Charles. That is some nice work..

[QUOTE=WTI;55298]You should hook that reservoir up to a water cooled spindle[:D/QUOTE]

Exactly! But maybe not those. Maybe a smaller cooling system for the spindle. Eventually i wouldnt mind making a nice animated res for the spindle.

Thank you for the comments.

Hey Charles,

I had some of your stuff back in the day, and loved it. I've have my MM up and running a few years now and love the thing. If I can help at all send me an e-mail. [email protected]

Dennis





[QUOTE=cvriv.charles;55302]

Awesome! I know you! DangerDen! I had a lot of your stuff too! So jealous. Im gonna get this thing built and im going to go back to work. This time im going all the way. No one to hold me back. Thanks for offering your help:)

I'm currently building a new model of the machine using Inventor. I'm doing this for a few reasons. I want to familiarize myself with the plans again. I'm also looking for things I may have done that doesn't make any sense.

For example, my x beam has a length of 122". Im pretty sure I did that to insure the router bit clears the support board at 0,0. LOL. Im pretty sure it does. Can someone verify this for me? Thanks.

The design should clear the spoilboard all around by about 2 inches if I remember right. This was so that a surfacing cutter could fully clear the spoilboard when you were doing the surfacing. Dont ask Kobus, he doesnt surface his spoilboard. :)

:o sorry...saving the planet

LOL. Thanks.

Dankie Kobus! :)

For those of you using the 2.2kw and even 3kw chinese spindles off ebay,... i was reading the auction descriptions. It saw 240v 3 phase. Is that what i feed the vfd inverter or what the vfd inverter feeds the spindle? Forgive me for sounding ignorant but i am when it comes to this type of stuff. I have 110v at the house but can go 240 if i have too. I do believe my mother box has several 240v breakers. One i know we're not using because it was for a pool that we no longer have. The other says AC,... she doesnt have central ac or anything like that so i have yet to find out what its for.

Single phase 220v feeds the VFD. The VFD turns it into 3 phase.

Ok. Gotcha.

Also, don't waste one minute of your time on a Chinese VFD from ebay.

I have several friends who are "tech" kind of people who could not ever get the Chinese VFD running right. They would start by themselves, or burn up, or refuse to run in Mach3.

Just get the Hitachi X200 VFD.


BTW the 220v breaker marked "AC" was probably for a window air conditioner somewhere in the house. Look for a "different' looking plug below a window.

Ok but the chinese spindles are ok right? About the 240v ac breaker,.... it powers the ac in my room now that you mentioned that. Why did they run 240v for a single ac? The ac im using is a very small one. Maybe 8000btu's?!?! I think i'll rewire that breaker and the pool breaker so i have a 240v and some dedicated 110v's. I really would like two 240v's because a lot of the high powered dust collectors run on 240v. But many of the cyclone dust collectors run on 110v. But they are crazy expensive but,... dont lose suction:) what is preferred to run the mechmate itself? The steppers etc. Thanks.

Yes, Chinese spindles are OK.


Our Mech :

120v for Computer, Steppers, BOB
220v for Spindle + Vacuum Hold Down (dust collector is 220v, but is central in shop)

Ok thanks:)

Couple of questions.

1: Is 0,0 considered the front of the machine or the back?

2: Whats the purpose of the table offset?

3: Does the spindle or router face 0,0?

Thanks.

You put 0,0 where you want to put it.

You have to decided in what direction works best for you.

I think most every one works with the location of 0,0 on the right side of the table as you face the machine. Think of a big piece of graph paper. If you have a 8" x 11" sheet of graph paper you might put the Machine 0,0 at the right lower corner of the paper. You could put it at the top left corner.

At the lower right corner, the lower left corner would be 0,8 and the top left corner would be 11,8.

It does not matter which direction you have the router oriented. The bit is zeroed at the 0,0 location.

When you place a piece of material on the table, it may be located at machine coordinates of 0, 2. Which would be x=0 and y=2. When you make the x=0, y=2 the new 0,0, you tell Mach that this will be my new coordinates for 0,0. The machine coordinates are still 0,2 but the piece you are cutting will be located at the new zero.

I don't know if I have made it worse.

Ok well for me it seems natural to have 0,0 at the back left of the machine instead of front right. I will have access to all side of the machine but still,... I need to know whats front and back, left and right.

Another reason I ask is because if I loaded a full size 4' x 8' sheet of whatever into the machine,... which end would I slide it onto the table? I'm thinking it best the the gantry would be out of the way. I was thinking sending it to 0,0 which for me would be the back of the machine while I slid the sheet onto the machine from the front. You know what I mean?

Like Nils said, you will choose your own front/back 0.0 and it will all work out.

The gantry can be moved to any position so it is out of the way for clamping, screwing, or walking on the table.

Charles,
It really is a user choice based on the orientation of your machine in the work space.
I personally have 0,0 (if looking from the sky view) on the bottom right, which means it's on the right of the short side of the machine. This is evident when you look at the spoil board because the distance from the side C channel to the spoil board is shorter here, which makes working on small parts in the small corner easier.

You will be required to define the o,o in your file generating software and the clockwise and direction of the file being built.

For instance, if your 0,0 is in the bottom right like mine, then to travel to 60x120 is actually and -60, +120 move. The software does this for you, but you can see the actual results in your g code when it call each move out by line.

Not to confuse you - but your machine set up can be manipulated any way you chose that makes sense to your workspace.

There might be confusion on what is "bottom", or where is the "right side when you face your machine". I think I am speaking for most of us when I say:

The job of the MechMate is to make a solid model of something that we have on our computer screen - yes, that thing in front of you at this very minute. That is the starting point. So, where do you have 0,0 on your screen when you are in a CAD program? Most of us have it bottom left. X goes across the screen to the right, Y goes up the screen to the top.

Our screens are wider than what they are tall. The natural way to lay the screen image onto the bed of the MechMate is to get the long axes parallel. So we will have the main beams at the top and bottom edges of the screen and the gantry runs vertically across our screen as we see it now.

The open end of the MM is in from the left or right sides of our screen. We tend to spend most of the time standing on the left side. If we stand there, then 0,0 is to our right, nearest to us with Y going left and X going away.

But, the basic principle stays - where is 0,0 on your screen for CAD, and then how will you lay your screen image down on your table?

I ageree with Gerald, and everybody that I helped in building or setting up a new machine I tell them to place the screen in the same plane as the work table. This way you know where the machine will move. Once you understand this concept, you will NEVER run into the side of the table or off the rails...hopefully.:o

Gerald don't you mean Y.. going away.. Z is the plunge ?

Thanks Kobus, I meant X going away (parallel to main beams) - have edited it now.

Sorry to quote the whole post of an old thread but this is THE best explanation of X, Y and 0,0 I have seen anywhere, fantastic work Gerald. I think this post should be stickied somewhere for those wondering where 0,0 should be.

Cheers
Bruce

http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...8&postcount=62

Best to comment and link off to the thread.

Sorry Mike, will do that in the future.