AAAH The lighter font color is much better!! thanks! Now if you guys could do a X,Y,Z,B,C verson for my little project all would be right in the universe

Benny: I know i could change it in screen 4 but what can i say, i am lazy

Here is a pic of it on my mach machine ( in progress) with MachBlueLight

chad

Why so small of a machine

Chad,

That machine looks awesome.... Do you have any build log or details on it ?

It looks like it would just about fit in my garage !

Great to see the MachBlue screenset in the picture too....

Cheers

That machine looks awesome.... Do you have any build log or details on it ?

I have to agree.  It looks the biz.

I'm assuming it's for making PCB's?  Although maybe a little over engineered?   

Great stuff.

HI guys, sorry for the delay. Been very busy both personally and working on the project.

The mill is going to be a 5 axis mill for cutting medium density fiberboard (mdf), foam, and tooling board. The plan is to carve positive bucks to make molds for fiber glass and carbon fiber race car parts, mostly air foil elements, under-trays, wings, body's.  My partner owns a couple of Formula -s cars and we are planning on producing updated body parts for these cars.

The mill is 10' x 12' x 48" inches X,Y,Z respectivally. Currently it is using rutex drives for the x,y,z,b,c and it probably won't be too long until we upgrade to ~1k range ac servo. All of the drive reduction are from verry nice alpha gear planetary gear reducers. We are currently going to be using a 3.5 hp router, will also probably be upgraded to an actual spindle down the road.

So far i have the X,Y,Z running and things are looking good. The X&Y are capable of 600 ipm rapids and the z is good to 250 ipm. All of the linear slides are IKO or Thompson. X and Y are 45mm rails and the z is 25mm. Z is ball screw driven and the x and y are belt(45mm). Without the wood table it weighs 2900lbs. the moving Gantry with y,z,c,b will be around 1300lbs.

I have built lots of stuff in the past but nothing so big and heavy, Turing out to be a lot of work --- and fun

Here are a couple of other pics for you to look at, if you have any other questions give me a hollar.

chad

Nice looking machine Chad, please keep the pictures coming, its a real inspiration.

WOW!!!! , that about all I can say...and that doesnt quite do it..

Art

Thanks art, it has been a real challenge.

Just thought i would post a pic.  The first spirals !! 24"

from left to right they are 300 ipm, 250, 200.

The left one has some wiggles at 300. Not surprising considering i haven't trammed anything yet, the table supports haven't been leveled, the servo motor tuning would  be described best as just barley working, and my precision pen holder consisting of a foot and a half piece of aluminum C-clamped to the z with -the electrical tape precision pen holder attachment

The z is a 8x8 steel tube and it makes a great megaphone with the pen doing it's best impression of fingernails on a chalk board.
It was almost UN barrable, but i was having fun watching it draw the circles while standing on the side support. The machine didn't even know i was there! HHm that gives me an idea! i should weld a chair to the side so i can ride along while it cuts. Or maybe not.


Chad

If your Z axis tubes are still open you could add some dampers inside. You need 4 smaller tubes wrapped in something like scotchdamp then space them out so there is about 1/8" to 1/2" space all around them. You then fill the space with some form of grout. I think Philadelphia resins has special stuff just for this purpose. It shouldn't add too much more weight and should cut down resonance a lot. The is more info on the MIT website about this if you are interested.

That is a great suggestion, i will look into it!

I still have to add in the C and B head. That will add about 130 lbs to the end and that should help as well. Most of the noise was because I was driving the pen tip to the plywood too hard. The other issue was the aluminum bar that I was using could flex in the x and y direction and added a springiness. Basically i made an old stile cnc controlled phonograph. The z and everything it's mounted too are very rigid and hopefully when the BC head is mounted it will squash most of it.

I guess i won't know until i start cutting wood.

Chad