Topics

31

General Mach Discussion / O.T. Need some advice on tapping LOTS of 1/2 holes.

« on: March 13, 2006, 12:22:00 PM »

I am starting on my Gantry router and the steel should be here tomorrow. I have lots (~140) of 12mm and half inch holes that need to be tapped for the rails and am looking for suggestions.  How do the "auto tappers" work. Do they reverse when you pull up? do they auto reverse by themselves? do they mount via a r8 for example or do they have a shaft that can be put in a Jacobs chuck and used in a plain old drill press?  who makes them? Sorry for all the questions, I hand tapped a couple of half inch in 1/4 inch steel yesterday and came to the conclusion that it is going to suck to do all the tap holes by hand.

Thanks,

Chad
 

32

General Mach Discussion / Plasma Guys -- need some advice

« on: February 07, 2006, 01:17:46 PM »

I have to have some pieces plasma cut for the mill I am building. I would like to know if I can plasma cut a 1/4 inch hole in 3/8 steel. Or will it just make a bad hole? what is the smallest you can cut vs plate thickness? This is a 200 amp pro plasma cutter at a steel fab shop.

chad

33

General Mach Discussion / My mondo router project!

« on: January 11, 2006, 05:47:27 PM »

I decided to start a thread chronicling my adventures in building a 10' x 12' x 5' - 5 axis gantry router.

Here are some Alpha Gear two stage planetary reducers I got yesterday. I have one motor mounted, two to go. They are supposed to have 10 arc minuets of total backlash but I am unable to detect any... so far. They are a 50:1 reduction.

If you have any comments or questions let me know. I have more pics if you want them...

Chad

34

General Mach Discussion / Got my IKO slides in !!!

« on: January 06, 2006, 09:45:52 PM »

Thought i would post some images of my new slides for the monster i am building.

http://machsupport.com/Coppermine/index.php?cat=10021


This should take you to the machsupport gallery under chad..


chad

35

General Mach Discussion / Any one have a source for flexable wire and cable tray?

« on: January 04, 2006, 11:27:07 PM »

I am looking for the stuff you see on pro cnc machines to keep the cables out of the axis when moving, it will only bend in one direction.  I am sure it has a proper name but I don't know it



Thanks
Chad

36

General Mach Discussion / big router vacuum tables ?!?

« on: January 04, 2006, 02:12:16 PM »

Ok so in pictures of vacuum tables I have seen it looks like holes drilled through to the table connected to the vacuum supply. My question is if you don't have the entire table covered with a part, doesn't the vacume just suck through the open holes, how does it hold the part?

Chad

 

37

General Mach Discussion / Plasma cut holes question ( plasma experts welcome! )

« on: December 27, 2005, 02:01:31 AM »

Hey all, I am building a BIG 5axis gantry router, and on the X steel support beams I have 5 cross braces that will bolt to it, and bolt to the other side of the X. I am going to have to drill and tap 36 holes on each side and I was thinking about building a walking cnc bot to make the holes for me. Basically my plan is to build a little "car" that drives on the rail and has a Y slide axis to mount the plasma torch to. Basically it will ride along the beam (X) and it will have a slide for (Y) with a plasma to cut the holes for me,  I am going to treat it like a 12' x 6" cnc plasma cutter.

My question is what happens to the edges of the plasma cut hole? Does it get heat treated via the cutting? Will this affect the ability to tap the hole afterward? I also have to drill and tap a zillion holes for the linear slides so I think the bot should save me a bunch of time.

Chad

38

General Mach Discussion / 5 axis gantry router

« on: December 06, 2005, 03:35:58 PM »

HI all I have been charged with building a 5 axis gantry router for making large plugs for fiberglas molds. Has anyone else built one? just looking for any comments or suggestions.

Chad

39

General Mach Discussion / Look ahead lines

« on: November 28, 2005, 01:19:33 AM »

Any one know the optimum setting for this? What is the possable ranges and what exactally does it do?

chad

40

General Mach Discussion / A little praise, and comments on the new site.

« on: October 29, 2005, 04:57:32 PM »

Hi all,

Ynneb, First I would like to say great job. The web site is looking great! Thanks so much for the forum work! (I hate Yahoo groups).
Art and others, Simply amazing software, thank you all.

That being said, a couple of comments about the site. Forums are great, wiki's are great, gallery is great. The only bummer is all the passwords and user names for all of them.
You have implemented lots of great features as standalone items, at the cost of a single user name / pw.
If I might be so bold as to make a suggestion, I would recommend that you take a look at a CMS system to tie all of this together under one roof. I have used in the past PHP-Nuke, and in my opinion it is exactly what you need. It has all of the features you have implemented as separates rolled into one. It is simpler to manage and has the added benefit of a common login and password. You already have PHP and My-SQL working and that is the toughest part. With nuke you can get "blocks" and add ons for just about everything you could want. Upload, download, gallery, chat, wiki, forums, mail, vote, feedback, newsletters and about a zillion others, all for free or little money. You can also strip it down to just what you want or need.

Any way, just a suggestion.

here are some links of you want to learn a little more

PHP-Nuke: This is the main site, this is the download for the core.
http://phpnuke.org/
Nukefiles: This is a great site with a TON of blocks and plugins, and a great idiots guide to nuke.

http://www.phpnukefiles.com/index.php

It is a huge comunity and thousands of websites are running it.

Chad