Hi all, I'm not sure where to start because my journey so far has been one of luck and perseverance. I guess the number one thing to admit is that I did NOT build this machine, I was fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time and to say the right things. I have a trade back ground in tooling and my knowledge of the "CNC black art" is there but limited. The machine was delivered to my home address on the 12th of Dec 2007 and sat in front of my workshop for a few weeks under a tarp. It fitted in to the workshop by the slimmest of margins, 1 inch, and as the video shows I have fairly good clearance down the sides. 

I spent countless hours over the last 12 months researching the web trying to work out how I was going to gain G code control of this machine, Mach was always going to be the interface but the hardware side was a challenge. I tossed up going down the Galil path but the budget controller (wife) was having none of it. I gained control over the machine in limited fashion quite early this year, the Kollmorgan Servostar amps have testing software down-loadable from their site so with the serial cable plugged in I was able to move the motors one at a time. This was a great step, proof that the drives, motors and my wiring skills worked. 

The machine was originally designed as a pick and place robot for the assembly of solar panels, not fast enough they said so the machine was put out to pasture and thats where I entered the picture. Mid year, via CNC zone, I stumbled onto a CNC user group (A-CNC-G) here in Adelaide, Australia. With a heart full of hope I went to their next meeting to plead my case, luck, as mentioned earlier has played its role in this adventure and having a group like of like minded souls in my home town was pure gold. With the genius help of Peter W and Peter R, together they pieced together that this machine could be controlled via pulse and direction and with a little interface board designed by Peter W my big blue baby is alive and kicking. The machine is powered by brushless linear motors (Kollmorgan DDL) on the X and Y axis and a traditional ball screw with servo on the Z. Work area is approx 1.2 meters x 2.6 meters x 450 high.

So enough of the history, here's the video taken last night.


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=OsdNIb2u_6c

Hey, that's a nice looking rig you have there.
Excellent for P&P, I hope it has enough rigidity to do the work you are planning for it.
Good job.
Congrats.,
RC

It's up and running now, and yes the rigidity is less than I hoped for but not a major issue. A little bracing will be done soon but for now I can live with it.


http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=TEy9iIGEwvI

Wow !
I would commit all sorts of sins for a machine like that. Look after it Allyd.

Tweakie.

Thanks Tweakie, I'm no saint and churches scare me. I have just finished repairing my first real failure. If you listen to the Z axis in the first video it sounds not quite right, having never really heard a ball screw in action before I thought it was normal. Not really sure how or why it crapped itself but the replacement cost of the original precision grade NSK nut and ground ball screw was daylight robbery, $1000 just for the nut. (They did offer free delivery though, ex Japan) I have since replaced it with a THK 2806 screw and nut, up from the old 2505 screw.

Today I have been fitting a 2.2kw water cooled spindle motor, so far so good. The VF drive needs wiring now and very soon I'm hoping to fire it into action. Next will be fitting a smooth stepper and pendant. I still haven't braced the machine fully yet but have tuned the motors to minimize the small wobble I was getting.

Here's a picture of the cabinet, busy place.

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Outstanding job on the wiring. Looks like you really know what you're doing in that department.