume, and relays. That will use all 7 wires.

I added a voltage out receptical for acessory's later (lights, lasers ect).

I will run the additional 2 estop wires that disconnect the power in an emergency in a seperate 3 core wire (couldn't get 2 core). This wire will not go through the small box that has the relays. Hope this all works okay:):)

Geeez, Ed,

I may be coming for a visit before you head my way. :)

Nice work.

Just for reference, my pinions are not hardened. It will be a nice test between Ed's machine and mine.

Hmmmm, I better keep a good log of run times, etc.

Ed, some guys put the eccentrics on the other side of the v-rollers.....that could give you more bracket clearance.

Oh I didn't think about that Gerald. I will take a closer look at trying that. I am thinking though I would still have to remove some of the material of the mount by reversing them just not as much as the way they are now. Thanks guys.

I would think that eccentrics on the other side would be a pain to adjust . . . . .

Motor tuning again
 

In Mach motor tuning, it has steps per box. If I am using the 7.1 gearbox should I leave that set at 2000 or change it to 14,200? Also on velocity and Accel what should be an aproximate setting before fine tuning??

I am not sure what exactly to listen for when tuning but with my laptop they all were very rough sounding and jump but with this new dell they sound very smooth to me at any setting so I want to make sure I am not running too fast and break something.

Ed,

Did you run the Mach3 PC test software on you computer to see if it is compatable?

yes with my new computer on the driver test it is basically a flat line with a very small occasional bump. Looks better than the one on the set up video computer has on the mach 3 tutorial.
The computer I have is probably overkill to run Mach 3
Duo core processor, 512mb ram, 160GB mem

It is running good just trying to make sure I am not over speeding anything and also checking on the steps per setting. The tutorial said for now leave it at 2000. So 2000 is for direct drive? 200 step motor and the computer divides that by 10 so that would be 2000. but with the gear box I didn't know if the 2000 needs to change to another number.