MechMate CNC Router Forum

Go Back   MechMate CNC Router Forum > Personal Build Histories > MechMates already cutting
Register Options Profile Last 1 | 3 | 7 Days Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Reply
 
Thread Tools
  #331  
Old Sun 05 December 2010, 17:37
Regnar
Just call me: Russell #69
 
Mobile, Alabama
United States of America
Congrats those are great looking machines.

On another note this has be to a record or close to it. 4 machines get numbers in less than a week.
Reply With Quote
  #332  
Old Mon 06 December 2010, 04:38
KenC
Just call me: Ken
 
Klang
Malaysia
Congrats! Wenever I see a new number coming up it reminds me the joy I had when I reached that..
The journey just began... You will have load of fun with it!
Again Congrats on 2 beautifully made machines!
Reply With Quote
  #333  
Old Mon 06 December 2010, 05:31
MetalHead
Just call me: Mike
 
Columbiana AL
United States of America
Congrats on 2 fine MechMates !!! We have seen 6 machines complete their builds and begin their MechMate production journeys in the last two weeks !!!

2 - USA
1 - Italy
1 - Russia
2 - Australia

This is a testament to how strong this design is and how great the folks are that support this forum !!!

Great builds to all !!!
Reply With Quote
  #334  
Old Tue 07 December 2010, 02:00
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Thanks for the comments guys,

Mike you are spot on, someone else said it in another thread and now I am going to say it.
When I first started to look at getting into CNC and building my own machine, I looked at many variants and options and even attended a couple of meets at a local CnC club but for some reason I kept coming back to the MM and boy am I glad I did. Its such a robust hard working and well designed piece of gear.
The builds have kept me very busy but honestly it has been a joy to build and I am sure Paul (skippy) would say the same thing.
We still have a lot of bits and pieces to finish and many software configurations still to make, but the good old MM twins are running and cutting and Im looking very forward to the next part of the adventure.

For the record 71 = AuS MaDDoG and 72 = skippy

Cheers
Tony.

Last edited by AuS MaDDoG; Tue 07 December 2010 at 02:02.. Reason: Our Serial # are issued
Reply With Quote
  #335  
Old Thu 09 December 2010, 06:31
jhiggins7
Just call me: John #26
 
Hebron, Ohio
United States of America
Builder's Log Update

Tony,

Great job! Congratulations on earning Serial #71.

Here is the Updated Builder's Log.

Please reveiw your entry and provide any changes you would like to make to your entry.
Reply With Quote
  #336  
Old Fri 10 December 2010, 20:23
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Thanks again to all,

Log is all good John

Cheers
Tony.
Reply With Quote
  #337  
Old Sat 11 December 2010, 19:12
tangocharlie123
Just call me: Pete
 
Gatton Brisbane
Australia
Congrats

Congratulations on the competion of your MechMate's they are both a superb build and a testement to both of you.

Cheers
Peter
Reply With Quote
  #338  
Old Sun 12 December 2010, 04:13
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Thanks Peter!!

MM's have both now been fitted with a RCD Safety Switch and all tested ok
We also tested all our E-Stops and again all tested good

Still doing bits and pieces, its amazing were the time goes doing all the fiddley bits!!

Cheers
Tony.
Reply With Quote
  #339  
Old Sun 12 December 2010, 10:46
fanefane
Just call me: Stefan #73
 
Baia Mare
Romania
Congratulations you too for your MM!
Your work was very precise and tidy. I managed to take a couple of ideas and inspire myself from your work !
Reply With Quote
  #340  
Old Sat 18 December 2010, 02:10
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Hi All

Got our Proxy sensors all set up and working on both the X & Y today
Still no luck getting the Matty Zee Pluggin working though

Cheers
Tony.
Reply With Quote
  #341  
Old Sat 18 December 2010, 09:48
MetalHead
Just call me: Mike
 
Columbiana AL
United States of America
Tony,

Open up a thread in Trouble Shooting and tell us what seems to be your issue with the plug in.
Reply With Quote
  #342  
Old Thu 23 December 2010, 23:26
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Hi !!

And a Merry Christmas to you all, santa came just in time I have some time off work over christmas and plan on getting through some learning on how to drive this machine we have built
So thought I would post a couple of videos of a Vectric template I cut as a practice going through coverting to Gcode, uploading to Mach3 and then cutting.



This next video is of the finished piece after I brushed the dust away



so much to learn!! feed rates, correct cutter selection, spindle speed, plunge speeds, the list goes on

Hopefully over the next week or so I should have learnt so much more!! including how not too break brand new end mill bits

Anyway like I said I hope you all Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Cheers from Me to all of You!!

Tony.

Last edited by AuS MaDDoG; Thu 23 December 2010 at 23:30..
Reply With Quote
  #343  
Old Thu 23 December 2010, 23:58
Kobus_Joubert
Just call me: Kobus #6
 
Riversdale Western Cape
South Africa
Send a message via Yahoo to Kobus_Joubert Send a message via Skype™ to Kobus_Joubert
Well done Tony...looking good. The rest of the learning is done with every job you do.
Merry Christmas to everybody from this side as well

I like your V-Cutter..what degree is that. I battle to find a small angle one like that over here.
Reply With Quote
  #344  
Old Fri 31 December 2010, 02:15
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Kobus,

The cutter is called a Laser Point sign cutter, I am not 100% sure of the angle, it is a fairly sharp angle. They do have another Laser point cutter which has an even sharper angle. (Carbi-Tech)

We gave the Mach3 plugin a miss today and got on with finishing off some of the other little odd jobs.

1. Drained the water resorvoir and refilled with coolant and RO Water. Now the water level can be seen much easier in the little viewing tube.



2. Installed the flow meter and connected the John Guest plumbing fittings to it.



3. Installed connection box for the flow meter to connect too which will then run back to Mach3, we also wired in the 240v to this box for the pump, which again will be fed from the main control box.



4. We also fitted a small blue Led into the control box on the car for our touch, so that testing of the connection is nice and easy.



5. Now that the weeks of rain have ceased I finally managed to get Pauls support board painted and sealed in a semi-gloss black enamel.



A few more wiring connections to be made, a little more testing (Mach3 and pluggin) and a few more little bits and pieces to finish off then we should have some time to finally start some serious cutting

Cheers
Tony
Reply With Quote
  #345  
Old Fri 31 December 2010, 12:48
234ahmed
Just call me: Ahmed #81
 
Damietta
Egypt
Fantastic Tony. Congratulations your work so neat
Show us some more dust on that BBB J
Reply With Quote
  #346  
Old Fri 31 December 2010, 19:05
Surfcnc
Just call me: Ross #74
 
Queensland
Australia
Happy New Year to #71 and #72, although Christmas has gone the presents keep arriving for the machines all the same.
As usual nice work but I do have a question (or two) for you.

Flow Sensor
From what I understand the device has a little hall sensor in it that pulses back on the white wire to the Break out Board.
The PDF from Jaycar describes this output as an open collector, so the wire is set to trigger in Mach when it goes logic high if the flow stops.
Has the sensor been tested with Mach yet as my understanding is limited to inputs that are either on or off but not pulsed inputs as this sensor indicates.

Z Axis Touch
I really like Skippy's implementation of my LED in the C Car box idea better than the original concept of putting a larger 12 volt 22mm LED "somewhere" on the C car box.
In the end did the circuit need any additional power for the little blue LED or was it OK as a vampire load on the +5V from the Break out Board.
At $5 it is a good find (even without Skippy's bulk buying power) but there is no data from Jaycar about the forward voltage of the little units.
My guess is that it will be fine but as you have already run the experiment ....

Regards
Ross

PS - Still waiting for that machine inspection from you blokes !!. If you havn't already done it, transfer that task over to this years to do list.
Reply With Quote
  #347  
Old Fri 31 December 2010, 22:08
skippy
Just call me: Paul #72
 
Queensland
Australia
Ross

The LED and 75 ohm resistor are connected is series to the touch probe circuit
Attached Images
File Type: jpg touch probe.jpg (5.8 KB, 1287 views)
Reply With Quote
  #348  
Old Fri 31 December 2010, 22:51
Surfcnc
Just call me: Ross #74
 
Queensland
Australia
Thanks for the diagram - part of your manual no doubt.

On closer inspection every color LED had the specs except the blue one.
5 volt supply at 2 volts forward at 30ma, requires 100Ohms .5 watt resistor.
Once again nice implementation of the LED- I will definitely be stealing that one

To confirm - triggered the Mach input OK with the LED and resistor in the circuit?

The flow sensor ???

Regards
Ross
Reply With Quote
  #349  
Old Sat 01 January 2011, 00:39
skippy
Just call me: Paul #72
 
Queensland
Australia
Ross

Yes it triggered Mach3 input with the LED and resistor in the circuit.

With the flow sensor we installed now as we have added the glycol to the DI water and it make a mess if we add it later. Once I have worked out how to make the MM to machine PCB's I will be adding at least a watch timer circuit to the flow sensor a little like the charge pump circuit that is on BOB that MACH3 talks to.
Reply With Quote
  #350  
Old Sat 01 January 2011, 00:55
Surfcnc
Just call me: Ross #74
 
Queensland
Australia
Thanks Paul for the clarification.
Your machine is going to make pretty quick work of those circuit boards!

Regards
Ross
Reply With Quote
  #351  
Old Sun 02 January 2011, 05:32
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Hi All,

Today we knocked off a few other items from the to-do list.

1. Finished wiring the 240v for the flow pump back to the control box.
2. Set up the flood button in Mach3 to turn the coolant pump on and off.
3. Connected the last of the E-Stop buttons, We now have E-Stop on the side of our control boxes.
4. Completed setup in Mach3 for the pause and resume buttons.
5. Made our zero touch plates and edge finder touch plates, and configured and tested there setup in Mach3.
6. Reset motor steps to obtain acurate and consistant measurements for X & Y in Mach3 to actual cutting measurements.

Items still on the to-do list are:-
1. Red led above each E-Stop to indicate which e stop is activated.
2. Design circuit board to advise spindle coolant flow in Mach3.
3. Design modifications for dust extraction system and install.
4. Install dust extraction system to MM.
5. Design and fabricate dust foot.
6. Set up control line for on off of dust extraction from Mach3.
7. Fabricate acrylic Cross hair centre point touch probe.
8. Fabricate acrylic corner touch probe.
9. Fabricate pressure clamping frames for gluing of sacrificial board to main support board.
10. Further ongoing trials trying to get Mach3 to control the VFD, if no success we may look at sourcing an alternative VFD.

Still lots to do but starting to get there, good to see the list is getting smaller

Cheers
Tony.
Reply With Quote
  #352  
Old Sun 02 January 2011, 08:02
riesvantwisk
Just call me: Ries #46
 
Quito
Ecuador
Send a message via MSN to riesvantwisk Send a message via Skype™ to riesvantwisk
Paul and Ross,

small note on the touch off diagram. If your BoB doesn't have any opto-couplers on Bob1 and Bob2 and the inputs are going directly to the digital circuit then you might want to consider adding a optocoupler between your bob and your probe. These digital circuits are fairly sensitive to static electricity and can be better protected as such. Here is a simple schematic : http://www.ustudy.in/node/7519

Ries
Reply With Quote
  #353  
Old Thu 06 January 2011, 01:34
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Another little job gets scored off the to-do list.
E-Stops now have a small Red Led to indicate which E-Stop has been activated

Before Activation:


After E-Stop is pressed


Cheers
Tony.
Reply With Quote
  #354  
Old Thu 06 January 2011, 10:57
smreish
Just call me: Sean - #5, 28, 58 and others
 
Orlando, Florida
United States of America
Tony, very helpful indeed. Make me wish I would have ordered last week illuminated mushrooms and not the standard.....

Keep up the fantastic work!

Sean
Reply With Quote
  #355  
Old Sat 08 January 2011, 15:43
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Hi All,

while Skippy worked away putting the finishing touches to his control box today I decided to have MM cut us a couple of centre crosshair touch plates





Cheers
Tony.
Reply With Quote
  #356  
Old Wed 12 January 2011, 04:32
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Update!

We have had some good success in getting the Hitachi VFD loaned to us from Peter (Tangocharlie) Thanks Mate!! been a great help!! and look forward to catching up with you in the next week or so and showing you our MM's and having a good old chat.

Whilst we still do not have all the settings set correctly we are fairly confident that we will have Mach3 control of our spindles very shortly.

So with that said and the fact that we were so impressed with the quality and control of the Hitachi VFD's we have ordered two of the Hitachi SJ200-022NFU2's which are the 2.2Kw 3hp ones.
We have also bought two of the 2.2Kw spindles so I guess that will provide us with a back-up spindle each being the 1.5Kw ones we bought previously. Also bought a couple of sets of E20 Collets for each of us with gripping range of 0.5mm to 13mm which should be much better for the larger size bits to be used.
Thanks to Ross (Surfcnc) for supplying me with his link to purchase some cutting bits I have also ordered several packets of various bit types which I am sure will get some good use

I thought I was finished seeing parcels arriving through the post
Just praying that they all get here ok especially with all the flood troubles we are currently encountering here in Brisbane.

Cheers
Tony.
Reply With Quote
  #357  
Old Wed 12 January 2011, 04:44
tangocharlie123
Just call me: Pete
 
Gatton Brisbane
Australia
Vfd coming

Thats good news Tony

Hope my spindle gets through too, mine is coming by courier and should be here in the next few days flood permmiting

Hope you guys are all ok down there.

Best of luck

Peter
Reply With Quote
  #358  
Old Wed 12 January 2011, 16:12
Neil
Just call me: Neil
 
Tas
Australia
Floods

Hi Tony and anyone in the flood area
Is the flood close to anyone up there, sure hope not as it looks pretty bad.
Regaeds Neil
Reply With Quote
  #359  
Old Wed 12 January 2011, 18:44
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Neil,

All to close for comfort, fortunately for us the severe flooding has remained mainly to the Brisbane CBD and all surrounding suburbs of the Brisbane river. Many people, homes and business's affected with some loss of life also.
Floods are receding now but will be some days before people can return to there homes and business's.

Absolutely devastating!! but all good here.

Many Thanks
Tony.
Reply With Quote
  #360  
Old Mon 17 January 2011, 04:17
AuS MaDDoG
Just call me: Tony #71
 
Brisbane
Australia
Three days from China to Australia, cannot complain about that for service.



Just got to get the communication going with Drives Warehouse in the US to finalise the purchase for the Hitachi Vfd's and I'm happy
I guess the Huanyang VFD's will become boat anchors I guess they may provide us with a back up vfd for manual control if required.

Cheers
Tony.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Register Options Profile Last 1 | 3 | 7 Days Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Making Skins #74 - Brisbane Australia Surfcnc MechMates already cutting 1078 Sun 20 September 2015 11:05
Touch Probes Have Arrived #72 - Brisbane, Australia skippy MechMates already cutting 130 Mon 04 March 2013 04:31
Do my legs look fat? - Brisbane Australia tangocharlie123 Construction started, but not cutting yet 60 Wed 22 June 2011 06:32
New member - Brisbane Australia stan stuart Introduce yourself and start planning 3 Tue 11 May 2010 20:48
Commercial Signs Hugo Carradini The Show Room 17 Wed 21 January 2009 22:51


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 17:47.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.3
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.