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  #1  
Old Fri 13 October 2006, 05:22
Gerald_D
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Suppliers of components & services around the world (including laser kits)

To build your own machine, you are going to need to do some shopping. Here is a summary of the major expense, or "tricky", items that you need to find a supplier for.....

Gear pinions and racks info moved to this thread

V-Rollers from BWC, Yitong, Hepco, or "home-made"

Stepper motors from Oriental Motor (Japan) PK Series 2-Phase Stepping Motor, 12.7mm [0.5"] diam output shaft, square body.....
Alternatives: 3men, Keling?

Stepper and servo motor types: MCG

Driver (amplifiers) from Geckodrive (USA)

Parallel breakout card thread from PMDX (USA)

Spindle from either Fimec, HSD, Elte, Colombo (Italy)

Variable Frequency Drive from Delta (Taiwan)

Electrics enclosures AutomationDirect, Hubbell/Wiegmann, Nema-Enclosures.CC, Rittal

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  #2  
Old Thu 26 October 2006, 19:12
fabrica
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Can you let me have a completed list of components including prices and a list of suppliers to buld a complete 8'x4' machine. It is preffered to have part numbers as well.
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  #3  
Old Fri 27 October 2006, 00:03
Gerald_D
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What about bolts, nuts, washers, electrical wires, connectors, transformers, relays, fans, gears, pushbutton switches, box for electrics, springs, rectifiers, capacitors, screws, proximity switches, glue, epoxy, wood for table top, etc., etc.?
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  #4  
Old Fri 27 October 2006, 01:17
fabrica
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Other than the gears the rest could be purchased locally provided the correct specs are available.
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  #5  
Old Fri 27 October 2006, 13:08
vadeem
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I found these v-wheel suppliers in the USA:

http://www.iptech1.com/IP_Tech_Catal...es/dualvee.pdf the v-wheels, and track. track is available in up to 20' lengths. look at the wheel covers too, they could wipe dust off the track.

http://www.bwc.com/products/dual-vee.html


I'm looking for a USA rack and pinion supplier. www.sdp-si.com has 16 TPI (I'm assuming thats what we want), but only in stainless = $$$$
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  #6  
Old Fri 27 October 2006, 13:38
Gerald_D
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For V-Wheels, you can look at Yitong (they have USA stockists), or the Bishop-WiseCarver (BWC) that you have listed. You need size 3 for the MechMate (bigger than ShopBot). Dual-Vee comes from Hepco as well. Or, you can make your own wheels - link

For Rails, the Mechmate does <u>not</u> use ready-made rails. The ready-made rails from BWC/Hepco are flimsy and need to be screwed to a fairly precision surface to hold them in a straight line. If one is going to the trouble of making a precision bed for a flimsy rail, that bed may as well become the rail itself. This discussion can be pursued here.

Gear pinions and racks info moved to this thread
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  #7  
Old Fri 27 October 2006, 17:05
vadeem
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Thanks Gerald for the fast response! You have got 3 more guys here in the USA, all building from your plans, and chomping at the bit for more. Even the guy at the laser cutting shop is thinking of building a mechmate as a second machine, once he saw the plans.
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  #8  
Old Fri 27 October 2006, 21:32
fabrica
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I am monitoring your responses to Vadeems mail. I too could purchase this stuff from U.S.A. It is not a problenm to source from U.S.A.unless you know of a good source in the Asian Region such as Singapore. Out of the manufacturers that you have recomended above can you let me know the guys who do the best quality stuff and the relavant part numbers. For stepper motors, drivers controllers etc what will be your recomendations. I have already started on the table.
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  #9  
Old Fri 27 October 2006, 23:10
Gerald_D
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Fabrica, in your honour I posted this thread on motor selection yesterday. That contains the stepper motor & driver suggestions. You need to be reading across the whole Forum, and the buttons at the top for Last 1 | 3 | 7 days will help you a lot.

Vadeem, and the other eager builders, the sample plans you have seen to date are very far from complete. There will be a heck of a lot more drawing sheets and a much better WBS spreadsheet that will answer a lot of questions that I am now getting by mail. I realise now that producing drawings for other people is ten times more work than doing drawings for myself! So far over 250 people from 30 countries have registered to download data, and the split seems to be about 50/50 for millimeter and inches. Whereas I started off only in millimeter, I am now trying harder to accommodate the inch people.

(Vadeem, I also appreciate you posting links to direct info - thanks!)
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  #10  
Old Sun 05 November 2006, 06:01
fabrica
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Gerald, Do you have in mind any U.S.A suppliers for the Motor spring and the Prox switches. I am trying to get my friend in U.S.A to purchase all required components and once everything is purchased I will get my shipper in U.S.A. to collect the stuff from his place and get it air freighted to Sri Lanka. Tomorrow I will start working on the Y car. As I have observed elseware in this forum, that would be the best part to start with.
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  #11  
Old Sun 05 November 2006, 07:38
Gerald_D
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For the motor springs, the McMaster-Carr 9654K324 looks the best I've seen quickly. Let me look some more....

For the proxies, I must admit that I am not using any at all. And I am having difficulty to see how they can be connected in series in a practical failsafe way. We rely on the "soft-limits" in the Mach software to know when the cars are near the end of the rails. Although I have target holes in the rails, I really don't know yet what the best proxy will be.

What are you doing for a control box? Buying ready-made or building your own?
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  #12  
Old Sun 05 November 2006, 17:03
vadeem
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I was thinking of ending the rack just before the "hard stops" so the motors could just spin harmlessly if things do get out of control.
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  #13  
Old Sun 05 November 2006, 18:02
fabrica
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Ok we will forget about the prox switches for the moment. What do you think of Vadeems suggestion sounds practical to me. Regarding the control box I will get it done locally. I have already located a coil. The rest of the stuff for the box should be available locally.

proxy discussion moved here
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  #14  
Old Sun 05 November 2006, 21:50
fabrica
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I sent a mail to Yitong requesting for prices for V rollers. Below given is the response that I received from these guys.

Thanks for your inquiry.
>
> I am glad to contact with you, the normal prices we quota is based on the quantity of the
> 1000pcs, so for your inquiry of the YTG W3X, the price is USD 5,74.
>
> But if you need is only 5 pieces, the price will be 5 times, that is USD28,67.
>
> We also can do the rail, so if you are interested, you also can buy from us.
>
>
>
> Thanks for your attention.
>
>
>
> Waiting for your further discussion.
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
> Frank Hu
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> YITONG INDUSTRY (NINGBO) CO., LTD.
> Tel:+86 574 8630 2585 Fax:+86 574 8630 3168
> http://www.yi-tong.com Email:market04@yi-tong.com
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  #15  
Old Sun 05 November 2006, 22:10
Gerald_D
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"I was thinking of ending the rack just before the "hard stops" so the motors could just spin harmlessly if things do get out of control."

That is very drastic!

In real life the problem is not that serious. When you jam a stepper motor (like against a hard stop) it loses steps, or slips, internally. This is magnetic slip, not mechanical. No damage is done. You hear a loud pulsing noise, but there is no problem if it happens for a short time (before the motor gets hot). Your idea will be bad because the gear pinion will chew on the end of the rack and cause mechanical damage.

With the proxy switches, it is easy to connect them to switch off the power if the cars move too far. My problem was to find a way to connect proxy's to tell the PC that it must do a gentle stop and not lose its position in memory. (the cheap click/click type switches can easily be connected, but they are not so well sealed against sawdust)

proxy discussion moved here
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  #16  
Old Mon 06 November 2006, 18:17
fabrica
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Gerald What do you think of the Yitong offer which I have copied above. They have agreed to do the Rail as well. Maybe we could get them to do a rail as per Mechmate specs and get them to offer our guys a special price. If you are agreeable to this you could post the specs on this thread so that I could immedietly convey them to the manufacturer and get them to quote a price.
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  #17  
Old Mon 06 November 2006, 19:11
vadeem
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We should do a "group buy" on the wheels, as those would be easy to ship, and everybody needs them.

How would we safely ship 10 or 12 foot rails?
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  #18  
Old Mon 06 November 2006, 19:21
fabrica
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Yes good idea Vadeem. Somebody in this forum could make some money by stocking these items. Specially when you think of the margins one can keep. Even at US $ 28 which they quote for one piece they are almost one third of the price that competition is quoting.

To ship rails safely wood crates should do a good job. I am waiting for Gerald to give me the specs so that I could have a serious discussion with the Yitong guy.
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  #19  
Old Thu 09 November 2006, 20:40
fabrica
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Below given is the latest reply I received from Yitong.

Sorry for my delayed answer.

For the YTG W3 guide wheel, the normal prices we quota is based on the
quantity of the 1000pcs, so for your inquiry of the YTG W3X, the price is USD 5,74.

But for your 100pcs, the price is USD11,48

Regarding the rail, we are still in the calculation of the cost, our engineer suggest
that is possible you can still use the profile of the BWC design. If use your design,
we need to develop the model, and you should pay the mold cost which will increase
you cost.

What do you guys think.

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  #20  
Old Thu 09 November 2006, 22:04
Gerald_D
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Fabrica, on the rails, I don't believe that Yitong is a willing partner that will undertake any expense for a new product line. They apparently are only willing to copy what other companies sell already. There is no way that I pay any company for mold/tool costs unless that mold/tool is under my control - in other words, checking that extra parts are not made from tools that I paid for.

Frankly and unfortunately, I believe the MechMate group is still too small to get into bulk buys and joint tooling costs. However, if suppliers want to take the initiative to help us, I will give them good advertising here.

On the router issue, I would dearly like to try the Porter Cable and Milwaukee routers, but they are not available here. The big Makita 3612C is popular in the 220/230V countries. We have run one quite hard and have to change bearings maybe once a year. (The handles are removed to fit in the MechMate car.)
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  #21  
Old Mon 13 November 2006, 04:33
fabrica
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Does anybody know the contact details of the YITONG stockist in U.S.A. Do they stock the size 3 roller. What is the price that they are quoting.


Rail discussion moved here
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  #22  
Old Fri 21 September 2007, 09:59
Gerald D
Just call me: Gerald (retired)
 
Cape Town
South Africa
Stepper motors from China

Some stepper motor producers in China:
Changzhou Yunkong Electronic Co. Motionking Changzhou Songyang Machinery & Electronics New Technic Institute YiXing Motor Co. Ltd T&M Tech Co., Ltd
Any more?
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  #23  
Old Fri 21 September 2007, 22:30
thesaent14
Just call me: Manny
 
Miami
United States of America
hey gerald what are the lates plans the ones i dounlow some pages don't match with the forum so i can folow up
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  #24  
Old Fri 21 September 2007, 22:46
Gerald D
Just call me: Gerald (retired)
 
Cape Town
South Africa
The downloads are the latest - maybe the forum is behind?
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  #25  
Old Sun 07 October 2007, 20:04
stefanv
Just call me: stefan
 
Port-au-Prince
Haiti
Sean,

In my personal post, you can see I live in Haiti and forward all of my purchases from Florida. My small packages forwarding is done from Venice, just a few miles from Sarasota. I talked to Florida knife about some other projects, by email and phone, they never even got back. Somewhat disappointing.

But, that being said, I believe you beat me by an hour or so to Donald’s last set I’m not in a great hurry yet, but I’m looking for a good set of laser or water-jet cut parts whenever an affordable deal comes up in the next few weeks / month or 2.

You mention other companies in Florida that can cut the parts. Do you have a listing? references? Prices ? I’m making my list and slowly buying parts. If you can help, it’s greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Stefan
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  #26  
Old Mon 08 October 2007, 05:26
smreish
Just call me: Sean - #5, 28, 58 and others
 
Orlando, Florida
United States of America
Stefan,
For the good of the cause...and the fact that I now need an additional set of laser cut parts, I am on the task. I am in the manufacturing business and have numerous waterjet vendor's at my disposal. I am currently getting pricing and "1 off" availability from 4 vendors at this time. I hope to have an answer for the whole MM crowd by the end of the week.

All my best.
Sean
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  #27  
Old Mon 08 October 2007, 05:28
smreish
Just call me: Sean - #5, 28, 58 and others
 
Orlando, Florida
United States of America
Stefen - FYI
Qoute from florida knife on grinding the rails..material included.
150" Rails 4-36 Hot Roll Material Per Customer Drawing
$375.00 each

90" Rails 4-36 Hot Roll Material Per Customer Drawinq
$225.00 each
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  #28  
Old Mon 08 October 2007, 08:41
stefanv
Just call me: stefan
 
Port-au-Prince
Haiti
Sean,

Thanks for the info. For the rails I'll stick to the cheaper adventurous way
For the waterjet parts, Let me know what you find, perhaps we can combine our "purchase power" to get a better price. I'll eventually need to get my set forwarded to Miami, to my freight forwarder.

Stefan
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  #29  
Old Wed 16 April 2008, 00:06
Kobus_Joubert
Just call me: Kobus #6
 
Riversdale Western Cape
South Africa
Send a message via Yahoo to Kobus_Joubert Send a message via Skype™ to Kobus_Joubert
To Gerald and Alan-C in South Africa.
What is the best way to get stuff from Gecko and the BOB PMDX into SA.
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  #30  
Old Wed 16 April 2008, 03:19
Gerald D
Just call me: Gerald (retired)
 
Cape Town
South Africa
Gecko & PMDX are the small stuff. Had one bad experience with a shipper who suggested using "USPS Express" and that turned into a disaster. USPS is the US Post Office who relies on the SA post office to do the rest here. You can gues where the wheels fall off . . . .

I suspect that "USPS Global Express Guaranteed" is the safest way to go:

http://pe.usps.gov/text/imm/immc1_017.htm
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