[IN-WondeR]

Yeah, I hope this will bring me hours and hours of fun and who knows what it will turn into..

This would be my last scratch build, then I will go to retrofitting instead....

[CarveOne]

My smaller machine has had a major rebuild even before it was completed the first time, but now it is what I build nearly all of my projects. The big machine has had at least four major upgrades, and there will be one more coming later for the Z axis.

Now I bore everyone with the things the machines make. The big machine will be making fajita trays for a local restaurant again - soon.

[IN-WondeR]

Today a little bit of progress. Got the first couple of cable carriers mounted, and the electronics has been thrown into the cabinet... Looking good so far.

[Donny M. Carter]

Very nice build! Thanks for sharing!

Donny

[IN-WondeR]

Thank you Donny

I'm also very pleased with this build. Might not be the fastest machine out there, but it will be precise "I hope"

[IN-WondeR]

Well, alot more has happened since I started this build. The machine is in practicality finished. Now it's small upgrades, and such.

I bought a few years ago, Gerry's 2010 screenset for Mach3, and I'm now implimenting it into the machine, and also the "Semi auto tool change" bit.

So today I made this snappy little fixed touch of plate for the Auto tool zero program in the 2010 screenset. It came out very nicely, and very very sturdy. It's made of 20mm Aluminum flat bars, and a piece of 12mm Copper. Would have milled a piece, but I do not have the tools to mill Copper yet, they are in the mail though. But as usual I'm a bit impatient, but it all worked out well anyways. Now I only need to hook it up to the Breakout board, then it should work as is.

I still need some covers for my drive belts for the ballscrews, and some sort of dust extraction, I'm planning on building a Bill Pentz cyclone again. I have all the plans and even the cutting files for a CNC laser, for an 18" Cyclone. I Just need to find out where in my small garage I should put it.

The two birth plaques I have added, are the first things I made. Those are for my daughter, and her baby sister... They came out great.

The tabletop is a temporary one. It will be switched with one in 30mm MDF instead, and I will probably either do a vacuum table, or T-slots of some kind.

[PaulRowntree]

This is a very elegant, clean build. Congratulations on every part of it!

[IN-WondeR]

Thanx Paul

I'm also very happy with the machine as is. There will be a few upgrades which I have thought up for more stability. The crossmembers will be reinforced, I think they are just a bit small, so they will be beefed up with another 60x60x4mm strut underneath. And sometime in the future I will be adding a vertical holder on the end so I can machine things like dovetails and so on on it.

Here's a test video of the Automatic tool zero macro for the 2010 Screenset by Gerry on machsupport forum. I still need to recieve the Macro for the M6 command from him, but this is for the initial tool zero for "semi automatic tool change"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEad...mIivvEwQcXpPZw

[IN-WondeR]

Small update. I have gotten the tabletop switched with a very thick MDF comobination. 22mm in the bottom, and 19mm on top.
This has been sealed with a water/glue mixture, to make sure it does not suck in much moisture.

And I have invested in some Aluminum t-slot rails to countersink into the tabletop, making for a firm and good hold down setup.
They have not arrived yet, but should arrive either today or on monday.

The machine is beginning to look very good now.
On this picture it only has one layer of water/glue mix, it now has two layers, giving a nice dark shine.

[IN-WondeR]

Well I bought a smoothstepper for my machine, but I must admit I'm not pleased with it.
I had hoped it would boost performance a bit, and it did in rapids adding almost 25% to the rapid speeds.

but that's about as far as it goes.

The troubles that came with it on the other hand annoyed me a bunch.

I'm running Gerry's 2010 screenset, and for some weird reason some things don't work as they were supposed to do anymore.

Ref all home was one of the things not working as it should.
I had it set up to ref Z axis first, and then ref X and Y together.

It ref's Z axis fine, except for the fact that it now takes more time for it to register things in Mach3, which means that when it homes on a switch, it stays there for about half a second, before it moves of again.
Well, that I might be able to live with. But when i finished homing the Z axis, then it should have started homing both the X and Y axis, this did not happen exactly as I had hope.

Nooo, it simply homed Y axis, and after doing the same thing as the Z axis, nothing else happend. It will not home the X axis no matter what I do.
Now I know that the ESS Smoothstepper has a homing script which I might take a crack at before I declare it a bad purchase, but as is, I'm really not happy with it.

So before you buy an upgrade to your machine, ask toyrself, is it really nessecary..

For now, I think it was not nessecary on mine, only boosting rapids a bit.