Not much has happened in my MM world, lack of funds slowed my progress. One thing the hiatus did do was make me think about the size of the MM to build. While it would be nice to have a "full size" machine at my disposal my future work for the machine would be more focused on smaller jobs, I won't be cutting out any surfboards that I know of and while a full sheet machine would be handy, full sheets would be possible by feeding them through my planned size.

So I am going with a small machine, one that is close to what I have now. It will be a little bigger, 2 meters long giving a 1400mm cutting length. Width will be standard for a 1220mm machine giving me the option to go with a bigger base in the future.

My thought pattern for a smaller machine came from reading Al's (lonestaral) thread and Darrens comment in that the thread....... "In truth a machine this size would work for me 80-90% of the time....."

I priced up the steel for the smaller machine and have practically halved the steel cost by going smaller. A good saving for me being on a budget meaning I have the option to upgrade other things if need be in the future. My wife is happier too :)

Hopefully things in this thread will start moving quicker now the decision has been made.

Cheers
Bruce

Glad to be of some small service.
All credit to Richoof as his 90 Degree build leaves the way open for bigger things.

Don't worry about bumps in the road to completion. Almost a year passed between my introduction and actual start, although I quietly gathered parts during that time.
Once completed, the delays will seem trivial.

Drawings done, waiting on steel...
 

While waiting on the dollars to materialise for my steel I have been finishing off the drawings for my baby Mechmate. Should be good to go now once I have the heavy bits in hand :)

Knowing how much to buy?
 

I found a supplier of bright (cold rolled) and tool steel this morning and before I ring for a price, can someone tell me how much extra I need to buy so I can grind the V's?

My budget is at a premium so I need to buy just enough to get the job done....

Cheers
Bruce

Found the answer in a thread, boy I love the wealth of info in this forum. Seek and ye shall find :)

http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...&postcount=105

100mm each end will suffice....

...Your welcome :)

Received my Z bushes and idler shaft from Mike today (thanks Mike!). With these and my raw Z plate in hand it is time to start building the gantry. Will do a quick brush up on my welding skills and then get into constructing the entire gantry with the goal of getting it all working prior to starting on the table. Wish me luck! :)

Good Luck!!:)

Good luck Bruce.

Little tiny bit of progress today, started putting my grinding skate together. Almost done figuring out how to use the damn thing :)

Going to go buy another grinder for it, a Bosch GWS 7-125 which I will use with 125mm cutting disks to cut the rails down to size and then 115mm grinding and sanding disks for the vees. As I understand it, the skate works great with one of these grinders....

Cheers

in my experiense i recomend the Dw 818 from dewalt. 900w machine.. goes perfect on the skate.

Thanks Fernando. That model is not available in Aus and Dewalt stuff usually requires your first born as payment (meaning damn expensive in Aus) :)

Just ordered the steel for the gantry, Z and the angle. Bought 9m of angle because it was more cost effective, the remainder from the Y will do the X quite comfortably. Hopefully by Thursday I can start. First order of business will be finishing off the skate and cutting down the angle. That will give me the required bit for the nut plate on the Y. Oh, need to grab a countersink too, mustn't forget about countersinking those holes!

So I am having problems finding 65x50x6 in Sydney, no-one seems to have any - got a call from the guys I ordered it from today. The options I have are 75x50x6, 50x50x6 or 65x65x6 - which would be the best one to go with? Will be cutting them down with 125mm cutoff discs....

Sound as if 65 x 65 x 6 is the best bet.
I used 50 x 50 x 6 but that effects the shim washers for the Y car unless you adjust the car beam lengths.

Thanks Al. Crisis averted though, did some ringing around and found some 65x50x6 an hour or so away (read not local!) so am off to pick it up tomorrow. Funny thing is the length was $20.00 cheaper than my local crowd :)

Also got my gantry tubes and Z tube today, quickly fitted the gantry together to see what it looked like. Can't weld yet, I want to get the holes drilled in the tubes first and to do that I need my angle iron. Looks the the weekend will be my actual construction start date.

Go get it welded ASAP. Remember to follow the welding sequence religiously.

Hehehehe Slow and steady is my game Ken, don't want to stuff anything up. It will probably take me a week to ensure everything is square, level and straight before I attack it with a welder. My first task will be cutting down the angle to give me the clamp strips, which will then be drilled as a master for the gantry.

Learnt a long time ago that to build a precision machine it takes time and patience.

So I had a mini drama with my gantry. After taking the above picture I moved everything into the garage and had another play with it. I was wondering why one of the 100x50 tubes wasn't fitting properly until I measured it. Turns out that one was 101.5mm x 51.5mm. Not suitable me thinks. So the next day I go back to the supplier and tell them about the problem and I get weird looks. "well it came from our our 100x50 rack, must have been a different batch". Don't care me thinks and asks for it to be replaced. Really pissed off look on the guys face and he goes off and digs another 8m length out of the rack. When he was just about to cut it, he finds the other end of the good piece I got originally.

"Can I have that piece cut please", another grumpy look. I tell him I need 1720mm and to my horror he gets out a tape measure, marks it with a pencil and then eyeballs the line on the saw. I get it home to find it is 1719mm so I decide to measure the first one - 1722mm. So now I have to get them both to be 1719mm or just bite the bullet and go somewhere else that has a better system for maintaining multiple copies of a set length. I know for one thing I won't be going back to these guys, they have lost the potential to make another $600 odd out of me.

On the bright side, I picked up my 65x50x6 angle Friday and as a bonus, the 2 lengths I asked to be 2100mm were in fact that. If anyone gets my future business it will be these new guys an hour or so away from my house....

Bruce I'm glad you were able to identify the problems. Looks to be going well for you.

well you have many good brands on australia. you dont have dewalt but you have carba-tec..

So, I took some of the work I did on my current CNC to where I work part time and the reception for them was brilliant. My wife works at the same place and took them around the company to very positive feedback. Now, in my eyes the items were sub-standard but people seemed to like them.

I get a call from my wife this morning and she tells me to get the mechmate built so we can supply people at work the things they have now been asking for!

To that end, I am waiting on 2 new quotes for all the steel needed to get the base done and will be buying my final motor and racks this week as well. From here on in expect quite a few questions as I go all out to get my Midi Mechmate built and operational :)

I shall return soon to document my progress - let the games begin!

Ok, here goes the first question.....

I will undoubtedly running direct drive initially until I can cut my own reduction boxes so what pinions should I be looking at? I can get 30T pinions from the same people I am getting the rack off but they only have 10mm ID's and my motors are 12.7mm (1/2"). I could go to TEA industries for my pinions but am not sure of the tooth count to get for direct drive.

My motors are these: http://ausxmods.com.au/index.php?mai...products_id=13 and I will be running them at 50V with one of these http://australia.rs-online.com/web/p...rmers/2238235/ along with Leadshine AM882 drivers.

Cheers
Bruce

You can bore your pinion to fit your motor shaft. 24T is the "standard" for direct drive (which I'm using). Direct drive is just fine, no worries.
your motor, tranny & AM882 is a nice combo.

Have you finalized on your BOB purchase yet? Don't forget your capacitor & bridge rectifier, RS has a whole libery to choose from.

By now, you must had realized the cost of steel is negligible in this build :) If you ad went for DM drivers & sacrifices a few packs of beer, you might just be able to build a full 4'x8' MM.

Thanks Ken, I will look into 24T pinions and get a quote underway. Good to hear my combo so far is on target.

Yup, I have my BOB, PMDX 122 and also already have the caps and bridge. In fact I am just replacing my 25V toroid with the 35V one, everything else will remain the same. The caps are 4x 5500uf @ 100V. Basically what I am doing if pilfering my current machine for all the usable bits for an MM so also have a 2.2Kw water cooled spindle and Hitachi VFD. That machine only has 425 Oz-in Nema 23's so they will stay on the old one until I get around to replacing everything and selling it as a going concern.

Now, the "problem" with a full size MM is the space in my garage, a 4x8 would fill it without much room left. My planned (an initial) 2M machine is a good match at this point.

Cheers

Wow, just got my quote back from TEA Transmissions in Queensland for 4x 24T pinions with 12.7mm bore - $23.43 each + GST making it $103.10 plus shipping. Wasn't expecting that but what must be, must be. Oh, and 4 weeks delivery schedule as well.

Oh well....

Another question if I may..... I only have 4 motor springs, where do you Aussies get your springs from?

While I am here, any pointers to the right size and supplier of the gas spring for the Z? I'll be running a standard 250mm Z slide...

Cheers

I got a real surprise today on the cost of steel and that now has me thinking. My plan to build a 2mx1.2m machine in post # 31 was more based on dollars than wants, oh, that and the space in my garage.

Anyway, based on the steel pricing I got today I costed out doing a 2.4mx1.2m machine and to my surprise it came out at a tad under $200 more. Now, I have been working part time alot lately and think I can stretch to this now. If I take down a few things in the garage and rearrange a bit better I think I can get the full size machine to fit. Aside from the already purchased 2 pieces of 65x50x6 that would be too short (2400mm instead of the required 3100mm) I could pretty much get a full size table for about $750 plus the additional 65x50x6 required.

I'll do some more measuring this weekend and see if I need to crawl back in my box and change my mind again....

Pinions - yes expensive here, wait until you have them machined unless you have a lathe.
I have bought them cheaper as I replaced all mine when I did the reduction drives but can not remember where.
Originally I drew them and had them made in China, still expensive, not recommended.

Strut - 350mm for the strut body (the black part).
Gas charge to 15 kg should be ok.
Strut diameter 18mm.

Springs - They should pull approx 12 kg over the length.
We had them made at a spring makers to the correct specification for Skippy, Maddog and my machines.
They were approx $60 for 5 but they were right.
You need 5 not 4, made that mistake myself first time.
Too little pressure and the pinion does not engage as it should, too much and the rack and pinions are unnecessarily ground into each other.
Any spring will do as long as it pulls around 12 kg on a scale at the length required.

If you make a larger machine and are short on space make it easy to move.
Some people put wheels on the machines but it will need to rest on feet not wheels when trued up.

Ross