I plan to make a new CNC, approx. 36”x 36” cutting area with a moving table and made with 8020 aluminum members.

The drives will be Gecko but don’t know yet which model
The 3 speed spindle will be from http://www.cnconabudget.com/
And the z axis similar to http://k2cnc.com/

I’m looking to see if I can use some kind of a linear system for all axes but in Canada they are not easy to find or the ones I find from US, the shipping / duties cost is very high. Maybe I will go to ACME 1/2"-10, 5 start.

I wonder if anyone has any suggestions

Finally my new build was made with 1/2" thick aluminum plate / flatbar and other changes and here are some pics.

Cutting area is approx. Y=36”, X-26”, Z=8”. The gantry vertical pcs are temporary and new pcs will be cut in an “S” shape when the cnc is ready. Also the plate on the pushbuttons station is temporary and a new plate will be cut from 1/8” aluminum and all buttons will be engraved.

The rails and ballscrews are from China and all electronics / Taig spindle and Sherline motor / VS unit from Soigeneris

The table top will be either 1/4" tooling plate or aluminum plate

I’m at the final stages of wiring and hoping to start the machine sometimes this week

More pics

Some more

Truly excellent build Nicolas - you have put a lot of work and experience into this project. My congratulations.

Tweakie.

My thoughts exactly. You sure have came a long way in the past few months. Most people throw in the towel before they accomplish what you have. Congratulations, and thank you for sharing with us.

Looks like you have caught the CNC disease

Looking great.
Hood

Yesterday I got the power on for the 1st time and I got the green light on the G540

I was setting up Mach3 and about 10 minutes latter I smelled burning wires and noticed smoke coming out from the A axis DB9 connector and I shut it down.

I used the EZ-G540 DB9 connectors and after taking apart the faulty connector I noticed that one of the screws holding the 2 pcs together pinched one wire and sort it out. Don’t know why it took about 10 minutes to sort it out.

What is an alternate way to connect the motors to the G540?

I replaced the connectors to the G540 with regular DB9 connectors and now the machine works good. Never used the G540 before and have these questions.

When I press the E-stop, nothing happens on the Mach screen, but the light on the G540 goes red and after a few seconds turns off and at this point Mach says and E-stop is active. Is this normal?

What is the CV Mode on the main Mach screen which is now highlighted?

Are any typical / normal settings for the motors with G540

Cant help with the G540 questions but CV mode is constant Velocity mode (G64) and it means that the code will blend from line to line. If you have slow acceleration then you may get corner rounding otherwise it is the setting that is normal to use. The other is Exact Stop (G61) and that means your axis will decelerate to a stop at the end of a line of code before it accelerates for the next.
Hood