[rmoss]

I'm kind of leaning towards the CNC9000 and the Shop Bot Buddy but I really need some advice. By the way, there are two models of the Shop Bot Buddy to add to the delima.

Go with the shopbot if its one of your options. The "alpha" model shopbot buddy is a closed loop stepper driven machine with very fast feed rates and has the added security of being closed loop.......but a lot more expensive. The prs standard is advertized at 4000 and is a great machine. Its not closed loop but as long as you work with in its limits that will never be a problem. 300 Ipm feed rate is pretty darn good especially if your using it for hobby level projects. The EZ-router is a great machine but the smallest version is still more then the prs buddy. If you want to go with a little smaller cutting area give the guys at romaxx and imservice a call. I have talked to both and they were very helpful....I have only heard good things about both machines and the imservice machine is servo driven.....that being said romaxx has a closed loop option as well. I think I am going with the prs buddy.

[BJenkins]

Thanks rmoss,

I agree 110% regarding the folks at Romaxx and IMService. Both were very helpful and I would be confident of customer service with either company. Ron at Romaxx was extremely helpful when I considered purchasing a year ago. I really think that all of these routers are good choices and I appreciate the thoughts on the Shop Bot. The extra grand holds me back but I will seriously consider it. Any other thoughts would be appreciated as well.

I might take a drive over soon to check out this router before I make the decision. If so, you are welcome to come along.

Bill J.

[ACraft]

Is This A Shop Bot Thread or CNC9000 ?

Ace

[BJenkins]

Good point, it's a CNC 9000 thread. Sorry for mixing up the topic. The CNC 9000 looks like the best choice when you add up all the basic factors size, quality and price and it just looks right.
Bill J.

[igolfat8]

? for you CNC9000 owners who have fiddled with speeds. The website says that the maximum speed is about 50 ipm. I assume this is rapid speeds? I see a few of you in this thread have modified the Mach 3 set up to get 75-100 ipm. . If you have made mods other than these what faster speeds were you able to obtain?

What router(s) besides the PC 690 are you using and where did you get your mount?

The electronics appear to be mounted to the back side of the gantry. Does this pose any potential problems and do they get covered in wood or machining dust? Should this really be a concern?

Are you using the suplied aluminum bed and how level is it to the gantry (after initial set up and tweaking? Did you have to machine it flat (with the spindle) after set up or are you using a MDF bed over the top of the aluminum bed?

[ACraft]

If you are looking at buying this machine, you will need to take in to account that you WILL have to "Tune" it. The gantry is shipped separate from the table, so getting it level with the bed is up to the end user. We use MDF spoilboards and "fly-cut" the surface before we use it. We live in Texas so we have to (or should) fly-cut the bed at least once a week due to the high humidity making the surface swell.

Tuning the machine involves adjusting the ball screws, alignment etc. If this makes you uncomfortable with this machine, know that I have dealt with machines costing tens of thousands of dollars more that gave me more fits than this little one. These machines do a bit of thrashing around while they work, so it is good practice to do regular maintenance to keep everything tight and running proper.(this will also keep your other tools in good running order...Router, vac. etc.)

After some tweaking on the ball screws by the Dad Unit last week, I think he said it is running at 90ipm on the X and Y and 75 or 80 on the Z.

Almost have the Taig spindle ready for action. Just got the power supply. Will post more when we get it running.

Ace

[ChristopherWood]

Ok, Here is my review of the CNC9000 after a few months of use. My experience has been a bit different then other posts here so, here we go.

On ordering and shipping, two thumbs up. The sales guy was polite, knowledgeable, etc.... I received the machine within about 3 days of ordering it. They are only 1 state over from me so shipping was fast and they got it out quick. Everything was packaged well. I have enough styrofoam peanuts to last me while for my own shipping :-).

Setting the machine up, this took awhile. Better instructions would be nice but you really only have to attach the gantry. it was a bit confusing for me at first but once I figured it out it was quite simple. What took most of the time was getting the table made to sit it on and getting Mach3 all setup. One thing about the setup was that almost all of the ABBA rails were loose. I would have thought that they would all be tightened up before shipping. No biggie.

Ok so now I am up and running. I have set the dip switches to run at 100 IPM. The machine will do it but the motors constantly torque out and I loose my zero when running over 50 IPM. I am not exactly sure why this happens yet. I haven't had time to really try and fix this problem. Most of the things that I am using this machine for (inlay) run at speeds lower then 50 IPM so I am using it for what I intended. But I was disappointed that I couldn't run other things on this machine that I already have setup at 75 or 100 IPM.

All in all, I'd have to say that I am happy with my CNC9000. It does what I primarily wanted it to do. The machine is built well. The design is good and the parts are made from good quality materials for something in this price range. My next machine is going to be a K2 3925. Because I want the size and a real heavy duty and accurate machine with servos & etc... But If my business grows enough to need another machine in the CNC9000 size, I would probably buy another one.

[ChristopherWood]

Photos

[ChristopherWood]

This is one of my guitars. Body cut on my old K2 and neck cut on the CNC9000.

[ACraft]

Love the guitar!

Looks like you have some of my same interests, skulls and shredding!

I am designing one right now to use some quilted Sapele that I found.

Gotta have the Floyd Rose!

Ace

[ChristopherWood]

Hello everyone. I was just wondering about some things related to the resolution settings and speeds. My machine (cnc9000) has been torquing out and loosing its place on all 3 axis's. I have disconnected the lead screws, checked the movement along the rails and greased everything up just to be sure. No problems there. But even with everything disconnected from the motors, when I jog above 50 IPM the motors torque out even with no load. I had been running at 1/4 setting for steps and trying to get 75 IPM out of it. And that is where my problems occur. So tonight I dropped the setting down to 1/8th and adjusted for running at 50 IPM. This seems to be my fastest safe speed without any hiccups. So I was just wondering how all of you are getting these faster speeds. I don't need to blaze but 75 IPM would be nice. My question is, by changing the settings for resoluton does that add or reduce the torque of the motors? And should I consider getting a set of more heavy duty motors for this? Any ideas?

[chcraft]

In response to your questions I have experienced similar problems. Based on the things that I have tried it is my opinion that the problem is with the ball screws and not the linear bearings. My problem is primarily with the Y and Z axis. Both lock up in the range of 65-80 ipm at both 1/4 step and 1/8 step. I have experimented and it seems that there is a range where the axis locks up and above that it works fine. On my machine if I set the speed to 90 ipm at 1/4 step it runs well and at 110 ipm it runs really well, it hums. The band above 80 ipm runs from around 85 to 125 ipm. Above 125 ipm it also locks up. I haven't tried any faster than that. I am theorizing that that there is some sort of harmonic that sets in at those speeds as the sound of the system changes widely at various speeds.

One other thing that I have noticed is that if I loosen that screws holding the stepper/ball screw mount, the system runs very smoothly and the lockups seem to disappear. Based on that I have tried adjusting the ball screw nut and that seems not to have any effect. I have also tried placing shims beneath the plate that attaches the ball screw to the frame at the stepper end with only limited success. I have measured the standoffs between the stepper moter and the ball screw mount and they are all the same size within the limitations of my calipers (.001 resolution).

I too am now running at 1/8 step and 60ipm on all three axes. I have tried running at 110 but there usually comes a time when the speeds combine so that the Y axis hits that 60-80ipm band and the machine locks up. Most of my cutting has been in the range of 40-50ipm but the higher speed is really nice when the cutter needs to be moved to a new location.

As to the differece in torque between 1/4 and 1/8 step I really do not know. Intuituon would say that at 1/8 step there would be more torque. But since that sort of thinking has proven me wrong more that once hopefully someone with more expertise can answer that question.

[ChristopherWood]

Chcraft - Wery well stated. That is exactly what I am experiencing. The harmonic vibration. Last night I was running a 12" circle patern at 75 IPM and as X & Y come into the first quarter of the arc I can hear the vibration picking up and then as X switches direction, it locks up. But it does work at 50 IPM. I wonder if simply sitting the machine on a rubber mat might deaden some of the vibes. or adding mass to the frame. I'll do some experiments with this and post my results.

[chcraft]

I may have found the problem with my Y-Axis loksup problem. This afternoon I was working on my machine trying to find a combination adjustements when a neighbor dropped by to show me something he had cut on his machine. I explained my problem and he asked what i had done. He then asked if I had tested the stepper motor by itself. I said no not tha the sppeds where i was having the problems. I removed the stepper motor and ran it in both directions and found the stepper motor was stuttering at the 90ipm speed.

He has a business machining Lexan Windows and mirrors for installation in custom aircraft interiors and has a large CNC machine. He said that in his experience the ballscrews are almost bullet proof and you really have to try to hurt them. I am going to try and locate a set of higher quality motors and see if that will solve my problem. Will let you know what my results are.

[chcraft]

Yesterday I found that if the stepper is removed from the ball screw and run by itself it periodically locks up. It spins along and the stops. The X axis seemed to be running well at most speeds up to 120IPM so I swapped the CW230 controller between the Y axis to the X axis and the stepper behaved the same on the Y axis as before but now the X axis is also having lockup problems.

My first thought was a stepper problem but now I am not sure. Could it be a combination of stepper and controller or could it be a controller problem? Can anyone offer any insight or thoughts based on your experience?

[dmauch]

I disagree. I bought one of the Cw230 from CS to test for a new low cost controller. I set it up to run in 1/8 microsteps and was disapppointed to see that there wasa problem with stepper motor resonance caused by poor midband stabilization. Next I tried the 1/16 step anmd even that had the same problem. If you really want to solve the problem then you should look at the new Gecko G251 stepper motor drivers. They have mid band stabilzation and run motors flawlessly.
Running a motor on the bench without it connected is probably the worst case because there is no dampening. That is why the mid band stabilization is so important

Dan Mauch
www.camtronics-cnc.com

Yesterday I found that if the stepper is removed from the ball screw and run by itself it periodically locks up. It spins along and the stops. The X axis seemed to be running well at most speeds up to 120IPM so I swapped the CW230 controller between the Y axis to the X axis and the stepper behaved the same on the Y axis as before but now the X axis is also having lockup problems.

My first thought was a stepper problem but now I am not sure. Could it be a combination of stepper and controller or could it be a controller problem? Can anyone offer any insight or thoughts based on your experience?

[chcraft]

First let me make a few comments about the CNC9000. If you look at the specifications on the CS website they say that the CNC9000 will run at 50IPM with the supplied steppers and controllers. Based on my experience and comments from others who have posted to this forum I believe that is a true statement. In fact my machine will run reliably up to 70 IPM. My point is that CS did not over sell the machine and it does what it was advertised to do.

I bought the machine to get started with CNC and to learn about CNC as inexpensively as I could. I have certainly learned a lot about CNC, stepper motors, linear bearings and ball screws. My interest in getting my machine to run faster was to understand where the vibration and lockups were coming from.

As of this morning my machine is running very well. There is little noticeable vibration and I have been able to get speeds of 250IPM without any lockups. I did this by replacing all of the electronics with a system built by Bob Campbell (http://campbelldesigns.net/ ). Bob is located only a few miles from me and we have discussed CNC many times over that past few months. The system that Bob brought for me to use has Gecko 203 drivers and a 50V power supply capable of delivering enough amps to drive large steppers. The system is probably overkill for the CNC9000 but we wanted to eliminate the mechanical components as a part of the problem. Bob is also working with the newer Gecko drivers and I plan on upgrading to them when he has his system to use them.

I do not know enough about the controllers to fully understand all of what Dan Mauch said in his post but I can attest to the fact that with the Gecko drivers in the system all of the vibration and resonance is gone. The sound of the system when the X and/or Y are moving is much smoother, more consistent and it does not sound like it is laboring. The difference between the old electronics and the new electronics is like night and day.

I haven’t cut anything with the new setup yet as I am still routing cables and verifying my MACH settings. Installing the new electronics has verified that the ball screws and linear bearings were working well and the problems were with the electronics at anything above 70IPM.

[mechtron]

I have posted in the welcome thread forum, some information about myself, with this being my second post. I have a CNC9000 from Circuit Specialists and have downloaded Mach3. ---I am stuck!! --- I can't get started!!! -- My motors will not spin!!!----For a little history I have tightened loose screws, realigned the bearing rails for smooth travel. I have run the ball screws back and forth with a cordless drill to obtain smooth and consistant operation through out the length of each axis. I have gone through the CNC9000 assembly instructions and verified wiring and dip switch settings. I purchased a Pentium four computer specifically for this machine. Mach3 is loaded and has a green band around the reset button. The motor tuning velocity and accelleration buttons and the wave form change but my motors do not respond. I have added a cnc printer port protector from Hubbard CNC ebay store. I have printed out and followed the Mach3 tutorial from the Artsoft web page. When unpowered my stepper motors cog easily by hand. When they are powered they lock into position and can not be moved by hand. I believe my hardware and setup are correct but I can not get going. Can you help?

[ACraft]

Have you tried contacting Circuit Specialists?

Our machine was sent with a bad driver on the X axis. they sent a new one but it was bad also. Third time was a charm in this case.

As posted by Dad (C Craft), we have ditched the stock electronics and set up with a system from Bob Campbell. The machine runs better now than I ever thought a machine this size would.

Im sure you would like to get running with the stuff you have and not have to purchace more equipment. I would contact C.S. with your problem. Sounds like it might be a drive issue.

Ace

[mechtron]

SET UP PROBLEMS
__________________________________________________ ________________________
ACraft,
Thank you for your reply. I called Circuit Specialists and left a voice mail. George Ledger called me back within an hour. He was very helpful and gave me confidence that the hardware is ok. He had me check voltages. The CP+ and the CW+ have a standing voltage of 5.6vdc. It should be zero or pulsed when sighals go through it. He had me unscrew the CP+ and repeatedly touch and release the connection. This caused the motor to rotate. This puts me squarely into Mach3 configuration. As I mentioned before I have printed out and followed the Mach3 Tutorial but have something not right in its configuration. I have no experience with this and I need help please. Thank You.