[SCzEngrgGroup]

Illuminated Pushbuttons, Poker VLT Buttons, Replacement Button Sets, LED Lamps and Custom Artwork

Here's another source....didn't check the price difference from ebay but the rectangular smallto medium sized look good.

Those exact switches are usually available at a good price, and decent selection of sizes, shapes and colors, from AllElectronics.com. They're nice, in that the switch is actually a replaceable snap-action microswitch. They're not so nice in that they are pretty large - they need something like 1.5" depth to mount. The color can be changed easily by cutting gel filters, or using colored light bulbs - they use a small 12V incandescent bulb for illumination.

Regards,
Ray L.

[Mad Welder]

Yeah I forgot to mention the bulb......I was going to swap them for different colour LEDS...and thanks for the suppliers link Ray

[691175002]

Wire is in. I purchased 18 gauge cable for the steppers because it was cheapest, but it ended up being very thick so I probably should have gone with 22 gauge. I may make the swap in a few months when I replace the cracked acrylic.





It has run the dynomotion test program so 3 axis g-code works. I still need to pick a maximum velocity/acceleration and do some tweaking of k-flop settings.

The wires seem to stay out of trouble fairly well, although they will probably have to be considered when doing set-up for unattended cuts.



Packing the mill up involves stuffing all the extra wire to the right of the table. Then you just need to make sure it doesn't wander off while the case is closed.

[Fastest1]

Does the case have an alarm in the chance it might "wander" off? You know the foreign spies were always trying get .007. Be afraid, very afraid.

[Mystichrome]

I have a side note to anyone that became interested in Vandal Switches after seeing them here in Ryan's thread. Back when I was into PC Modding, these were really popular with modding crowd and unless they have changed the design, you'll have to provide a specific voltage to the LED's. At least that's how the Bulgin brand worked. I wanna say they were 5v when I was using them. The LED's don't get powered by voltage passed by the switch. Vendors typically won't exchange or accept returns on switches with burned out LED's. Just something to be aware of. Love the look of Vandal Switches. They come in various configurations. Ring of light, center light, illuminated symbols, etc. Ryan, I'd love to hear more about how have yours set to change color depending on what the machine is doing. Sounds Pretty cool. I've never tried to open mine up and replace the led's, I didn't see a discernible way of opening them up. I have a spare one laying around somewhere, I'll have to track it down and take another look at it. Designs may have changed as well since I last played with them.

[691175002]

No anti-theft, although the weight of the case would probably be quite effective. In all honesty, I doubt anyone would be able to fold it without breaking something. I've done it a few dozen times now and it still takes a few minutes to pack all the wires properly.

The lighting is pretty simplistic right now, and the switches basically change between red and green depending on whether they are pressed. The cycle start/stop button turns red when cutting and green when stopped, just like the start/stop button in the interface.


I finished attaching and doing a basic test of the spindle, so the machine is effectively finished. The ER8 collets should arrive tomorrow and I will be doing some test cuts in wood, plastics and aluminium to get a feel for feeds/speeds.


I am already brainstorming a second revision. The current iteration prioritized cutting area and everything else kinda followed. After building this router my priorities have changed and now I would be willing to trade cutting area for proper wire management and more rigidity.

Primary mechanical changes would be a switch to MG series linear rail ( MG Linear Guideway Series ) or equivalent, and a much more rigid frame. I would also use E2 micro cable carrier ( igus® Cable Carriers -E2 Micro Product Overview ) and appropriate wiring because the current system is a mess.

I've realized that my current electronics setup wastes a lot of space and is unnecessarily heavy as well. I would drop the switching power supplies and just get a pair of torroidal transformers since the voltage can be unregulated. I would also make a custom PCB instead of wiring everything on protoboard. I could probably fit all the electronics underneath the KFlop if I tried. This would leave far more space for the mill.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I would drop the switching power supplies and just get a pair of torroidal transformers since the voltage can be unregulated. I would also make a custom PCB instead of wiring everything on protoboard. I could probably fit all the electronics underneath the KFlop if I tried. This would leave far more space for the mill.

A properly-designed switching power supply will ALWAYS be both smaller and considerably lighter than a transformer linear power supply with the same voltage and current ratings.

Regards,
Ray L.

[andypugh]

That's rather nice.

Do you get a GUI anywhere? I am wondering if you plug a laptop in to do actual machining?

Did you consider a MiniITX PC board in the case and Mach3 or LinuxCNC? I don't think it would take up that much more space, but then I might have a really bad sense of the scale.

[691175002]

A properly-designed switching power supply will ALWAYS be both smaller and considerably lighter than a transformer linear power supply with the same voltage and current ratings.

Regards,
Ray L.

I was considering using just a transformer and a rectifier, but after looking at the options it seems that a chinese switching supply ends up a similar weight, and is regulated so it is probably the better bet.
In this case, switching everything to a single voltage (instead of seperate spindle and stepper supplies) would be a good way to save weight. Perhaps strip off the box and use the aluminium case for heatsinking.



No display in the box, a laptop must be attached for machining. I used the KFlop since I was able to borrow it from my g0704. EMC2 on a miniitx board would be pretty awesome as well.



I got sidetracked for a few days, but I have performed the first few cuts on the machine. Did some pocketing/profiling in acrylic which went very well and some test cuts in aluminium.

I can run approximately 9IPM, 0.020"doc slotting a 1/8" endmill in aluminium. This was with the spindle at 30% duty cycle since I have not fully broken it in. I can probably go faster, but I don't know how the RPM varies with duty cycle.

Its a fairly pathetic cut, but the finish is good and I'm willing to wait for slow cycle times.

Repeatability and backlash are both better than 0.0005". I tuned the machine for 90IPM rapids and 20"/s acceleration. The motors can probably go a lot faster, but the acceleration seems near the rigidity limit of the frame.

[ww_kayak]

Great work. I missed a ton of your posts! I guess if you don't click on the thread post notifications once in awhile you get unsubscribed

I did a dual boot miniITX with a carputer touch screen on mine. It looks pretty, but I don't really know about the usability yet. I'm just getting around to the mechanical part of the G0704 conversion this week

[BAMCNC.COM]

Nice button! LMAO

[Dirty Engineer]

Any update on the G0704 or Briefcase CNC builds?

[691175002]

It is essentially finished, I have some pictures here:
http://imgur.com/a/n0Lcu

It does an okay job, pretty much what you would expect from a machine its size/weight. I've been doing some really nice work in acrylic but I don't have the patience for big cuts in aluminium.

[Mad Welder]

Nice job on the car......

Using my phone for this post and the smiley faces aren't accessible the new forum face lift seems to change by the day......I'm using an android phone

[zamazz]

Now that you've had a little time to run the 0704, I was wondering how the giant servo was working out? Does it live up to its 1500W rating? Does it keep speed well, has it ever faulted? Have you tried tapping with it? I'm considering same from my spindle, but don't wanna invest the money if it isn't worth it. Also, is it running off 220V?

Also, I was wondering what you did with your electronics. Are they still mounted openly on the plastic sheets or did you enclose them and mount them somewhere?

[691175002]

The 1.5KW servo was pretty substantial overkill and has not faulted (or even come close to its limit as far as I can tell). I haven't tried tapping yet but I can do spindle orientation from the MPG so it should go fine. I've found no drawbacks to the servo other than the price (which is a pretty substantial drawback, it doesn't really do anything a VDF+encoder can't do for half the price). They shipped it to me fast and it worked out of the box with no fiddling, which was important to me at the time since I only had about a week with the mill.


I've been away from home for the past two months so nothing has been done on the mill. I plan on pretty much taking the whole thing apart and putting it together a second time but better (paint, full enclosure, that kind of stuff...) but I probably won't get a chance to do so for a while.

I've also got ideas for an ATC or a larger build, but at some point it might be easier to put the money and time into a tormach equivalent, small hass, or a large used cnc. I actually really want to make a combined 4x8 router+laser cutter (laser on the gantry) out of self-leveling epoxy granite but that is probably a pipe dream.

[blegas78]

VERY nice work!

I saw your hexapod too which is absolutely beautiful. Do you have any video of it walking around?

It's funny, I also built a hexapod and then later bought a g0704. However I used a Dimension 3D printer, as I had no milling experience. The g0704 is my first mill and first CNC machine, so I'm definitely an amateur. I am hoping to eventually be able to do some 3D milling and replicate parts of my hexapod in aluminum.

I'll definitely be using your build as a reference for my future g0704 upgrades. Here's my YouTube channel if you want to check out my hexapod:
https://www.youtube.com/blegas78

[691175002]

I've been away at school for about 8 months now, but I'm back and starting this project up again.



The primary task I will focus on is adding a power drawbar to the spindle and switching to TTS. I will be removing the 5th axis as part of this, so essentially the whole head will be redone. As I complete the electronics I will plan for and include all the components required for an ATC.

There are still a ton of small (and large) tasks that also need doing to clean up the mill. I plan on adding limit switches, cleaning up the wiring, building an enclosure, and properly housing the electronics.

I also plan on building a small control panel with the MPG and some buttons/switches.



I will follow Hoss's power drawbar plans to the letter (including the DIY air cylinder).

The enclosure might be made out of sheet metal but I am also looking into easier/cheaper alternatives like coroplast or dibond.

I'm also deciding whether or not I am willing to paint the tray. It will be a genuinely horrifying task to take everything apart just for a coat of paint but I might just bite the bullet and do it.

[691175002]

First thing I've decided to work on is the electronics. Its a reasonable task to take on and having exposed 240V everywhere isn't the greatest idea.

The electronics are getting a bit of an expansion since the original module did not include the 1.5KW servo drive.
In addition, I will be adding:

• 8 Inputs (Limit switches, Sensors, Buttons...)
• DB25 Connector for MPG/Pendant
• 4 Relays (Arbitrary outputs for ATC, Coolant...)
• Stepper Driver (5th Axis or ATC)

Anyways, first thing is to build a case.

I am not particularly comfortable with sheet metal. It seems easy to work in theory, but I've found it very difficult to make sheet metal look good without expensive tools. I'll be building the enclosure out of sheet metal regardless, and trying a completely new approach so hopefully it turns out better than my past projects.

First thing is to model the case in CAD. I've always liked it when people mod computer cases so I copied that approach. The box is pretty flashy and has two windows and 6 fans. There are four separate pieces that make up the case. Nothing particularly complicated but a few folds will need to line up for it to look decent.


Solidworks can automatically generate flat patterns which is primarily why I modeled the case in CAD. Calculating bend allowances and designing all the little notches so that everything fits properly is not a task I want to do by hand.


Normally I just mark up the patterns on sheet and go from there, but these are a little too involved to just lay out with a ruler and Sharpe. I chose to print them out to scale. Taping the sheets together such that the drawing remained accurate was a very involved task. I would line up every page by going to the CAD model and figuring out the exact distance between various features and ensuring that was reflected in the paper version. Took about 20 minutes per part.


Then I just glued the sheets to my metal and proceeded like normal.


Here are the finished sides:


And the finished case:



I am actually extremely happy with how this turned out, and will be using this process (CAM-> Glue printed pattern to sheet metal -> Cut/Bend) in the future. I did the CAM yesterday and finished the entire case today - it went together much faster than I expected. The cutouts in the back panel were PITA and probably took half the total build time.


And here is a quick test fit:

If you compare the finished piece to the CAD model you might notice Murphy's law struck, and I accidentally bent the main piece backwards (it ended up mirrored). Fortunately it is of no consequence since I can move the acrylic panels to any location. In fact, it is almost a happy mistake since I prefer how the electronics look in this arrangement.

Main task now is figuring out what colour to paint it.

[manton]

As usual the stuff you do amazes me, and I'm generally pretty difficult to impress.

It was great meeting you at Maker Faire, and seeing what you have done in person.

Mike