Finished writing plugin for Mach3 to control the VFD via RS-485 - Adelaide, Australia
 

Hi All,

I've only posted a couple of times but like many who find this site, I have been reading sooooo many of the threads the last few weeks.

About 2 years ago i decided i wanted to build a CNC router and got started designing my own build. I made good progress but then work was halted when my first daughter was born (a few weeks early). It took me another six months of slow building to finish it of. It was a great learning experience but there were a few things i could have done better. It has been a great workhorse for the last year but i recently decided to make a few mods. So i returned to CNCZone to get some ideas and stumbled across a post about MechMate. I remember looking at the MechMate when i was designing mine but at the time i only wanted a small machine and linear bearing for that size weren't too costly.
I became addicted to this site about 3 weeks ago and have slowly realised that if i want to make these mods, i might as well make a bigger machine and what better machine than a MechMate!
I am still getting quotes on a lot of the parts but i'm taking some leave (vacation) at the end of the week and hope to start building then. I will keep you posted and hopefully this thread will progress to the "Started building" and eventually the "Already Cutting" thread :D

Thanks Gerald and all the others who contribute to this forum. Thanks also to Jayson who answered all my PM's when i first got hooked on this site. Its great to see a fellow Aussie finish the build.

Thats enough for now. Thanks for reading!

Matt,

Welcome to the Forum. Looking forward to watching your progress on your build.:)

Regards,
John

Welcome Matt!
Come on in, the water is fine! :)

Here we go...

Looking forward to seeing your build of the second one in Australia.

:)

It's good to see another MechMate will be build in Australia.

I have started to get the parts together but with the Australia dollar so low I have been waiting hopefully for it to recover before getting the motors and the geckos etc from overseas.

Thanks for the welcome.

Paul, did you end up finding a local source for the laser cut parts? Have you started the mechanical build yet?

i'm in a pretty similar spot. Haven't ordered my motors or the geckos yet. Paul, would you be interested in splitting shipment costs for some steppers from ms-motor.com? Their prices are hard to beat but the shipping is a bit pricey.

Matt

I have not done much on that as been following Gerald recommendation of starting the MechMate build in the area of your experience as I'm a Electrical Engineer (Electronics) I was starting with the kitchen table project. but may get better price in joining together as a group buy but shipping may kill the saving.

That would be good but we need to watch out about total invoice amount due to fact of import tax / GST. why give more of our hard earned money to the gov then we need too.

Ready to start on Saturday!
 

OK, as everything will be shut for the Easter break, i decided to go out and by the steel today so i don't have to wait till Tuesday (i'm on holiday as of now!!)
I ordered the Laser cut parts last week and picked up the last of the parts today.
Also, amazingly, my V-wheels and eccentric bushes came today. Ordered them thurs last week. Thats pretty fast turnaround. Thanks Rick @ Superior Bearings!
Still getting quotes on other parts but i have enough to keep me busy for a while.

I need to do a few mods to the grinding skate before i can start grinding. Thats the first bit i plan to tackle as its the bit i'm most concerned about. I only bought enough angle for Y rails for now.

The ecconomic downturn has been pretty good to me so far as its brought down the prices for the steel and laser cutting.
Heres a summary of what i've bought to give other Aussies an idea of cost for a build here in oz. Will try and keep updating as i purchase more bits. I've included approx US$ for comparison

Lasercut parts: $436 (incl GST) (~US$305)
V-wheels & Bushes: $360 (US$242.20 @ 0.67 converison) incl shipping from US
Steel (Everything except the X rail angle & cross bearers): $710 (~US$497)
Rack & Pinions (3x 2m lengths & 4x 25T pinions): $340 (~US$238)

Will officially start the build on Saturday as i'm having a family day tomorrow for Good Friday.

:)

Another Aussie build, Adelaide, Australia
 

I started my build on 11th April (Easter weekend) and have been making slow progress ever since. I started with the ground V rails and then moved onto the table frame.

I've finally got around to taking some pics of my progress. I have nearly finished the table metalwork and have the gantry and y-car ready to paint too. I am going to get a quote from a local paint company this week to paint it. Forgot to take pics of the rails but they're done, trust me. :D

I decided to go with a 6 leg table design, so its got bit of a pool table feel :) Its a bolt together frame with two side frame, 3 cross frames and the two main channels. It will allow me to transport home more easily (I'm building at my Dads place with his help, he's my welder). He's how it looks at the moment. The plan is to have it going by July.

Attachment 4732

Attachment 4731

That looks like a sturdy animal :)

Yeah, i made the legs from 70x3 SHS to 'match' the main beams (close enough) purely for the aesthetics. I like the looks of the nice thick legs. The rest of the frame is made from 50x2 SHS again more for aethetics. Structurally it could be smaller section braces but i like the look of thicker braces and the cost difference was small.

Looks good Matt. It does look very sturdy.

Keep the pics comming.

Can't wait to see it finished.

Jayson.

Electronics
 

Here are some pics of the electronics side of things.

I bought some Lapp Cable for the Motor, Spindle, & Contrl cables.
Attachment 4739
Its Lapp 810 CY cable. Looks like nice stuff.
Attachment 4740

The motors are from MS Motor. Amazing prices but shipping is a killer. Best way is to find someone else to go 'in' with and share the shipping.
Attachment 4734

Electronics layout starting to take shape. PMDX board is on its way and i will order the rest of the DIN terminals this week.
Attachment 4735

My first machine didn't have enough control & e-stop buttons so i decided i won't repeat the same mistake again by "doing it later once its running". So i have bought the switchs now to make me do it straight away.
Attachment 4736

Got a good deal on eBay for some proximity sensors.
Attachment 4737

This is my favourite addition to the collection. A water cooled 2.2kW spindle. cheapo from China but will do the trick. I think its exactly the same as the one Jayson has.
Attachment 4738

The photo quality in the last post is excellent.....and nice small file sizes! Matt, I have increased your storage quota already - you have yo give us a lot more! :D

HI Matt - what Camera are u using - even at these small sizes the pics just look great

are u editing them before posting.....

The spindle is cheapo - but performs really great!

Thanks Gerald. I was looking at my allowance as i was uploading thinking i would never use it up @30kB a pop. now i have over 22Mb?:eek: better get snapping...

Irfan, i use a Canon 20D Digital SLR with a 50mm macro lens. A good size flash helps. I sit the items on a sheet of Depron (polystyrene sheet, that i use for making model planes) and bounch the flash of the ceiling to diffuse the light. The photos aren't edited, just re-sized to 15% of original in MS Paint.

Ah! professional!

Matt
I like what I see and have ordered rails and wheel but am chasing somewhere to have laser cutting & bending done.
Does the price of $436 include the bending because in brisbane it's a lot more expensive than that.
Stan

Hey Stan,
Don't have the quote in front of me. When i originally got the quote I didn't include the two cable chain support brackets. I ended up ordering the brackets as well which bumped up the price a bit. But yeah, it included all the bending.

So have you gone with Aluminium rails? where did you source them from?

Hi Matt
I am waiting for the rails and wheels from Yitong in china USD28.5 per mrt. the aluminium is 80 x 40 I will pick up local and cut the short leg down to suit I have a quote for the rack & pinion from TEA but the laser cut parts are to expensive up here. Who did you get to cut them.

The Yitong rails are carbon steel right? How much was shipping? Did you get the YT or YTS rails?

I got my parts cut at Sonnex laser in Adelaide. I would suggest getting them cut locally in case there is anything wrong with them and you need parts 'tweaked'.

Matt
I am getting YT3 rails and all wheels have eccentric bushes frieght
USD198.
It still might be worthwile to have the parts cut in adelaide as the cheapest price I have here is about $800.

Matt I see you have no gearboxes on your motors. Are you using direct drive or using a belt reduction

Belt reduction drive
 

I am planning on having a belt reduction drive. (3.2:1). The geared motors are too expensive for me an i think i remember reading the performance of the belt drive should be superior than the gearbox motors (esp. w.r.t backlash).

Here are some CAD pics

Attachment 4789
Attachment 4790
Attachment 4791

Matt,
Those pics look good. Are you planning on cutting them on the MM once it is done with the direct drive llke JR did?

I am in the process of seeing what they will cost to be made. I would try and cut them with direct drive but my motor brackets have a bore slightly smaller than my motors so they don't fit directly to the plates. So the Aluminium plates has been sized to fit my undersize motor plates and accept my motors. I will post pics when/if/how they are made.

Hi Matt
Under motor selection it does say the belt drive is better as far as backlash is concerned. If the price is ok woud you be interested in getting 2 sets made at the same time.

Hi Matt,
3.2 :1, interesting combo !!
I too am planning to make my trany,

Attachment 4792

Attachment 4793

not only to save a few $$$....but mostly and the obviously, doing it for this sefl fuzzy fun feeling of making your own...:D

I managed in the past to find source & material (drive, driven gear & belt) to get 3.0:1 reduction, but could not find source & material to configure 3.2:1 ?
Could I ask you to tell us more about your source & part# for your gears & belt set up so we all could look it up ?
Thanks in advance, Robert ;)

Hey Robert,

Nice CAD model. What pitch belt are you using there?

Funny we a re talking about this today because my pulleys and belts arrived today.
Attachment 4794

I have gone with the T5 (5mm pitch) size. To get the 3.2:1 i have chosen a 15T &48T combo. Used with a 56T (280mm) belt gives a centre distance of ~55mm. This only gives 5 teeth engaged at any one time which is 1 less than the recommended 6 so i went with the wider 16mm to compensate. It allows for quite a compact design.

I sourced them from a local supplier. www.piesau.com.au i'm sur they can be sourced easily anywhere.

Matt,
My drawings and part for this drawings are strictly for a temporary conception purpose. I used for this set up a “XT pitch” with a 3/8” wide belt.
I understand it may be “frail” for our MM set up !!
Haven’t gone spending the required in verifying & calculating this YET :o
This tempo set up has an easy 6teeth engaged, so I stop at that and figured when time comes I’ll take the required time to select the proper set-up...TBC !

Out of curiosity, would you know who makes (what brand) are those pulleys ?

Painted!
 

I picked up the table from the painter today. It was too late in the day to take a pic of the table parts so heres a pic of the Y-car. I feel so much closer to finishing now thats its painted.

Attachment 4799

And some other painted parts
Attachment 4800

Actually, not all the parts are painted yet. Still have the Z axis parts and the E-chain brackets. I wanted to wait until i had the e-chain to make sure i installed it at the right height. Well it arrived today, so i should be able to finish off those over the weekend and get the final parts painted next week.

Attachment 4801

Will post more pics of the painted table over the weekend....

Electronics progress
 

I have nearly all the parts for my control electronics now. I'm going with a slighty different layout to Geralds standard. I'm having all the geckos mounted in a vertical pattern. This will allow the motor power supply to enter from the left, the control signals from the right, and the motor wires will run under the heatsink up to the top ofthe box where they will pass through grommets outside the box.

Attachment 4802

Its hard to see, but the black heatsink has fins running vertically. This arrangement will also allow more natural convection but i will probably add a fan anyway.

I'm also doing my earthing a little differently. Rather than making the heatsink the earth point, i'm going to put a brass stud through the control box as the earth point. This will allow me to connect the earth wires more easily both outside and inside the control box. So having an anodised heatsink is no problem.

P.S. Man is that a big capacitor! I calculated i needed a 30,000uF and it was cheaper for me to get a 47,000uF than two 15,000uF ones. I hope it doesn't blow fuses on powerup with the current inrush!?

Matt,
I would not worry about the 47000u cap. It will just filter a little better. :) You wont get that much more inrush from the 47 to the 30. Just size your fuse accordingly.

a little more...
 

Finished the final parts that need to be painted now. Here is my spider plate with v-wheels fitted. (yes, i know i still have to drill the hole for the gas strut)
Attachment 4904
and the other side.
How does everyone bent that little tab over? my bender said it was too small to bend without the metal cracking. was thinking of just taking on a small tab or using a screw instead.
Attachment 4905
and with the z plate in place (rhs stiffener not fitted). got a local machine shop we use at work to machine this for me.
Attachment 4906

My X axis echain is the wider of the two option that Gerald has designed for. To better support the echain (and to use what i had on hand) i re-used the offcuts of the rail angle instead of the 10mm rod.
Attachment 4908

I also purchased some enclosures for the control buttons. The enclosure is designed for the 22mm buttons and comes with the 3 holes predrilled. I don't like how the mushroom head button is so close to the pause button but theres nothing i can do about it now.:(
Attachment 4907

Didn't make as much progress as i'd hoped, but thats been the case since i started :D My deadline hasn't shifted though so the next two weeks will be busy!

Looks good Matt!

The bend of the small tab has no more chance of cracking than any other bend. I grab them in the vice and coax them 90 degrees with a hammer. If they really do crack (odd grade steel), they won't fall off - run a weld over the crack. Or, "pre-crack" them by grinding them 1/2 way through, bend, then weld.

Hi Matt,
Gerald beat me to it. Here is what I did to reinforce the crack.

Nice clear sharp pics - good going.

Hi Matt (matty Zee),

Where did you get that spindle from? Internet perhaps?
What did you pay for it? WOuld be nice to replace the 2700 usd spindle option from the states with a cheaper option.

Anton

Yeah, got it from an eBay store that someone mentioned, linearbearings2008 i think is his user name. Paid about AU$770 (US$620) delivered. But make sure you ask for it to be really well packaged, particularly around the water connections. I had heard of some spindles arriving with broken water connections caused in transit.

Making great progress Matt. It should be cutting soon.

Jayson.