I’m trying to get everything set up in the Makerspace. It’s a tight fit. Fortunately, after resoldering the aviation jacks I was still able to get all the motors working. I still have to test the currents running to each of the motors, set up the spindle, switches& e-stop. I’ve got to mount the pulley and the motors and attach plates to connect my Y axis ballscrews to the gantry. Plus, I just got in a 24V to 12V step down switch to run a fan in the controller. I also ordered some super lube (thermal conductivity paste) to use to mount the heat sink. I also have multiple relays (set of 2 small, set of 4 small and a large one). I’m not sure if I need them, if I’ll use them or how to wire them. If I see there’s a need for them and how & which devices to run them to I plan to do that. The manager of the Makerspace still has to set me up with a 220 VAC to run my spindle. After all that, I can begin to tune everything up and see just how accurate everything is and what adjustments must be made.
Making a CNC machine is a long list of to do items. You seem to be making progress though.
Slowly, but thankfully so.
@George_Allen that Z axis looks a lot better how you have it now.
@Paul_Frederick thanks. Still a process. Had a few issues getting the gantry back on but it came around. I need to check bolts and fasteners before I try to run anything.
Looking good!
@George_Allen Yeah you have to tram the head, or at least put a square in it. Do you have a dial indicator? Even cheap ones are OK in the beginning of their range. At half scale better ones are better there. But if you’re a half the scale out you could check that with a tape measure.
Yes, I’m using a dial indicator
I don’t have a dial test indicator to measure runout though
@George_Allen what would you do if you measured runout? I have a tenths indicator. I don’t really use it myself though. Actually mine might only be 0.0005? I haven’t looked at it in so long I forget. I used to use a tenths indicator when I’d setup wheel dressers in a tool and die shop I worked in. Once I set one up and the needle didn’t budge. I thought the gauge had broken. Because the needle on those always moves. So I showed another guy in the shop and he was like nope, you nailed it. But that was just dumb luck.
. I don’t really know other than to use it as reference.
@George_Allen do you have a set of digital calipers?
If you are in a hurry, you can lap your heatsink - it’s almost as effective as thermal paste. We used to lap them anyway just to get a fine fit
@Mike_Thornbury I have calipers, but not really in a big rush. My next big hurdle will be making the plates accurately to connect the ballscrews to the gantry as well as a few more pieces for fully mounting the ballscrews accurately.
You can make a rudimentary holder for your calipers to lie across (a piece of 4x4, say) and using the skinny depth slider that pops out when you measure something, butt up against whatever you’re trying to measure for runout, distance (axes) etc.
It won’t be as good as a dial indicator, but for ‘dialing’ in your vertical alignment on your spindle, for refining your controller axes settings, damned close.
I use calipers to set up my cnc machines and get tenth of a mm accuracy, which for my work (which is almost entirely woodwork) is more than good enough
@Mike_Thornbury I had to buy the mounts for the specific size of my ballscrews. But they have to be screwed into a piece of aluminum angle.
@George_Allen that’s what I was driving at. Without an actual mitigation plan some information is not terribly useful. If your runout is so bad it is adversely affecting your work you’ll know that without any kind of test instrumentation. Some cheap Chinese collets have “bad” runout. To fix that you just get better collets. But unless you’re dissatisfied with the work you’re producing whatever runout you may have is fine. AFAIK everything has some amount of runout. Nothing is perfect.
How stiff and square is it?
@George_Allen I wasn’t specifying those actual mounts, not knowing what you have, but off-the-shelf pillow blocks should be available for any screw diameter and to fit iso-standard metric profiles.
Easy, reliable, sturdy and cheap