Hey guys,

im trying to order the V-rollers, i found the manufactueres side of YITONG ynd HEPCO, but they do not support online payings via paypal.. Does anyone know a good online store where i could order the V-rollers, so i can just get them shipped????

All suggestions are welcome.

probajte ovde, od Superior Bearing svi kupuju, dosta su kvalitetni a i cena je odlicna

Pozdrav!

http://www.superiorbearing.com/

Pacific Bearings, v-guides + wheels + bushings cost me app. 600 €

I bought them at superiorbearings.com, the man to contact is Rick ([email protected]), the price 287.41$ , shiping to croatia included, shoul arrive in approximatly 6-10 days. Thanks to everyone who posted. Tommorow we should continue our build, so an update with pics should be online soon..

Fixing the racks to the angle iron
 

Greetings mates,

just a quick question about the way my x-racks are fixed to the angle iron.

Well, according to the mechmate design i got to drills on each end of the rack, at 7.5 mm from the end.
My x racks are going to be 4200 mm long.
I am pretty sure that they will hang if only fixed by two screws at each end. So what are my option??

Could i add more holes along the racks length, lets say 4 more and try to hide the screwhead inside the racks so my steppers dont get stoped by a screwhead when traveling along the rack or is there maybe a more "elegant" solution?? I think i saw in someones personal build history that there was somekind of tape between the rack and the angle iron, but i cant remember if this was doublesided sticky tape or if it was just a distance between the rack and the angle iron.

All tips are welcome.

P.S. photo update soon ;-)

Racks are held by double sided tape thats the way everyone did it, screws are just in case. Don't drill the racks at the tooth side.

check

http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showthread.php?t=751

we just used silicon, clamped it over night and works 100%

lg

See:

Adhesive tape for mounting the racks - does it really work and where do we get it?

Mounting the rack

The sticky tape works - we don't use screws any longer.

We found a supplier in Croatia for these tapes, so will probably use that!

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3...apes/VHB-Tape/

Long time no see mates ;-)


I had a lot to do the last month or so, and i really didnt have the time to continue on my build but all the obstacles are out of the way, and the build goes on ;-)

So where did we stop ?? I had the main table welded up, and the floor of my future pool tacked to the main frame. After that i tacked the long walls to the main UNP profile, on which my rails are going to be mounted.

After tacking the long walls of the pool i tacked the shorter walls that form the width of my pool. The welding of the pool was the next step. I welded it all up, first the long pool sides, then the shorter ones, which didnt twist as much as i have expected them to twist. After that i grinded of the weldment that connected the pool wall with my UNP 180.

As you guys might have noticed by looking at the photos, the UNP 180 seems a little bit to sharp edged at the ends. Well that was a little mistake during the cutting. Well everyone makes mistakes i guess, so this one hurts only the aesthetics, not the funcionality.

Next step my mate Ivan cutted out the the end caps for the main beams. Welded them up, grinded all the weldments off.

So the basetable was more or less finished.

We moved on to the rails...

After spending an awfull lot of time on thinking what would be the best way to make them i simply started out by centerpunching a suitable hole pattern.

The drilling was the easy part, but how to cut the other side down to 28 mm??

I decided to do it the way i though it would be best. I marked 30 mm on the side that had to be cut down, and simply started cutting, always taking care that the marked line stayed on the angleiron. A few hours and 22 small cutting discs later i had my raw rails. Pretty nasty job, but i still got 2 more milimeters to deal with. Since my workshop is equiped with a milling machine, the next step will be to make the rails 28 mm high and to mill out the angles.

But this will be done next week. I hope you guys will have a nice weekend and enjoy my little photo love story ;-)

Great Progress. I can't wait to see it in action!!!

Curious to see progress branko... any news and pictures?

Sorry, no real progress for now, i got a lot to do the last few months, working double shifts etc. As soon as i continue my build you guys will get updates.

Have you tested Texas micro circuits THC301b ?

I have a friend assembling his plasma and looking for recommendation on THC controller.
was also looking at candcnc LCTHC

the journey continues ;-)

Greetings to everyone once again, i finaly got some time to continue with the build. Just welded up the cart, looking nice and square.

Im gonna keep you up to date...

So basicly i work almost every day now on my mechmate... And the progress is visible... to keep it short, the gentry is done, the cart is done, the y rails are in production right now.... Im gonna upload a video today, so you guys can see how the gentry rolls, in my opinion i can still get it better, although it almost crosses the whole x axis with one push... Still need to get my cables and my chains, so i guess this will be the next financial hurdle i somehow have to manage... Nevertheless im satisfied... Gonna post the link later.. C ya mates

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERE_V...ature=youtu.be

Sorry for the bad video quality, i just noticed after viewing this on my computer how scretched out the lens is on the back on my iphone4...

Seems like time and metal dust in my workshop are working quiet efficient against apples unscratchable glass ;-)

Some more progress today, finished grinding the y rails yesterday, had them today mounted and squared.. Tested the cart, and it works wonderfull, as you will see in the video down below. Sawed and drilled the Z plate and TIG welded the racks.. Everything went great until i the square tube thats mounted on the Z plate. The problem is i cant get that tube anywhere localy, so i found two possible solutions for the problem:

1) take 2 square tubes 25×25 mm , weld them together and get one pice of 25 × 50 , only problem : wall thickness 2 mm

or

2) use a 50 × 30 × 3 mm rectangular tube instead...

Any suggestions on this problem? maybe somebody came up with a better solution regarding this problem??

Please help

Oh, and here is the link to a little video of mine, i would make a great tool for... i dunno, drivin around?? ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4_IQ_c8Qm0

Progress
 

Greetings again,

as the work continues we are getting to the smaller pieces of the build...

Yesterday we used doubelsided sticky tape to mount the racks, everything went according to plan. Afterwards i began to work on the spider, welded up the mounting plate of the motor and gently did a gut with a thin disc on the two little bendings that they did not manage to do in the company i ordered my lasercuts from.. After the cut i just welded them in place and i looks just fine.

I also began to machine my Z plate. I could not get 100 × 6 mm flat steel localy so i bought 100 × 10 mm flat mild steel ST 37.2. As my table isnt going to hold any tools that could vibrate or make moves i think that the more quality steel for hardening would be just a waste of money. I hope im right about that.

I got into a little problem while drilling the holes for the holding screws of my Y angle irons ( picture 1). Since i prefabricated my drill jig on a 20 × 6 mm flat strip and already drilled the pilot holes on my gantry i started to do the same on my angle iron. After i finished i marked the holes for the proximity sensor and as i turned out i got into direct collision with one of the holes for my holding screws as you can see in the photo. I centerpunched the marking and just drilled a 3.5 mm hole for now. I figuered i can do the 20 mm holes afterwards after checking with you guys about this issue. I attached a photo of this situation.

Another "thing" that im having my issues with are my belt reductions. Im thinking of mounting my motors directly for now. Since i really got no clue about electronics i dont know if my motors can handle this. My mate Ivan is concerend about acceleration ramps, torque and stoping of the gantry.

I think that this is only a problem on really thin sheats ( under 1 mm ). I looked up a few plasma cutters on youtube and they arent really working fast, its like a slow but continues movement of the x and y axis.

Anybody got any thoughts on ungeared transmission and the possible problems with it. I can still add them later....

For now thats all, thanks in advance for incoming advices.

hi branko,

dont worry about direct drive. you can easy go over 10.000mm/min with decent acceleration. if you run into problems with thin material just drop your amps on the plasma. i would also recommend sheetcam as it can loop sharp corners to avoid burning them down or warping too much.
we use candcnc thc and (after fiddeling around a while..) it works well. the biggest problem we are facing is still the grit design as small pieces fall in partly and "stand up" then torch gets stuck, motors stalling and loosing steps. hope you come up with good design... :-) im waiting...

Hey mate,

i didnt really think this could be an issue with the pieces "standing up" but as i think about it it could really be an problem... But it makes sense that this really is going to be something im gonna have to wrap my head around..

Regarding beltdrive/direct drive issue, to me its more a time consuming issue... I really need to get this thing running and making some money, i can still add the 3 to 1 reduction later.

any thought on the proximity hole issues?

You are smart enough to figure out your own details for the prox hole - I don't know how we can really help you. I don't see a serious problem.

Yes I too found out the "stand up" pieces problem. If you are cutting smaller pieces the operator has to be around to pause the machine and remove the part that gets in the way.

Or you need a really dense grill beneath the table, which will of-course cost more and get damaged more while cutting.

Some use spikes and some stripes with spikes cut on the same plasma like this one
http://www.chacich.com/ppllc/LC4X8.pdf

Progress...

Its a living hell these days in Croatia, today it was like 38 degrees Celsius...
Still the build goes on...

I finished the Z slide plate today and the mounting tube. As you can see in the photos i had a little mishap, i had two of them basically ;-)

The first one was that i countersank my holes on the Z slide on the wrong side, so i ended up having my holes for the rack on the wrong side of my spider, the second was that i drilled the holes for my rack at 100 mm distance instead of 200 mm.

Shit happens i guess, especially if you think more about how not to dehydrate instead of focusing on what to do.

In my opinion those to wrongs are nothing important , doesn't affect anything on the built.

I also encountered a problem with the holes for my V wheels on the spider. After mounting my V wheels, in the holes that where drilled through the laser marked spots it turned out that the wheels where to close so my plate pushed them away one from another. It didn't really bother me much i just made the holes "longer" on my mill. After that i fitted perfectly.

Reguarding issue with my 50*30 rectangular tube instead of 50*25; there really was no issue. Although my spider touched the tube with the little bent part in its middle, i simply grinded it of a little bit and the issue was gone. So anybody in near future who will face the same problem should not worry, 50 * 30 mm fits great if 50 * 25 mm is not available.

At the end of the day i "mounted" my spider plus slide on the y car just to make a picture, so tomorrow i will need to fine tune the hole assembly.

Im thinking about buying my paint tomorrow and starting to paint this thing.

The color of choice would be a black and yellow combo, just like ESABs branding color..

Thats it for now, more updates tomorrow.

One more thought about my wrongs today; it comes all down to the beauty of working with steel, if you make something wrong lets say you cut something shorter then you are supposed to, simply weld it up and cut it again ;-) try to do this with wood or glass ;-) Greetings to my mate Ivan who likes glass more than steel ;-)

Don't you mean Mechmate Blue? Mechmate's Branding Colour? :eek::):D

I don't understand how people can use those laser marks for drilling without first checking how wide their slide is :confused:

I guess you spoiled us by making 99% of the drawings idiot proof ;-)

I tried to make that 1040432P drawing "idiotproof" by giving each laser mark 3 points. So you would have think which mark is the right one. Also, there is a note on 1040432D that says the 132mm dimension is approximate. Maybe this note is the problem..should the dimension 132 be removed?

There is also the top sticky thread Spider Plate Oh-Oh!! (which # mark to drill on?) but we see a lot of people skipping the top sticky threads like they skip over top advertisements.

lol :D I must admit that i skipped it :rolleyes:

Ola,

is there a formula for calculating the strength of my gas spring if i guess that my torch plus mounting head of the torch is about 5 kg? I read around the forum but most all of you got heavy spindles mounted so there is no one to compare it to....

And also my slide is 250 mm.. Is ordering a spring that has a stroke of 300 mm a bad decision?

I also just read about the way I should mount it, so the seal stays tight.. Great info, didn't know that...