Some signs #96 - Glendora, CA

[baseball43v3r]

Hey all, long time lurker here coming out of the woodwork from (normally) sunny southern California, and I felt it was finally time to take the jump and start building a mechmate. I'm a student at a local university here, and I also work part time, so my updating may be sporadic, but I will do the best I can!

So far my intentions are a 4 X 8 cutting area, with either 6" or 8" of Z travel (using the extended Z axis) as well as room for an indexer to be added on at a later date.

As for components, I'm sourcing a good portion of my steel from my stepfather, so I'm hoping he has close to what i need out of his large supply of stock steel. I've already got a set of laser cut and bent parts from jbmclain. I'm in the process of ordering eccentric bearings, as well as rack and pinion. For the electronics i'm going with 4 keling motors, 4 gecko 203v's, antek power supply, and a PDMX-122 BOB.

I know how much this community likes their photos so I'll try and post as many as I can, and so far while I don't have much might as well show what i do have!

below is my laser cut and bent parts (we had a leak in the ceiling of the garage, so the ground under the parts got wet ) and below that is the stock pile of wood i have all set to be used on a mechmate, some pieces are incredibly thick, hence the larger z-axis travel

[MetalHead]

Great - Looking forward to your build!!

[domino11]

Welcome John! That is a nice pile of wood there. Do you do your own sawing? Jealous I am.

[Kobus_Joubert]

I like REAL wood.. . welcome

[MetalHead]

Hey - So do you have a Saw to make big round wood into big flat wood?

Kewl !!!

[baseball43v3r]

in answer to your question, yes we do have a machine, its basically a large bandsaw turned sideways that mills the wood. My father owns a business that takes the logs and turns them into usable lumber, and we can make a piece of any thickness, which was why I was planning on a larger Z-axis to accomadate those pieces. A good sample piece we have is a a piece of oak, 12 feet long, 22 inches wide, and 4 inches thick, can't find that too many places!

[Kobus_Joubert]

I am up for adoption....

[MetalHead]

I have considered one of these, or one like it. Does it stay busy doing work for customers? Or is all that wood for you and your dad?

[Tokamak]

Hey BB John,

I'm over here in Monrovia (15 min from you) and am collecting my parts for a build. Nice to know there is a good source of wood in Glendora.

I just received my laser parts from Metalhead yesterday.
Have already ordered 4 G203V, Antec PS, and belt drive machined parts.

I too am planning on Keling motors, and PDMX 122.

If we can make a double order on parts and save some money I'm up for that.

Toka John

[baseball43v3r]

@Kobus, there is already 3 of us in this cramped house, any special talents i might consider calling the adoption agency about?

@metalhead, it will honestly stay as busy as you want. My dad retired from his job a few years ago, and started his business up around then. The machine and the equipment have more then paid for itself. Its actually a good source for free wood, as he calls up tree trimming companies asking to take trees they chop down. they are more then happy to have him come in and take it as it cuts down on their labor of chopping it up and putting it through a shredder. Most of the wood we have is obtained this way, and the best part is the owners sometimes pay us to take it!

@Tokamek, Yes I would definitely be interested in doing something like that, I'm currently waiting for a few more dollars to come into my bank account, but hopefully it arrives soon and we can do a joint venture of some sort. Have you already completed the kitchen table project?

[Kobus_Joubert]

I don't drink, don't smoke and adopt my children

[lumberjack_jeff]

A sawmill and a MechMate are a great combination. Some of us even us even used our lumber to build the table for the machine.

http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1789

[baseball43v3r]

and... 1 and a half years later there is progress! After a couple setbacks over the last year i'm finally back on track.

I went to my local IMS location about 30 miles from my house and placed and picked up my steel with 2 hours (this place is huge and has every type of steel i could imagine... 400,000 sq ft!). i needed the C-channel and the angle iron, the 2 inch pipe i got from my stepdad. whew prices of steel have gone up quite a bit over the last couple of years!

I got it home and began cutting and drilling cross bearers and and cute the legs and sides for the machine. got everything either tack welded or welded up, although i didn't get any close pictures of that yet. next weekend i'll assemble the sides and mount the rails and grind them down.

the week after that I'll be placing my order for the electrical components (mike i'm looking at you!) and getting some motors and drivers. hopefully in a couple weeks time i'll have it cutting some dust.

my c channel looks a little long because its about a foot oversized. i wanted to leave room to mount an indexer on the end so i'm including that in my plans. hopefully more pictures next week!

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[MetalHead]

Just let me know. I sent you a PM. Welcome back !! Glad to see some more builds going.

[baseball43v3r]

table welded up, going to do cross braces and do finish welds, then flip it. goal is to have gantry assembled, rails ground, and rack mounted this weekend. I've ordered my router (milwaukee 5625-20) and I'll be ordering the electronics later in the week hopefully. pics for everyone.

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[baseball43v3r]

The KL34H280-45-8A motor has 2.2mH inductance when wired either half-coil or bipolar parallel. It can be used with power supplies up to 47VDC, using that same formula shown above. 25 amps would allow full speed under all conditions.

I would use a 70VDC power supply for the first motor to allow for power line variations. I would use a 35VDC to 40VDC power supply for the second motor, also to allow for power line variations.

found this in another thread, and the keling motors are the ones i'm probably going to go with due to cost. I'm leaving room for an indexer as well, so thats another axis in terms of motors. I haven't looked into exactly what motor to use with the indexer (i'm hoping to use what i use on the rest of the machine) but i'd rather get a power supply that can handle the future expansion. with adding another motor is there anything I need to be concerned about in regards to the power supply? what changes with with regards to the amperage?

[bradm]

John, as a thought experiment, would you actually anticipate moving all four axis at full torque simultaneously, or would use of the indexer axis minimize or eliminate the use of one of the other axis? I suspect that you won't need to step up the power supply at all.

[MetalHead]

PS-5N48R12 or the PS-4N48R5R12 Depending on what you need should be more than enough. Let me know if you need any of the electrics. I have a pretty good set of parts now.

[baseball43v3r]

thanks Mike and Brad! more work being done, wheels and feet were mounted, gantry is welded up, y-car is being saved until I get more gas for the welder. I'll post update pics in a few.

Quick question, i know the pmdx-122 is the standard BOB used, but I got a message from Mike about using a different pmdx board with my extra axis, is there anyone thats used a different board using an indexer, or are most people using 2 122's?

[baseball43v3r]

ok so progress! got the feet on, and the wheels mounted. they are just standard trailer dolly wheels and they work great, wheels free and easy, and then when i want to level the machine, i put down the feet.

The man pictured doing the welding is my Stepdad, who has been a tremendous help so far on this build. I've also got the gantry welded up, but we ran out of gas for the welder, so the y-car will have to wait for next weekend.

if you notice in the last couple of pictures, I posted prices of 18 gauge 8 core (i think) wire from my local Lowes, its priced at a good rate, but i'm wondering if its applicable for this build. my concerns would be voltage (not sure if that wire is proper usage) and bending radius (I couldn't find any posted, and salesmen are useless) any users that can chime in on this? IMAG0015.jpg

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[JamesJ]

John
Glad to see you are progressing. The wire you posted appears to be solid core and is also not shielded. The wire you need has to be stranded and shielded. Do some reading in the wiring section here.

[smreish]

That is T-stat wire and solid center core. Very bad for the CNC use because it in not flexible. What is required is a 4 core 18awg for steppers and at least 7 core of 18-22 AWG for button station and control on the outbound machine. This should all be a flexible, stranded core center with ample flexible jacket. Don't hurry, get the correct wire. That will fracture within weeks of use.
Mike has an assortment on his webstore, or you can source it from places like skycraftsurplus.com

Very nice build. Congrats on your accomplishments.

Best,
Sean

[baseball43v3r]

alright guys thanks for that, just wanted to double check. I will get the proper wire.

[MetalHead]

John, I have wire if you need it also. If your planning on using 2 BOB's for the indexer you 99% home for the 126 BOB and then have more growth options.

[baseball43v3r]

Hey Mike, do you have a link to the wire prices? are you saying using 2 BOB's or just one 126? I'm kinda confused by the wording you've used in that last sentence.

[baseball43v3r]

did a little research, and found some info on the 126, and that'll work perfectly! so I went ahead and ordered one. Still need the list of pricing for cables, I couldn't find your old thread with pricing. I know you have a bunch of packages listed around here, and it would help a lot of they were all in one thread in a sticky, or listed on your website, or both!

[MetalHead]

I have been busy today. I owe a few of you some pricing and I should have that tomorrow.

4 Core - Price will be .93 per foot typically 170 ft ordered
8 Core - Price will be 1.37 per foot typically 85 ft ordered
BC01- $390.12 plus $70.00 Shipping - Basic Control Box Kit http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...7&postcount=36

[baseball43v3r]

been awhile since an update, but there is progress!

I've welded up the y-car and gantry, and will be painting in the next week or two hopefully. Still have to grind the rails (kinda scared for that part to be honest). In the meantime I've collected parts, and lots of them! I recieved my orders for gecko's, powersupply, motors, enclosure, DIN rail, and a few other things. Now I'm on to some of the little stuff.

I was curious where I could learn a little more about the DIN terminals people are using and a source for them in the states. When it comes to the electronics I'm a little clueless on parts of it, but I'm trying to learn as much as I can. I know Mike has a kit for all the little electronic parts but I'm choosing to source it myself so I have a better understanding of what goes along with it, and also to have a supplier in the future.

I've looked through Gerald's thread where he put together the box, but I'm curious if anyone knows of another mroe specific thread with a little more detail on the intricacies of the smaller parts or good general reading? (doign a search of various terms was pretty unhelpful, specially when i didn't know what i was looking for).

I know i've been light on pictures lately, but i promise to get a few more up soon. until next time.
John

[smreish]

Parts supplies.
Factorymation.com
automationdirect.com
http://www.antekinc.com/ (transformers)
skycraftsurplus.com
superiorbearing in ohio for the bearings.

[domino11]

Some other good sources for stuff

www.parts-express.com (transformers and more)
www.digikey.com electronics stuff
www.mouser.com electronics stuff