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-   -   #11 Has died a fiery death– Cape Town (S. Africa) (http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showthread.php?t=401)

Gerald D Sun 14 December 2008 08:02

Yes, it is normal for some bearings. After a couple of days it should become cooler. We have often replaced bearings and been nervous if they will make it through the first couple of hours. The router manufacturer has to choose either small clearance (hot bearings) for minimal runout, or use cooler bearings with bigger clearance and more runout.

domino11 Sun 14 December 2008 16:38

Gerald, is there some kind of run in procedure that would help bearing life in the long run with these tight hot running bearings? I wouldnt want to get a new router and not break em in the right way.

Gerald D Sun 14 December 2008 22:02

With any bearing (in your car's engine for example) it is better to apply loads gradually. Give them a little time at no load before loading them. But, it is difficult to say how long one should give them to "warm up". Five minutes of that unproductive noise is too much! :)

Greg J Mon 15 December 2008 05:36

Alan,

Congratulations. :)

It's nice to see some dust.

Alan_c Mon 15 December 2008 12:13

Thanks Greg, hey where you been? havent seen your comments for a while, or has the farm been keeping you busy?

Belli Mon 15 December 2008 12:33

Bosch routers
 
1 Attachment(s)
Hi Alan,

Photos as promised. The mount has been machined out of 40mm plate aluminium, cost around R140.00, add about two hours for machining. My router also ran a bit warm initially, I think the aluminium acts as a heatsink though but I ran it for one half hour at speed 3 (no idea of the rpm) and it seems much cooler now. I might add an HF spindle at a later stage (the harting plug is already wired for such) but no plans at the moment.

Regards,
Greg :D

PS I've zipped it as it is bigger than allowed.

Greg J Tue 16 December 2008 19:16

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan_c View Post
Thanks Greg, hey where you been? havent seen your comments for a while, or has the farm been keeping you busy?
Actually, the day job and making Christmas gifts on the MechMate have been keeping me busy. I'm starting to get caught up on the reading of posts. Geeez, miss a couple of days, and the reading gets outa hand very quickly. I don't know how Gerald keeps up with it.

Alan_c Thu 18 December 2008 15:18

2 Attachment(s)
Been playing a bit over the past weekend and tonight.

Got the gamepad figured out, connected up and set up to control 3 axes, start, feedhold, spindle on/off, feed rate adjust, home button, toggle aux outputs(2x), z-zero and centre find (as per CNC zone poster using the MachBlue screen) Had to change some of the settings in the bluescreen .set file by adding hot keys so that the gamepad could activate them. had fun doing it, needless to say the family wasn't impressed with me having my head buried in the PC for most of the weekend, but hey if they ain't used to it by now...:)

Tried some 3-D letter carving tonight, not as fancy as the nice stuff Greg J is doing, but its still early days. When doing this 3-D carving the machine sets up quite a bit of vibration if running at normal speed, I will either have to reduce the speeds in the motor tuning or just ensure that I use much slower feed speeds for this type of work. The sample below was cut at about 600mm/min and shows no sign of chatter (un geared motors!). I dont have the correct V-groove cutter for this kind of work as it has a little flat at the bottom so the multi pass areas have a slight step, the correct bit comes down to a sharp point at the bottom. The tap file was generated by EnRoute.


Alan_c Thu 25 June 2009 11:18

3 Attachment(s)
My latest hair brained scheme...Will it work? heck I dont know but only one way to find out :p

Attachment 4963
Dust arm pivots at wall and in centre, there will be a flexible section between the down pipe on the arm and the up pipe in the foot.

Attachment 4964
The old oil can holds steel shavings and offcuts of steel to balance the pipe so there is no bending moment on the centre bearing. At the wall the arm pivots on a lasy susan bearing at the bottom and plummer block at the top.

Attachment 4965
Close up of the centre bearing assembly, also a lasy susan bearing (with big hole in centre to allow the pipe to pass through). I have removed the rubber seal from one of the elbow's so the pipe can pivot without friction.

Gerald D Thu 25 June 2009 11:44

Very interesting!

isladelobos Thu 25 June 2009 11:53

Wow !!
Very artesanal crane.
And possible dangerous? you don't need this big iron. threat your head. :D

WFY Thu 25 June 2009 12:29

That is a real good looking solution! If the piping is plastic, place a ground wire inside of the pipe to bleed off the static by tying it to ground. Running a ground wire outside of the pipe doesn't help - the plastic will insulate the out side from the inside. I haven't heard of a problem on a short run but I know it can build a high static charge with the air flow and dust.

Gerald D Thu 25 June 2009 13:12

Alan, the counterweighting is tricky when you switch the suction on - the pipe wants to suck down toward the the table. Just thought you might want to know beforehand . . .

Alan_c Thu 25 June 2009 13:46

:eek: hmmmm, hadn't considered that, thanks. Will be ready with extra ballast at switch on.

sailfl Thu 25 June 2009 14:32

Alan,

Interesting solution. More photos when you get further along.

Doug_Ford Thu 25 June 2009 17:59

Really cool looking Alan. I hope it works.

Lex Thu 25 June 2009 23:36

Interesting design. Made to Alan's high standard of detail!

Kobus_Joubert Fri 26 June 2009 02:24

Wow, did you work in the building industry, constructing those big cranes that they use to lift everything.:D Nice going....when it's blue it will look even better. Good luck

Alan_c Fri 26 June 2009 05:17

No, never worked in that industry but definetly studied the multitude of them around Cape Town at the moment for inspiration.

hennie Fri 26 June 2009 07:47

I will be in Cape town in 3 weeks time so I expect it to be complete I don`t want to battle to take it back to my town, please bubble wrap it.:D

Doug_Ford Fri 26 June 2009 10:27

I was just admiring your handiwork again this morning and decided that even if it doesn't work, I would leave it in place because it looks so cool.

Gerald D Fri 26 June 2009 11:56

Alan is going to make it work - I can't see him giving up on it! :)

Alan_c Thu 13 August 2009 13:30

4 Attachment(s)
Its working!

Having taken Geralds cautionary warning in mind, I changed my plan for the down pipe, I made up a collar that is supported by three uprights attached to the Y car. The flexible pipe down to the dust foot then only has to move vertically. The down pipe from the boom is just above the collar with the two connected by flexible duct. There is some rotational movement at this point but the flex duct allows it. This way the force applied to the boom to move it by the Y car has less slop. There is a little bit of momentum to get it moving from stand still but once travelling it all seems fine.


I was a bit concerned that that high collar may want to cause a tipping action on the Y car when pulling away, but even with me holding the gantry and pulling on the top of the collar (much more force than will be exerted by the boom) I was not able to lift the front rollers of the Y car off the track. ( for those concerned what the effect of an extended Z slide - unless you run the router against a very solid object without the motor running you have nothing to worry about - the Y car will not tip over)


This is only a mock up of the dust foot in MDF to test configuration (based on JR's design - thank you Sir) I must still get "skirt" material but it is sucking up most of the dust at the moment. The front section comes off for bit access and is held in place by fender washers on both sides of the main foot.


This ugly beast is my dust extractor - made it myself out of bits and pieces some years ago long before I even knew what a MechMate was. The fan and housing was robbed from a ride on mower and the rest was welded and formed in the workshop. I even sewed (using my Wifes new sewing machine) the lower dust bug up over the weekend as the original has been annexed by persons unknown. (if its got a motor, I can operate it! :rolleyes:)


Close up of the action, pardon the bit of sandpaper holding the job into the jig, I told my machinist to trim the boards to EXACTLY 300mm wide, when it was a sloppy fit and I questioned him he said "Oh, I thought you said 298..." :mad::mad::mad:.

Doug_Ford Thu 13 August 2009 15:23

That is SUPER sharp Alan. I bet it looks really cool with that stuff moving all at once.

Kobus_Joubert Thu 13 August 2009 22:31

Alan, I have the same dustfoot design, and used PET ( used 2 litre Coke bottle) as skirting material....it's a bit stiff, but have so far worked or me

Alan_c Thu 20 August 2009 16:16

4 Attachment(s)
Did a bit of playing tonight...

Attachment 5825
This is the start of a new sign for outside the factory.

Attachment 5826
Something I've wanted to make ever since seeing it somewhere on the web.

Attachment 5827
ditto

Attachment 5828
Seeing as though the other guys are doing such wonderful 3D work, decided I have to start somewhere.

Doug_Ford Thu 20 August 2009 17:57

Cool Alan. I've wanted to make that same shelf unit too. Looks great!!

Gerald D Thu 20 August 2009 21:04

That is 3D work without direct-drive motors - not bad :)

Nice stuff!

Kobus_Joubert Thu 20 August 2009 23:15

Nothing wrong with our direct motors. Well done Alan

Lex Thu 20 August 2009 23:37

Very nice. I can't wait for mine.


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