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Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Scrappy does his first cut!!!!!!!
« on: September 24, 2015, 06:07:02 AM »
After nearly 2 years (maybe more) Scrappy (sorry Tweakie......... ) has cut for the first time. OK it was only a 50mm square out of 4mm plywood, but we did it and it cut it nicely, square and true, not bad for a complete novice.
As his name suggests, Scrappy is made out of scrap bits off old machines from work, with a few parts made by a local machine shop. He has a Kress FME 1050 machine head and the drivers are off an old labelling machine, modified to run off a PC via a breakout board (a UC100 motion controller is in the post) to improve the steppers performance, cutting footprint is not huge but it should suffice X = 360, Y = 390 and Z = 120.
I now have to work on a simple but effective method of clamping/securing sheets of plywood to the bed after I have given the bed a skim when my larger end mills arrive. I couldn't take a video of the first cut as my hands were busy hovering over the E-stop and main isolator just in case!!!!!!
I have noticed though that on start up the Y axis ticks and moves a step, this is caused by the breakout boards on board relay clicking in and out for a few minutes??? (cheapo Chinese unit, my fault I know), after a few minutes that stops and the Y axis is silent, also when jogging the X axis I can hear it ticking during its movement, this seems to only happen when its jogging and no other time. Teething problems associated with cheap and untested units, hopefully I shall be investing in some proper microstepper drives from CNC4YOU in the not to distant future as I can only full step at the moment and Scrappy becomes very, very noisy when the Y axis is slowing down to negotiate a curve.
Apart from these minor faults we are up and running, I shall try to get some video of Scrappy in full motion soon, thanks for your help in getting me this far.
Stewart
As his name suggests, Scrappy is made out of scrap bits off old machines from work, with a few parts made by a local machine shop. He has a Kress FME 1050 machine head and the drivers are off an old labelling machine, modified to run off a PC via a breakout board (a UC100 motion controller is in the post) to improve the steppers performance, cutting footprint is not huge but it should suffice X = 360, Y = 390 and Z = 120.
I now have to work on a simple but effective method of clamping/securing sheets of plywood to the bed after I have given the bed a skim when my larger end mills arrive. I couldn't take a video of the first cut as my hands were busy hovering over the E-stop and main isolator just in case!!!!!!
I have noticed though that on start up the Y axis ticks and moves a step, this is caused by the breakout boards on board relay clicking in and out for a few minutes??? (cheapo Chinese unit, my fault I know), after a few minutes that stops and the Y axis is silent, also when jogging the X axis I can hear it ticking during its movement, this seems to only happen when its jogging and no other time. Teething problems associated with cheap and untested units, hopefully I shall be investing in some proper microstepper drives from CNC4YOU in the not to distant future as I can only full step at the moment and Scrappy becomes very, very noisy when the Y axis is slowing down to negotiate a curve.
Apart from these minor faults we are up and running, I shall try to get some video of Scrappy in full motion soon, thanks for your help in getting me this far.
Stewart