Ek stem saam.....Is that why you have a 4.5 kW spindle ?
Well done, glad it is coming together.

Wow! Looking Really Good. The size is impressive! Kepp the pictures coming.

Jy wil `n klomp kaste bou?Lyk goed.

Thanks for the comments guys.

Kobus: did you get my message on the spindles?

Hennie: I'm not really rigged to do cupboards anymore, but I used to be in the bussiness. I built that kitchen for the guy who let me use his facilities and steel to build the machine frame. Manually cutting joints was a pain. Having a CNC machine would've saved me a LOT of time...

i WOULD LOVE TO GET OUT OF THIS GAME ,AT THE MOMENT THE MM GENERATES MORE THAN THE KITCHEN IND. HAD TWO BUILDERS END OF LAST YEAR THAT WENT BUST ON ME STILL RECOVERING FROM THAT.

Thank's Corne, I suppose you refer to the message a while ago....because you were very quit for a long time.;)

Hennie: I'm sure it'll pick up again. We also do granite; directly after the world cup, everything just came to a dead halt and it's only starting to pick up again now - hopefully your neck of the woods will follow soon.

Kobus: ja ja ja.... :o

Oh, just in case anyone was wondering: shimming 150 holes sucks.

Jy gaan daai monster gebruik om graniet te sny?.Hy tel so bietjie op maar klomp horse trading wat aangaan.

Sjoe, nee. Klip soek 'n heelwat frisser masjien!

the old school stone Massons didn`t chissel all at once bit by bit.:)

New arrivals:
http://i1028.photobucket.com/albums/...NC%202/aaa.jpg

For South African MM builders; I can recommend Greg (cncdirect) to anyone, very helpful guy!

We know...he sorts out Mach3 problems over the phone tjop tjop :p

Levelling the rails:

I am sure most guys don't find this part to be too difficult; but given the length of our rails, there are a couple of hidden issues. There probably are easier ways, but this is how we did it:

As suggested somewhere on the forums, we built a “trolley” with a laser mounted on top, pointing at a white surface 10 meters away from the machine. The trolley's wheel centres are identical to the bolt spacing on the rails. We then record the position of the laser on the white surface for every space between the bolts.

Knowing the position of the first bolt, and the dot on the white surface, we can draw a corresponding line in CAD. The combination of these lines, gives us an accurate map of the rails' shape. It turns out that, despite my best efforts, the rails had a maximum deviation of 4.68mm - well within shimming distance though.

A nice way of mapping the laser's position, was setting up a camera in front of it on a tripod, and taking pictures of each position. I then superimposed the images over each other, and measured the distances from there - very accurate. From the CAD drawing, shimming sizes were simply measured and transferred to the machine.


It seems to have worked well, and this is the current state of affairs.

Next a strip of granite and an accurate level (used for wheel alignment) will be placed between the rails to level the second rail at the two ends, giving us a new datum to work from on that rail. Wash, rinse, repeat...

The first rail's horizontal straightness is set up conventionally with line and a magnifying glass, the second with a spacer, and finally the gantry's wheels and the magnifying glass.
In theory, the rails should be good by then...

Comments suggestions, and critique more than welcome.

Oh, and there's some progress on the control box. I'm sure there might be some concerns for EMI, but let's see. :)

Corne wat gaan jy met daai monster sny?

EMI problems usually reside in the power supply pc

A quality power supply helps. You may be installed inside the power supply, a EMI filter.

In some cases, is best one 12v PC and the power is from one external PS.

Hennie: Mainly moulds for truck parts, and whatever else I can find for it.

Nice job on your machine. Thats one beefy table big enough to run 2 gantries!

Tim

Some new pics:

http://i1028.photobucket.com/albums/...72011104-1.jpg http://i1028.photobucket.com/albums/...72011105-1.jpg

http://i1028.photobucket.com/albums/...72011106-1.jpg


Still have loads to do (2nd spindle, cable chains, dust extraction). Y-car motors are on temporary mounts, will be turned horizontally soon....

On the subject of cable chains: the original plan was to make my own once the machine is running. The spindle's cooling pipes are a nightmare to control without cable chains though - I am seriously considering buying some for the gantry at least, and then machining some for the X-axis.

Dust extraction will be rather interesting as well; we have a gantry in the factory that runs over the machine, which severely limits how high I can go above the machine with the dusthose. The length of the machine also makes for some issues with swing arms.

Curious thing though: we are running two BOBs with 8 geckos, and mach3 will not pick up the second BOB. If I enter the second BOB's address in mach's "port 1" slot, I can control it - but not in the other slot! I am still running the demo version of mach, maybe it's limited to one port? No one seems to know, will see soon when I upgrade the license.

I will load some better pictures when I have my camera with me.

Did you daisy wheel your BOBs？

Ken, I'm not quite sure what you mean?

I have a PCI card with two parallel ports, and have one parallel port on the motherboard. Each BOB is connected to a parallel port. I got the addresses for each port from device manager, and entered it in the ports and pins box.

Both work when I enter their addresses here:

http://i1028.photobucket.com/albums/.../Mach3_011.jpg

Neither work when I enter their addresses here:

http://i1028.photobucket.com/albums/...Mach3_0112.jpg

Obviously I use the correct addresses, have the "port enabled" check box ticked.

Therefore I think everything is fine and working, but that the issue lies with mach? Hopefully the "full" version won't have the issue? Or maybe I'm just missing something obvious....

page 61 Mach3 Manual

Yip, that's what I did, with above mentioned results.

Check the box to enable the port.

Mike he said it was checked.
I read one on the zone that even if the port was external pci card, one guy had to use the option in BIOS for LPT status ENABLE. Its worth to look if you have something like that in bios (advanced options or integrated peripherals).
But as they both work when used as port#1 it sure looks like something with mach. Try newest stable version from their site.

Corne
Both ports must be set as EPP (Enhanced Parallel Port) in the BIOS or window Control Panel. The device drivers will not read any port pins if the port is not set to bi-direction (EPP).
Secondly, the parallel port card must be EPP or better, but you have established that already as it works as port one.

Sorry, I just noticed this remark. Yes the unlicensed version does not enable the second port. You can set it up but it will not work. Once you install the licensed Mach, it will all come together.

Some feedback after 3 years...

This machine worked very hard, often around the clock. It was an absolute pleasure for just over a year. The business unfortunately didn't make it, and the machine ended being sold off.

Apparently it got sold to someone else again, who contacted me today to try to source some missing parts - hence my trip down memory lane

I've worked on a couple of other machines since the mechmate, and had loads of problems with things that break or just stop working. On an older Morbidelli, it actually once meant paying someone R3000 to come and install the contents of a "stiffy drive" to solve the software problem - obviously I had to wait a couple of days, and obviously the tiny bit of information couldn't be emailed.... Don't even get me started on the servo drive that had to be replaced.

On the mechmate, nothing ever broke that I couldn't fix. I was never out of production for more than a day. I miss those days - the mechmate truly is a design classic.

Thanks for the feedback.

I think, was a very impressive machine.
You always can make another :)

massive, is that a granite bed your are using ?

I was wondering when that machine was going to live again. I saw it some time ago just lying in pieces under some scrap stuff. It was not a pretty sight to see such a machine being wasted.

Hello everyone, you can call me Sam.