Hello JD68,

Table:
I have made some progress on my table table. I work for our local utility company and this is our busy season (storms), thus resulting in not much time to work on my MM. My steelmax saw has come to be very helpful tool. Jhiggins7 technique of guides/clamps on both side has made this very easy. All of my parts are cut, but I do not own a welder, so I will be picking this up on Tuesday.

Georgia has lot of ways to obtain steel cheat! I will be turning back in all of my aluminum in for cash:D

Control Panel:
I have order the remaining part needed and hoping to get them soon:
contactors, connection, pushbuttons.

I do plan to share picture very soon, just wanted to get more material.

Donna,

You are making good progress and I look forward to your pictures.

Hello Guys,
I wanted to give everyone feedback on my progress. I’ve emailed some successful builder asking them to share their electrical equipment list to help give me get a better understanding. Thanks Guys! I used this list to understand how these pieces interact and investigate how to incorporate my own features. When I don’t understand, I can’t justify spending money.
With that said, I elected to use to following in my build:
Power Supply Requirement:
Pro:
PMDX-135-8020:
Reasoning; Swappable Transformers to support upgrading.
12VDC AC/DC Din Rail Power Supply
Reasoning: PMDX122, Proximities Switches, Relay Board
Con:
It is very hard to find up-to-date capacitors to meet all of the about requirements. I just needed to more on.

In my next picture post, I plan to share my thoughts on steel, table & welder. If you live in my area it will help. In my last post, I stated we were going out to purchase a welder. That was before I realized how much it cost:eek:

Donna,
What capacitors are you having a hard time finding. Let me know and I can suggest where and what to buy at good pricing. :)

domino11,
It's too late now, I've already purchased and received what I outlined in my last posting.

I was able to saved alot of money on the steel, so this shouldn't affect my budget.

Steel Process
 

Hello Guys,
Here are some pictures of my ongoing steel construction. I mentioned earlier, I work for in the utility industry. I went to several of our monthly recovery investment recovery sale and purchased the following:

Substation Bus Bracket
Several Control Panels

From this I was able to get a lot of steel, copper and aluminum very cheap. It took us days to take it apart. I also got lots of stainless steel high quality washer, bolts, nuts, brackets and plates in superb condition. I had lots of channels 8 x 2 that weighed 200lbs each. I elected to cut these in half and use as my cross bearers. I am in the process of reducing my pictures so that I can show everyone.

Okay Guys, here are some pictures of us cutting the cross bearings. Sorry for the quality but had to reduce them to the limitation of the site. The alum post will be used to build a work bench.

Gerald is it possible to increase the picture size?

Substation stuff
 

Hi Donna,
What type of work do you do for the utility? I am retired from Ontario Hydro and spent ten years as an operator in 3 different generating stations and 15 years as a Customer Service Representative in distribution. Had some good luck an got a retirement package after 25 Years in May 2000. Not trying to make you feel bad - I just got lucky!! I just finished painting my machine (5x10). Gee - now I probably am making you feel bad.
Best of luck!
Buzz

Donna, if I make the pic size allowance too big it overflows some screens. Here are some hints on reducing pic sizes and keeping the quality:

Attaching photos to posts on this forum

Thanks Gerald, I have IrfanView just needed to reduce it more than 80.

Hey Buzz, you are a lucky guy. I work for Georgia Power in our System Operations Division. I support our SCADA and Power Grid Applications. I am one of many Transmission Engineers. Earlier this year we had a voluntary retirement program, but our group was excluded due to our specialty. I still have about 10 more years to go anyway.


Here is the room where my MM will live. The room size is 25'x15'x9.5' with an 5' door opening. I have two of these rolling cabinets that will set under my alum table mention. This MM is going to be very heavy.

Question on Table Offset
 

Hello everyone, I am now making good process. I have three different projects going on all at the same time.

1. Steel Construction:
a. Material cut for final assembly.
b. Welder Purchased (waited for sale)
Cost $450.00 Lincoln 175HP - This purchase was driven by other needs.
1. Continuous voltage control
2. Wide current range (25-175A) handles 24ga up to 5/16"
3. Comes with a gas regulator suitable for Argon/CO2
4. Available stainless/aluminum kit

2. Kitchen Project:
a. Shop for parts via Internet and local looking for quality with price in mind.


3. Cheap Chinese Spindle:
a. I eventual wanted a spindle and could NOT past up the opportunity to purchase it at a reasonable price.
b. I know this is going to delay my completion by weeks.

I have several questions in all areas and will asked them in separate replies.

Gerald.

Table Question:

Is there any harm in aligning the 6 middle cross bearing beams and the table legs around the centerline of the table frame? The outside cross bearing will still reflect the table surface offset of 3.9. I am about to weld the legs onto the main beam and realized that I drill the cross bearings holes on the frame centerline instead of the table center.:mad:

Here is a picture of my table progress.

Donna, from a strength/stiffness viewpoint, it is only the distance between the cross beams that matters, and not how evenly they are spaced. We are trying to keep the maximum space at under 16" [400mm]. You are going to have one wide space, 5 standard spaces and then one narrow space. The wide space is at the end that is going to see the most work, is it possible to lay an extra beam in that space? If your wood table surface is fairly thick, you could perhaps go wider on the beam spacings, but the wood wears away with time.

What size (and thickness) is that angle material that you have for the cross beams? It may be more more flexible than the channels on the drawing, in which case it will not be good to go wide on that one space.

The legs can go nearly anywhere.

Thanks Gerald for your quick response. As talked about in one of my earlier posting, I cut my cross bearings from C8x11.5. I attached a closeup picture. The side bolted to the main beam is 3" and standard side is 2". These cross bearings are heavy than what is in the drawing. They are also bolt with 1/2 recycled bolts. I don't think the table surface will experience any extra load, but you are the professional. What do you think?

Donna, you are going to be surprised at the strength comparison . . .

From http://www.engineersedge.com/standar...properties.htm:

For the C8x11.5:
I_xx = 32.6 in⁴
I_yy = 1.32 in⁴

For the C3x5:
I_xx = 1.85 in⁴
I_yy = 0.247 in⁴

These are the (stiffness) numbers which are proportional to the resistance to flex in the beams for a given load condition. It can be seen that when the channels stand up straight, they are much stiffer than lying down flat.

The 3" channel standing up straight is stiffer than a 8" channel lying flat (1.85 versus 1.32). But you cut the 8" channel in half, so it's number becomes 0.5x1.32 = 0.66.

Even though your half 8" channels are heavier than the 3" channel. their shape only gives them 0.66/1.85 = 36% of the stiffness. Sorry that I only calculated this out for you now.

Gerald, this is not a problem. If the table appears to be unstable, I will replace them with more recycled channels. I have the resources. Currently the spacing is 13.75".

What about my question of the offset?

Okay Gerald, after reading my question and your reply, it appears that you think I only 6 cross beams. I have 8 cross beams with a spacing less than 16". The two beams on each end will be adjusted to miss the legs.

To give it more strength, I will add 4 umbilical plate to help tie them all together. Placing them symmetrically around the centerline of the table frame.

As stated before, if this appears to be unstable, I will replace them with recycled C3x7.

I meant that the following addressed the offset issue:

From "You are going to have one wide space, 5 standard spaces and then one narrow space" it can be seen that I realised you would have 7 spaces which means 8 beams. Knowing now that your spacing is 13.75", and with the offset of 3.9", it follows that your 7 spaces will be:
17.65"
13.75"
13.75"
13.75"
13.75"
13.75"
9.85"
(PS - this gives a total table top length of 98.6". Is that what you want? See 10 10 123 D)

and thus: "The wide space is at the end that is going to see the most work, is it possible to lay an extra beam in that space?" meaning that you could divide the 17.65" with a 9th beam.

But then I saw in the photo that you were using relatively light angle and not channel. (I must admit that I don't read everyone's posts in detail to analyse deviations from the plans).

The ShopBotters were working with angle iron beams before and their early tables were just not stiff/stable enough for many applications requiring precise z-depth control. If you are going to be boatbuilding and cutting out plywood sheets, your table as it is now will be fine. The signmakers who tried cutting a flat background between raised letters suffered with the flexible tables - they had ridges that needed sanding between the letters.

Adding umbilical plates will do nothing for table stiffness.

I added the following note in post #2 of 1010302S Cross Support Beams under table top :

Here are the minimum L-sections that will be about as stiff as the C-section in the drawings:
80x10 [ L3x3x3/8 ]
90x6 [ L3.5x3.5x1/4 ]

Hello guys,

I know it has been sometime since my last posting but I am still here. Work and family has distracted my physical work but not my research on building MM. Soon I will post my water cooling system for the 2.2kw Chinese spindle. I'm still waiting on parts and plan to build my own controller.

I wish everyone on this site a merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Merry Christmas Donna! Good to see you are still around. You are still in the running for first female to build a MM! :)

Motors Turning
 

Hey everyone, Gary got our motors turning. He will post pictures today.

Well done Gary!!

I must admit that I was worried when he battled with the contactor :o. But I love it when folk prove me wrong! :D

Alive and well in Suwanee GA
 

We have made some progress just sending pictures to document the build.
Will send more in the near future. The Kitchen project went well and we have finished all the welding and most of the painting we are currently wiring the machine to the control box.


Attachment 12302

Attachment 12303

Attachment 12304

Attachment 12305

Attachment 12306

Some more Pictures
 

Painting went well and we have started and finished the rails.

Some more pics
 

Here are some more pictures of the rails. The rails went pretty good but i did have to buy an extra 10 foot section because i had problems lining up the skate.
Not our finest moment but we did okay. Once we figured out that we needed to cut the rails then placing them back to back we then grinded them level.
The last pic was the making of the stops

Additional Progress
 

Here are some pics of the Z slides and spider assembly.

Lookin good !!!

Still making progress
 

Still making progress here is a picture of the water cooler, 12v pump and enclosure with glass reservoir pump is very quiet.