[Madclicker]

What I intended to just take a few hours killed my whole weekend. I decided I better "professionalize" my electronics and wiring or else sooner or later take a big hit in the wallet. I would have enjoyed working on making the machine better, but it's painful to tear it apart when it could be making money. Also, the scary aspect of f***king something up.

Previously I showed pics of the cabinet my brother gave me. Pic 1 shows the loaded cabinet with wire I used to rewire my steppers....just trailer wire from truevalue @ .29/ft.

Pic 2 shows the electronics installed. This cabinet seemed huge until I started stuffing it with my gorilla stuff. Saved room for future features like spindle control, charge pump, limit and home switches, many relays....etc.

Pic 3 shows the switch panel. Don't know yet how this will evolve. I'm using the AL cover to proto both this and the signal input box. When I have a final design I'll make covers from 1/4 phenolic laminate and engrave the legends. Right now I have master power switch and indicator lights for pwr, 12V and 5V. There is an E-Stop switch that's not functional yet. Gotta think how elaborate I want that to be.

Pic 4 shows heat sinks I glued to the trannie with high temp epoxy. This thing gets pretty hot and I had the heat sinks laying around. After a trial run today, I'm pretty sure I'll have to vent the cabinet.

Pic 5 shows my first attempt at routing the stepper power wires to the gantry trolley. I used discharge hose (from truevalue again). It was too flimsy to support itself, so I helped with a bungie cord. Clamped for now till I figure what I'm gonna do. At least it's not hanging from the shop light now!

Pic 6 shows the e-chain I finally installed on the gantry axis. It only took 1m to cover the 34" travel of the axis. That leaves almost 10' to use on the big router. It is riding on a phenolic plate that I still have to cut to size.

The last pic is my control cabinet as it is today. Not the final product, but it's moving along. I'm switching over to Mach from tcnc and have moved my favorite computer into the shop. Have to tweak all my cut files now.

More to come.

[Madclicker]

I don't know how many are as ignorant as me about clamping materials, but the light turned on for me today. I've had a sheet of ULF for a while now and just been tripping over it. Today I made my first vacuum fixture. My back is gonna thank me forever for not having to do the same manual clamping.

This thing is as slick as cat crap! I cut 30 production pieces tonight and didn't get the slightest slip.

I used 2 shop vacs in series. That gave me about 5" hg....maybe 2.5 lb/sq/in.

The vac table itself I built from scraps and dumpster finds....except for the dust port and the trupan. Maybe $10, not counting gas.

The first pic is the layout of the backbone.

Second pic is of the plenum cover on.

The third pic is of some pvc pegboard I'm thinking of using. Anyone with ideas?

4th is pretty much the final fixture.

Next is 1st money cut with this fixture....actually first cut.

Another pic showing more intricate panels......

[Mike F]

Steve,

Nice work. A couple of questions though. When you cut smaller parts do you cover the unwanted holes in order to maintain vacuum or is there enough suck to negate this? I am thinking, that without some way of sealing the uncovered holes when not utilising the whole of the work area, there will not be enough vacuum to hold small pieces.

It appears that you are cutting a full sheet which obviously works well.

The other question is about sacrificial tables. If you are cutting right through your material, do you use the peg board as a sacrificial element, throwing it away after a number of cuts or do you have some method of safeguarding the peg board?

Mike

[Madclicker]

I'm not actually using the pegboard yet. Sorry, I didn't explain that well. Right now I'm only using base with the Trupan insert. The first pic below is the base. It has 1/2" plt scrap risers and 1/4" strips of ply around 3 sides. These are topped with 1/4" CC gasket. All this creates a plenum under the Trupan, which just sits in as an insert. Pic 2. The Trupan sits about 1/2" proud of the base. You can see the cut through traces. Cutting into the Trupan a little doesn't affect the overall hold. That's what makes this stuff such a great all-in-one spoil/bleeder board.

As for smaller pieces, shop vacs won't work for them......depends on what you mean by small of course. The smallest panel I cut right now is 24 x 12. I've tested a 27 x 12 and it holds ok. It holds better with the rest of the ULF covered with laminate scraps and I'm sure that's how I will cut them when it comes to it.

Small parts is where the pegboard comes in. I have a high quality, low volume pump. Pic 3. I mounted it on an old wheeled compressor tank to address the volume issue. I would like to make an insert for the base from the pegboard that would sit in it just like the Trupan does. Easy enough, except I would like to have it zoned so I can control vacuum areas by valve and not covering sections. The only thing I can think of is fabricating from solid PVC sheet. I certainly don't want to be remaking this, so I would be using other spoil boards/fixtures. I guess it wouldn't be too hard to make a zoned insert from PVC sheet. Just have to be careful to get it straight and flat.

All this is just a run-up to building a full sheet table. I couldn't imagine trying to use a full sheet router without a good zoned vacuum table. Hard enough on my back with this 1/3 sheet machine.

[Mr.Chips]

Good job Steve. Really like the extensive use of the torsion box construction, makes for a light and strong build. And being a scrounger myself I like your frugal approach to the construction.

Just a word about the super fine dust that you will be generating, the dust vacuum you have catches 90% of the dust, that’s good but it's the 10% super fine dust that is going right through your filter that is the killer.

Bill Pentz is a fine dust survivor and has done a really nice job of documenting the dangers in this area., a very scientific approach to the solution of collecting it with a cyclone vacuum dust collector. Here is his web site: http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm

Stu a fellow in Japan built Bill’s Cyclone and did a very good job documenting the construction with lots of photos and construction tips. Stu also has a lot of interesting projects too. Here is his link: http://www.ablett.jp/workshop/cyclone.htm

Good luck in the future

Hager

[Madclicker]

Frugal is my middle name. The torsion boxes were a lot of work, but I'm very happy I did it that way. They are still as straight, flat and true as the day I made them.

I hear you about the dust. I make tons of it every week. My garbage men hate me, I'm sure. Can imagine dumping a BIG can of mdf flour and have it fly back at you. I hate dumping it 5 gallons at a time......RUN AWAY!

I'm very familiar with the pentz site. Have the cyclone plans sitting on my desk now. Just never enough hours. I'll build a cyclone soon, maybe not to the exact plans, and post the build here. I think I have a few shortcuts that might help others.

[Mr.Chips]

Frugal is my middle name.
I'm very familiar with the pentz site. Have the cyclone plans sitting on my desk now. Just never enough hours. I'll build a cyclone soon, maybe not to the exact plans, and post the build here. I think I have a few shortcuts that might help others.

If you haven't seen the Stu's site in Japan he has a few good tips on the Cyclone construction too.
Hager

[Madclicker]

A couple days ago I received my newest piece to this puzzle......a flexible, waterfroof, and more importantly dustproof keyboard. Only $13 delivered. This I will use along with the 15" lcd to make a machine-side control panel. Thoughts in progress, but at least I have full control at the machine now. Was a serious pain walking back and forth to the cabinet to rerun the g-code for small parts. I dug out an ooooold kvm switch and cables and now I can use the 19" monitor in the cabinet or switch to the 15" monitor and silicone keyboard at the machine.

The pic shows the whole setup with the machine side controls sitting on a tv tray.....obviously temporary. Don't know what the final control box or mount will be yet. Pretty sure the ultimarc board and joysticks will be included. Also have a lot of membrane panels.

[jmytyk]

hey -- where did you get the keyboard?? i found some, just not so cheap. thanks.

[Madclicker]

hey -- where did you get the keyboard?? i found some, just not so cheap. thanks.

Here's a link to the ebay seller's store:

Flex Keyboards

Several to chose from...mini, full, colors. I would have liked the mini size, but it has no pgup/pgdn.

BTW, seller ships FAST.

[Madclicker]

The vacuum table has worked great, but it wasn't as flat as I would have liked so I skimmed the bleeder board last night. I measured it to be about 3/32" out and ended taking off about .100" in 4 or 5 passes. It's now dead nuts with my router. I found an added benefit of doing this was that by removing the top, harder layer of the VLF the air flows was opened up significantly.

I wrote some simple gcode to do this. I used a 3/4" bit, 1/2" step and 100 ipm feed. It can be modified easily for any size table, bit, step or feed.

[eqreservoir]

What is VLF?

[Madclicker]

What is VLF?

Very Light Fiberboard.

[Madclicker]

Table Skimming Gcode:


; This program skims a 32" x 24" spoil/bleeder board

N1000 #3=-.125 ;skim depth
N2000 #4=4 ;X clear
N3000 #5=28 ;Y clear
N4000 #1=0 ;Y position variable
N5000 #2=.5 ;safe z
N6000 g0 z#2
N7000 g0 x-1 y0
N8000 g0 z#3
N9000
N10000 ; start of REPEAT LOOP
N11000 g1 X33 f100
N12000 #1=[#1+.5]
N13000 g0 Y#1
N14000 g1 X-1
N15000 #1=[#1+.5]
N16000 g0 Y#1
N17000 IF #1 EQ 25 M97 O20000 ; UNTIL condition test
N18000 M97 O10000 ; repeat loop, condition not met
N20000 ; beginning of the end
N30000 g0 z#2
N40000 g0 X#4 Y#5 ; clear table
N50000 M30 ; end of end

[eqreservoir]

Thanks, Steve. I'm familiar with MDF, VLF was a new one. So many acronyms. Do they have VLF at the HD/lowes type stores?

[Madclicker]

Doubtful you'll find it at Lowes. My regular cabinet supply had to special order a sheet of it for me. It also goes by the tradename "Trupan".

[eqreservoir]

Thanks. I will look for Trupan.

[Dave's_Not_Here]

Here's a link to the ebay seller's store:

Flex Keyboards

Several to chose from...mini, full, colors. I would have liked the mini size, but it has no pgup/pgdn.

BTW, seller ships FAST.

Madclicker,

What is the action/sensitivity like on the keys? I have never used one but need to seriously consider replacing my old one and this looks like just the ticket. Do you have to press the keys any harder than a "normal" keyboard?

Thanks!

[Madclicker]

Madclicker,

What is the action/sensitivity like on the keys? I have never used one but need to seriously consider replacing my old one and this looks like just the ticket. Do you have to press the keys any harder than a "normal" keyboard?

Thanks!

I never said anything, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well this thing works. I don't know how many are old enough to remember the "chicklet" keyboards they tried to pass off on us in the 70's; they were horrible. I was expecting something like those, but I really like this one. I'm not a typist, but so far I haven't had to make any special adjustments to use it.

[Madclicker]

I do have to add that I only use the lcd/flex keyboard to control the machine. When I want to do much of anything else I switch to the 19" crt and regular keyboard/mouse and Windoze.