I rigged a 4-way rocker light switch up to my drill presses so I have a forward and reverse. at the lowset rpm,... I can tap at all different sizes. I mostly do this with a BSPP 1/4-19 with acrylic. Works great.

watching this thread with very much interest! Great job so far!

Tapping solutions
 

After good advice on tapping from Gerald and others, I realized my skill levels wasn't up to straight hand tapping and I decided to invest a little in a hand tapping machine from Grizzly. It is not expensive and it makes great taps with ease (no, I don't shill for Grizzly, but I do like their stuff). So far I have used it to tap all the holes in the clamp strip for the gantry and in the spider plate with no problems. Figuring how to use it to tap the X-beams will be interesting.

Unfortunately, the machine only comes with inch collets, not metric.

You can see the machine here: http://grizzly.com/products/Hand-Tapping-Machine/G8748

Joe,

Taping is not that difficult. I would suggest you try on some scrape pieces before you try on what you want to tap. Keep the tap 90 degrees and you will be fine. Some oil to make things work better.

Good luck. Remember to reverse to remove metal on a regular basis.

How I spent my summer
 

I have been busy since February. Before I could finish my MM, I had to:
1) Build a bridge(to get legal access to my property)
2) Dig an 800' trench for the power
3) Build a shop to house the machine

I'm pouring the foundation this week,and should have an enclosed space by month end. I'm sure glad this site is still active since I forgot where I left off. I hope to be making my first cuts before year end, and hope to win the "most effort made" award for building a working MM. I don't even want to think about what this all cost, but am glad doing this spurred me to do "that".

Jeesh Krasch, couldn't you simply throw the wife's car out of the garage to make space for your MM, like the rest of us? :rolleyes::eek::)

since you are building your own shop, are you going to build a bigger base table? seems a shame to build a nice big building and only retain the size you wanted for your living room.

Nice bridge, Krasch.:D

I built my shop, 24' X 36'

I wish it was about 50% bigger. I especially would like to have added a "paint booth". And, the MM is a rather snug fit.

But since you've already dug the footer, you probably don't want to hear about changes. On the other hand, if you are using gable ends, you can always expand...looks like you have plenty of room.

I'm envious. Beautiful work on the bridge.

. . . a pair of x-rails along the top edges of the bridge . . hmmmmmm......

You could use it to machine a small car or something. :)

Krasch: Great job. I too built a shop that I though would accommodate my needs (40' x 48' steel arch building) and am finding it filled up to the point that I need to put wheels on my MM so I can roll it around as needed. (:)Sort of like highways - no matter how much you build, it is never enough!)

Need confirmation on Gantry Setup
 

All:

I am ready to take the metal to the welder and want confirmation on the gantry set up, especially the cable management pieces (10 20 456B, 10 20 458B and 10 20 457B) just to make sure I have them on the right sides and facing the right way. In these picture the gantry is upside down with the holes on the edge on the table.

I threw in a picture of the shop for your edification.

After turning them around:


they look right.

Thanks Gerald

Joe, if it is not too late, can I re-check that?

Look carefully at 10 20 451 W & 10 20 452 W for the marked corner:


Nothing critical, and right now now I cannot remember why the difference is there

Hope it isn't critical. Everything got welded up this morning!:)

Joe

Back to the hard part - the electronics
 

My hat is off to everyone who has a running MechMate. I've taking a long detour building the shop, and can now get back into it since that is finished. I'm going to have to hurry to get a serial # <100!

I left off at the point of my last frustration - the "kitchen table" project. I've recreated most of the schematic using real components for ease of understanding(mine), and found a few things that I am unsure about.

I think I have things mostly routed, but I need someone(anyone!) to bless this for purposes of the "kitchen table" project, and help me with the following questions:

1) The wires from the transformer are supposed to connect to L1 and N going into the Contactor, and are also supposed to connect to L1 and N going to the plug according to the schematic(10 70 115). How is this possible? Isn't this supposed to be 1(L1) from the plug and 2(T1) to the Toroid?

2) I'm using an Enso KSR 3.40/U on/off switch for the project, and it has 3 inputs(1,3,5) on one side and 3 inputs(2,4,6) on the other. Since I just need one wire to be switched, which terminal do i use? Can I just use the simple green/red on/off switch instead? (It only has 4 connectors)

3) The schematic supplied with the Oriental motors is not very descriptive. It splits the six wires into two groups of 2. A and A prime, B and B prime. How do I pick which 4 to use? I'm guessing from other diagrams I've found that it is black & green, and red & blue for A & A prime, B & B prime respectively?

At the risk of blowing a fuse, I'm ready to plug it in and see what happens...:D

Revised drawing
 

I pm'd Lumberjack_jeff, and he was kind enough to confirm some of the questions I had about my diagram and point me to other threads to give me more confidence before I "plug her in". This is my revised "hobbyist" control panel, for any fellow luddites out there. Wish me luck!, I'll let you know how it goes.

Be sure to switch the black (hot) wire. Also, for a kitchen table test, I'd omit the contactor, and add fuses. At least five total; one fuse in the hot lead to the toroid and one between the power supply and each of the four Gecko.

Krasch, you have some serious errors in your diagram - you need to do some more reading of the relevant threads.

Hi Gerald! Welcome back. Yeah I know I have problems, so I haven't plugged anything in yet. I'm reading things for the third and fourth time and poring over several builders diagrams and scrutinizing all the photo's. I'm making progress, albeit glacially.

How I spent my New Years eve
 

I feel like I’m making great strides on my control box, but the more I read of the literature supplied with my components, and the more I look at threads, the more conflicting info I get. Here’s is my updated control box, incorporating what I’ve figured out.

Here are three areas where I’ve had to guess:

1) When looking at the contactor in 10 70 115, “L1” and “N” are connected to the upper middle two (of the six possible) posts on the contactor, which on my TECO CU 16 are identified as (3)L2 and 5(L3) This seems clearly wrong for my unit and just means that you ignore the schematic and go with the numbers on the contactor. But those numbers don’t match the diagram. The attached picture shows the way different people are interpreting the wiring. One has power going into T1 and out L1 another has it the other way around. One has no notation at all, suggests using the middle 2 contacts, and just assumes all contactors are the same!

Since the official diagram doesn’t differentiate between sides of the contactor(both incoming and outgoing are labeled “L1”, I'm guessing that it makes no difference whether you connect power into L1 or T1, but I'm connecting L1 to L1 and N to L2. L1 then emerges from the T1 contact and heads down the black wire to the transformer and N emerges from the T2 contact and goes down the red wire to the transformer. Correct?

2) In the Gecko 203v installation notes I received with my drive, it says, “ (TERM1) POWER GROUND Connect the power supply ground to term 1” In REV 7: August 10, 2009 from the website it says, “ Terminal 1 Power Ground "Connect the negative (black) lead of your power supply to this terminal(Terminal 1)". When I read “ground” I think of a wire attached to a metal post. So which is it? PWR GRND to metal post or PWR GRND to the negative term on the capacitor?

3) There are 2 adjoining positive output terminals and 2 adjoining negative terminals on the toroid transformer for the 46v connection to the capacitor. If there is a thread that mentions this, I can’t find it. It’s not on the Antek website, and it’s not in any diagram. Any suggestion on which +/- pair to connect to the capacitor? I'm guessing outer + with inner -.

You are making great progress!

(I have made a note to look at your last post in more depth later today)

It is traditional for contactors and disconnect switches to enter the (mains) Line at the L side and connect the load at the T side. When these components are mounted on the DIN rail, the L's are on top and the T's at the bottom, and the logic is to have the Line at the top and the load at the bottom. But, as you figured out, it makes no difference to the function.

It is preferred to connect the Geckos as close to the capacitor as possible (shortest copper wire), so the connection is generally to the capacitor terminals. But, the negative capacitor terminal is also connected to the ground plate/post.

I am not clear whether the device you purchased from Antek is only a transformer, because you are drawing a complete power supply. If it is a complete power supply, I don't understand why you are adding a capacitor?

Thanks Gerald! I did purchase a complete power supply from Antek (PS-4N42R12), and it looks like it has two 10000uF capacitors installed on it. I purchased a separate capacitor thinking I might need one, based on pictures of several builds,. The screw terminals on the extra capacitor sure made for an easy 4 wire connection. I guess I can just use the two DC terminals on the PS wired directly to the 4 Gecko's instead.

The early geckos were fussy on how to connect them to the power supply. With the recent geckos you can very much connect them anyway you want to. I would leave out the extra capacitor and go back to the terminals on the power supply.

I agree, no extra capacitors will be needed for the G203V series of drives. Marriss has mentioned this on his Yahoo groups many times. Might also be in the manual (not sure though at the moment).

Fixing the spider
 

With the help of a friend who explained "the obvious" on the schematic, I got the lights to flash on my BOB, and so all I need to do is figure out EMC2 to get my motors to spin. The next project is fixing my spider. As the attached photo shows, my tapping skills leave something to be desired. Crooked bolts weren't the only problem, as the hash marks used to guide hole placement proved too narrow for my z-slide. Faced with the prospect of welding and re-tapping, I decided to try another approach. I modifed the bushings by adding a 12mm dia. neck and pressed them into the spider. This virtually guarantees my bearings won't be misaligned, and seems to make the whole assembly more solid.