Bart,

Interesting router and Z you have.

That progress should encourage you to finish quickly. You think that is fun wait until you cut some thing, that is real fun.

Congratulations Bart, that is some neat construction and good movement.

Today I have ordered all the rest.
Lapp cable can I buy a meter without additional cutting costs in a local store.
The deliverytime of the gasspring is about 2 weeks.:(
I really look forward to finish this MM.

Can you tell me where you got the pinions and rack (tandlat) from.
I also live in Belgium and would like to buy as much parts close to home.

He Gregory ,

Look at www.bogaert-transmission.com/

The needed rack and pinion's are in stock .
I payed about 30 euro for 2 m rack and about 3.5 euro for the pinion (z = 36)
.

Thanx for the info, excellent:)

Wear pattern in my x–rail and z-slide
 

After my z -slide was finished and everything was connected ,
I have tested the MM by using a pencil.
During testing I noticed a wear pattern in my x – rails and z-slide .
The y-rail is ok.
The attached photos were taken after about 14 h testing and are the worst cases .

I have rechecked the parallel distance between the x –y rails.
This time I have used a dial gauge , so I could measure up to 0,01 mm.
My y-rails are now within the range of 0,25 mm and the x-rails are within the range of 0,15 mm .I think this is ok .

I have disconnected te motors from the rack , and there is no resistance when I move the gantry . Everything turns very soft .

The only thing that perhaps could cause this wear pattern is that , the angle of the x-rail is not exactly 2x45 °.

Could this be a problem in the future? Or should I keep it ?

Bart, I am sure that it will be okay. I have seen some very bad rails, yet they still gave a good cutting result. Your rails are actually quite good, and I can see you are being very careful with the construction.

Thank you Gerald, that's a relief :):).
Now I have to finish my dustfoot and the routermount and maybe next week my first cutting .

Smoke & Dust - First Cuts :

After experimenting with Autocad and Lazycam I made my first pieces.
These pieces I gone use for the dustpipe .
Everything is drawn in autocad and then I have “offset “ the half diameter of the mill.
I know , that this is not the right way, but I am still learning.
The router is a KINZO - 650 W ( I bought it about 10 years ago and was not expensive, along with 2 HSS mills: diameter: 10 mm - 22 mm). I have used the 10 mm mill to cut these pieces in paces of 4 mm at the time and with a feedrate of 600 . The material is black MDF of 19 mm.

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

As you can see it goes pretty wrong after milling around the 8 st piece.
Is this normal , ... or what did I wrong? .

I have read that you always have to mill clockwise on the inside of a workpiece.
Or can you also mill against the clock without burning the mill ?

What is a good diameter for milling MDF of 18 mm, and in how many paces can it be done ?

Bart,

Is that smoke?

It does not matter which direction you go.

You are cutting 4 mm per pass which sounds good. I usually make about 3 passes. Feed rate of 600 what?

You should not be getting smoke. You are burning the material.

Bart,
I think the HSS end mills might be part of your problem. I have heard that guys only get a couple of feet of cutting on a cnc mill before they dull and start to smoke. Switch to carbide cutters. Solid or at least carbide tipped. Be careful if you are seeing smoke like that, you dont want a fire! Lets see that logo and a new serial number will be coming! :)

I know a person that cuts a LOT of MDF, and only MDF. He has been purchasing diamond coated router bits just for the longevity. He tends to think it is economical for him, but I have not seen any data on it.

Congratulations Bart!

Yeah, smoke is not good. You need to use a tungsten carbide (wolfram in Dutch?) cutter and you won't see smoke for at least a full day of cutting those parts. The direction of cut makes no difference to the life of the cutter.

You can cut about 10mm deep with a 10mm diam cutter, and 6mm deep with a 6mm diam cutter, etc. It depends on how much detail you need in the corners of the finished part.

Hey all,

Thank you for the mill advice .
I had to finishing this piece because , I had no spare cutter and it was my last piece of MDF.
After my wife's vacuum cleaner stops with cleaning , the smoke was very clear and I was aware of a possible fire. So I thought , .. quickly make a movie, but the smoke was so fierce that I had to open the garage .

When I get back from vacation, I have to move the MM about 3 m to its final place .
Then I will order the MM logos for my serial number and finish the dustcollection system .
From now on , I ‘m also looking for a good tool supplier.

I ‘m very satisfied with this first experience. It gives a good feeling when the piece is finished you have designed.

I would increase the feed rate before blaming the end mill, also helping removing the chips from the cutter helps (suction or blowing them away)

Good point Pablo. Also, I do not know what "black MDF" is . . . . . it might be recycled wood & car tyre (rubber) mix . . . . . the material is maybe something that likes to smoke . . . .

Bart,
Do you have any info on this "black" MDF? Looks interesting.

Pablo, maybe you are right but I can’t test it anymore because I have to buy new mills now.
This time I will go to a special shop and ask for “ tungsten - carbide cutters” .
I'm curious about the price ?

Gerald, I know nothing of wood or MDF .
But this is the link of a local dealer where you can buy black MDF.
They also sell:
Green -> moisture resistant MDF
Red -> fire / flame retardant MDF

http://www.beveka.be/mdfzwart.nl.htm#top

After some Googling, I found the following.

Types of MDF or (Medium-Density Fiberboard) :

A standard MDF plate can be identified by the light brown color of the wood. In addition to standard MDF, there are still six other species:

• MDF Plus: Maintains light brown color, but smoother surface;
• MDF MR: Moisture Resistent . This plate has a green color identification;
• MDF FR: Fire Retardent . It has a pink color identification;
• MDF Exterior : MDF for exterior applications. It has a gray color identification;
• MDF Ecologique : MDF with no added formaldehyde. The plate remains light brown as the standard plate.
• MDF FQ: Floor Quality suitable for floors. This plate does not change color;
• MDF Colorcore: This is a coloring substance added to the raw material
That gives the plate a uniform color (gray, black, red, yellow, blue or green).
(black on stock, other colors (red, yellow, blue or green) to order.


http://www.moenshouthandel.be/static...=2997162&lng=0

Click on the picture. I think this cabinet was made in a as I cal it “ black MDF”. Maybe you give it a different name.?

I've ever seen a kitchen that was made in " red-colored “ MDF. It was very beautiful.

This weekend I discovered a major mistake .
While I was reading “the basic cutting tutorial “ from Doug Ford (which is certainly very
useful – thanks for it ), trying to set the machine coordinates to zero, I discovered that I have put the gantry in the wrong way.
Looking at drawing 10 00 000 I noticed that my motor was on the wrong side of the 0,0 corner. ( see picture ).
It struck me that I could not use the entire work surface.
The first 10 cm could not be used by the router .
How could this happen?
When I installed the cable chains I looked at drawing 10 60 100 "cable chain assemblies” to mount them . Apparently this was the rear view.

Today I disconnected all the cables back and turned the gantry.
Tomorrow I will change the “X-cable chain shelf “ to the other side and extend all the cables and connect them back .

Just to be sure:
Looking at drawing 10 10 300 - the ( 0,0 corner ) is the ( left - below corner ) if you look above the table . That is the “home position”.

I also discovered that my dust collection is not strong enough (0,5 hp) which is much too weak .
So for the moment I use my wife's vacuum cleaner.

And the “back mdf “ as I called it , is the same as what Hennie uses “ Valchromat “ .

Sorry that we did not see your problem from the photo on 17 March. :(

On drawing 10 60 100 A, it is simply views of the cable chain assemblies. (But you can see the offset direction of the table cross supports 10 10 302 D). See the thread Cable chain location & orientation

Gantry is turned, cables back connected and no errors .
Did some drawingtests with a pencil.

Mmmm ... firts time was better .

Time to set the "Y-axis square to the X-axis” .

Is it advisable to :

- first glue the spoilboard on the supportboard
- then surfacing the spoilboard
- and then set the Y-axis square to the X-axis .


Or can the squaring be done on the support board without first surfacing :confused:

Squaring can be done before surfacing, it should not make any difference. On my machine my support beams were quite far out from dead straight so I surfaced the support board first (making sure the bolts were sunk low enough), then glued on the spoilboard and surfaced it again. Doing it this way only took one pass to true up the spoilboard (but 4 passes on the support board).

The squaring XY is completely independent of the flat surfacing - it does not matter which one you do first.

Thanx

I've finally finished the job.
It cost me some time but it worked.

The HBM 200 - 2 hp - dust collector works perfectly for me , better than all my previous setups.

The s-error was 3,1 mm so the 0,9 mm extra shims did their job fine.
The alignment is now , as good as perfect.

Surfacing the board was a different story.
I could not adjust the routerspeed of the” Kinzo”.
Rotating a cutter of 18 mm at a speed of 30,000 rpm seemed me not so wise.
Luckily I found a speedcontroler of 600 w to perform this task.

The first time , I surfaced the board in the x-direction.
It took me about 2 hours time with the cutter of 18 mm .
The first 20 minutes went fine but then , there appeared grooves of unequal depth .

The second time , I surfaced the board in the y-direction.
I milled about 15minutes and then waited about 1 hours and so on .
The result is better but not perfect and not the way it should be .

So , I think my latest investment will be a new spindle.
My preference goes to the already discussed "chinese water-cooled spindls ".
Especially praised for their silence (my neighbors think I've made already enough noise).

I ‘m thinking of a 2,2 kw because it has a collet ER20 .
The 1,5 kw has only a collet ER11 .
But , I'm not sure which is the best choice the :1,5 kw or 2,2 kw.
What I want to make afterwards are cabinet doors and closets.

http://cgi.ebay.de/a-water-cooled-sp...4.c0.m14.l1262

http://cgi.ebay.de/a-water-cooled-sp...d=p3286.c0.m14

Pragtige werk - mooi gedaan!

Dit was echt onmogelijk geweest zonder al jullie hulp.
Dank U Gerald :)
and thanks to everyone .:)

Yep, as Gerald puts it, nicely done.
I’ll add; patience pays. One thing I know to well….:rolleyes:
Congrad Bart, a year in the making…now a happy man satisfied of his accomplishment…
Let’s all raise and make a toast with one of those nice begum bear :D
Robert ;)

Hey Robert,

You can be sure that I am a proud owner of a mechmate 36.
And each time I've finished a particular job, I always toasted with my favorite beer .:D

Bart,

Congratulations on completing your build and on Serial #36.:)

The Updated Builder's Log is here.

Please review the entry and let me know if you want any changes.

Hey John,

Thanxs , it's perfect for me .

Congratulations Bart! :)

Well done ..nog een piljse ?

Bart,

I have sent you a PM regarding the offer from Lasertek. However I cannot see the message in my "sent messages" box.

If you did not receive it please let me know.

Bart

Bart,
Congratulations. That big blue colour looks good in an any country! Don't forget to show us a lot of pictures of dust soon.

Sean

Bart,

Congratulations. Machine looks great. How about a close up of your dust foot.

This is like a dream that come true for me .
It was only possible through this forum and the dedication of all those people.
Thanks to everyone.

Here are some pics of my dustfoot.
I chose a fixed foot regardless of the z-axis.
Most of the ideas are from this forum that I have joined and adjusted a little bit.


As you can see I added an extra bracket, on which I've screwed a clamp .
The clamp must hold the tube of 100mm .
The idea of the clamp is based on “Wooden Handscrew Clamp “.
http://www.justclamps.com/Graphics/0...hand_clamp.jpg


It works great for me, until I will buy a new spindle.
Afterwards, I will make a new dustfoot based on the same principe but closed at the end .
The same model as yours, Nils.
Because , I noticed there was much dust at the end of table ( x – direction )during surfacing .

Bart,

I don't think you need the skirt.