Sorry Irfan, I am joking with Hennie taking such a long time to complete his machine. His wife then replied and said that he could be in line for #37. She also said thanks to my wife for the chilli seeds that she got while visiting our house in December....apparently they are growing....maybe Hennie should eat some chilli's and catch some SPEED.....:D

thanks Kobus - its fun to share the happenings at Home!

:D

I think I will be the longest time builder - considering my thread of older servo based mechmate :)

RGDS
IRfan

What does the clock look like now?
 

Kobus

Two questions 1: What does the clock that you were working on look like now? and 2: How you doing on the kiln for the glass?

Dave

Hi Dave, the clock has not moved yet...I was having problems finding the correct rod and tube...that would fit into each other.....when I found some brass stuff, the dimensions were different from the original design...therefore I need to re-work some parts to fit onto my size pipe and rod. But I will get there once the OTHER distractions like motorbikes and glass kiln's are done. On the kiln front Johan ( Lex ) just finished some drawings for me last week. I have the Kanthal element wire, the digital clock / timer and fire bricks available. I just need to get the frame finished and then the Boss will be happy.

It's producing money
 

My first commercial job...small but it came to me... Hennie needed 20 x small corner brackets...as his machine is not up and running he asked me to do it. They are 120mm x 120mm and very simple. Took me 30 minutes for all 20....I am not pushing old BBB hard...nice and easy....gives me nice and clean cuts...

Attachment 3546

During the cut

Attachment 3547

I decided to make myself some too, but with a nice shape....

Attachment 3548

An then the best....I went to the Post Office and picked up my cable chain that Koning send from his desert country.....R600.00 for 3 meters....not bad...a friend brought it with in hand baggage and posted it from Durban to me....less than R 40.00 insured parcel.

Thank's Koning

Attachment 3549

I have some work to do.....

Thanks Kobus, send me one of yours as an sample.Won`t tell you what I am getting paid for that with some shelving will post pics once project is complete.

Smart brackets Kobus. Show them to your local hardware store and ask them if they want to stock them. :)

Are you comfortable with a CAD program yet?

Thanks Gerald. I still use Coreldraw for everything. Found if I export the file to EPS my Vectric Cut 2D works 100 %. I surf and search for most of my ideas and then tweak them a little to my liking. Those brackets had more detail, but I decided to cut with a 6mm bit and therefore lost some detail. I went back to Coreldraw and took the small stuff out and made the two side holes a little bigger. Will go and speak to the local Hardware owner.

Attachment 3571

BBB has got the first cable chain connected. The X-axis will be a while as my table is close to the wall and working there could be a problem.

Attachment 3570

Maybe I did not cut deep enough but this little bit of FLUFF was easily removed by a very slight rub with sandpaper....once over and it's gone.

Attachment 3573

The NICE bracket close -up

Attachment 3572

Made a little 3 tier shelf close to the BBB computer to put bits and pieces on that prevoiusly were lying all over the working table and the computer keyboard.

These are brilliant for removing the "fluffs":

Will look for them next time I go shopping...at the moment a 80 grid belt sander piece works ok...just running it on the edge cleans it nicely.

Kobus, did you cut those brackets in one slow pass, right through? with a straight cutter (not spiralled)?

The reason I ask is because you got the fluffs on the bottom, which is unusual for us, because we normally use a spiral up cutter and get the fluffs on the top.

The amount of fluff is directly related to the sharpness of the cutter.

My guess is that the tip of your cutter is already a little dull.

Correct. Just a cheap YELLOW straight bit that has done some work. Not too concerned with the amount of FLUFF. Easy enough to clean up

Hello Kobus!
Great machine you have built. (I `m from norway, maybe my english i wrong)
I will build a machine, and planning all the electrical.
I am thinking to buy the motor from the Motion King as you.
Which model and what other components are you using..drivers, powersupply...?
I am very bad at electrical, so I thought to ask you for advice.

Best regards!

Kobus,
How are you mounting your shelf brackets to the wall?

Hi MrNorway, I bought the 34 HS 4801 from Motion King.
Using Gecko 202's with a BOB and power supply from our local CNC Guru Greg. You can contact him on belli (at)iafrica.com ...I know he does export. I did not put any limit switches / proxy sensors etc om my machine...less to go wrong and if you work with it, you know where you are and how big you will cut...so running off the rails etc is not going to happen....IF you concentrate and think a little.

Hi Heath, I made a BACKBOARD and did some slots in here. With the MM I drilled 2 holes / slot. A little glue in the slot and 2 small screws from behind into the bracket. You can also make a little foot for the bracket...do the same slot thing and put a bigger screw at the top and bottom of this foot into the wall.

......and IF you have fitted the mechanical stops.

Don't even have mechanical stops..was to lazy to fabricate them...they were not on the DXF list that I could send in for laser cutting....I just take care not to go over the edge.

Kobus - I hope you are not joking - that heavy gantry can cause a lot of damage - some day I am sure it will walk / run over the edge -

please try to have some sort of limits for your machine - and proximity switches definitely help me to re home and gain position back in case of a power outage.

When I start a cut, I get everything to 0,0,0....I then start the router and make a small mark with the cutting bit into the MDF that I will be cutting. I zero the Z-axis again and then start cutting. If I should have a power failure or problem that I must start again to finish the job, I can just jog back to my MARK and then restart Mach3 from there. The gantry cannot run off the far side as it will hit the wall first. Will get something on my side to make it more safe.

Gents, my two cents worth. When we tested the machine I did not have emergency or home switches. I ran the machine off the rails several times ( due to stupidity) I then put the emergency switches on which helped to prevent the macine from running of the rails. I still had a problem with the fact that I ran the machine very close to the limits and every now and then into the limits. You have to disconnect the motors in order to reset the machine. I then fitted the home switches. This meant that you can zero the machine exactly at the same place every time automatically. The best thing is that you can use soft limits in Mach to make sure that the machine only runs to the preset limits with no damage to anything. If I can make a suggestion it would be to fit the switches from the word go. Kobus is a very hands on type of chap and find these things easy to do. Some of us need assistance.:)

Eish! Die Boer hy is slim!
Even with a "stopless" machine his got a plan.:D:D
Did you draw those brackets up in Coreldraw - export to V-carve and then save it to G code?

Yes Johan Coreldraw then export to EPS file. Pull that into Vectric Cut2D...do all the cut lines / depth speed etc, then into Mach3 directly.

Marius as for getting the machine exactly to the same starting point everytime with limit switches etc will not do me much good. I slap a piece of wood on the table....anywhere...bring my machine to the 0,0 point of that piece of wood...mark it with my cutter on the wood being cut....I also know the size I want to cut....once all this is set I start it up and let it do it's thing. I don't see the point of always having my machine go to the table 0,0 point and then work from there to do cut's somewere in the middle of the table.

As I cut out small items, I have some MDF piece available on a sheet. I can easily select only a part piece of the design that will fit into this gap. Set it up in Cut2D, bring my machine to that new 0,0 point and cut a piece out...a piece that could have been wasted before....hope this all makes sense.....bottom line I don't alway's cut from the table 0,0 point....I set up my 0,0 point as and where I need it.

I will draw most of my designs in Autocad and then export from there. It might also happen that we will have to work with a existing Coreldraw files as well in the future. My next learning curve is to master the software. I must play around and see if I can set the 0,0 up as per your description.

Kobus,
True for your situation. In my case we recut the same stuff over and over. The material also have a colour split that has to be placed on the correct place on the part. I thought that I might get away with doing it your way, but not easy (for me).:o

Thanks for info Kobus!
Think I buy 34HS4801 motors too.

Sorry my mistake again,,,the steppers are 34 HS 9801

I go for 4801.
Must have a bit more powerful engine.

Marius I agree with you,I would rather know where my 0,0 points are.I will do my first full sheet of Melamine nesting tomorrow with drilling holes ,cutting kick plates and cutting the items out.(ccma is going to hate me):)