I am going to rename Northern Industrial as Eastern Industrial. There are no stores out here in CA! Grr. I think I'm going to give the step drill bits a go and see how they do.

Looking at this one, since we apparently don't have better stores around here that have a reasonably priced set. That I've found so far, at least.

Irwin Unibit HSS

Why do you like the smooth taper better?

Because you use smooth pressure to push it in. The step ones are "jerky" and sometimes I went one step too far if I pushed too hard for too long. You have to push them harder at the steps.

I use smooth ones too, but could not find the image right away, its very easy to enlarge the hole once you drilled the initial one with a ordinary drill

Thanks for the feedback. Are there any issues with the hole wandering off-center with the tapered drills? I like that the step drill has, essentially, a center guide built in. I'm presuming the tapered bit does roughly the same thing, but don't want to make that assumption and get proven wrong.

So where are you guys getting beveled washers from? McMaster seems to have the best price, at almost .50ea. Is there a better source that I haven't found just yet?

How many of you guys are running both hard stops and proximity stops? I am, but I'm a little fuzzy on how that logic works. Is there some type of override that lets you ignore your proximity targets while squaring up the gantry against the hard stops? Gerald alludes to Mach3 being able to do this here: http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...&postcount=196
But I wanted to confirm that that is, indeed, the case. To square the gantry, you override the proximity switches, pull the gantry against the hard stops, then jog to a point inside the proximity switches range, remove the over-ride, and home to the proximity switch for your starting (0,0) point. Am I roughly understanding all of that correctly? At that point, you've squared the gantry via the hard stops, and have homed to 0,0 via the proximity switches, and can go about your merry way...?

And, to add to the complication today, discovered my stopper blocks are only 1.25" to the CL of the proximity sensor, instead of the 1.5 or so that I actually need to get to the CL of the target hole. I have a few worries about putting any kind of spacer/washers in there to get the correct off-set distance, for fear of it shifting over time as I pull it against the hard stops. Am I worrying too much about that, or should I go ahead and cut off the bent section and weld on a piece of square steel to give me the proper offset? Or just find some 1/4" flat stock, cut a spacer the proper size, drill some holes through it and call it good?

Locktite will save your soul. :D

Eric, the squaring against hard stops is done outside of Mach. Have motor drives switched off, hold gantry manually against stops, switch on drives.

You can just elongate your hole if you have enough material left over to still keep your rack mounted securely. Another option is to weld the hole close and re-drill.

Ended up taking the rail that didn't have the stops and putting it on a Bridgeport my friend let me play with for the day. Half an hour later, and I have oval holes that nicely eliminates my problems. Rails are down and in place. I'm seeing very, very little light between my architectural alum angle I'm using as reference and the tops of the rails. Not really seeing a good way of getting the rail perfectly straight except sighting down the length of it. Any suggestions on that? I've seen the fishing line suggestion, but I'm not sure it would actually get anything straighter than it already is by eye. But maybe it would. Also got my power supply soldered together (again, thanks to another great friend). And I broke down and spent the money for an industrial level power disconnect on the control panel. So I now have a 4-prong twist-to-lock recessed male plug on the control box, and a female cord end to go into it, much like computers have their plugs. I figure that's my best shot at not electrocuting myself, having a good connection, and being able to remove power from the box itself without having to take something apart.

Will be installing that this weekend, hope to have motors spinning some time this coming week. Its getting close!

http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...ht=wire+method

Use the wire method.

Finishing wiring up my control box, and in looking at Gerald's box, I noticed the fuse box attached to his power supply. I am scratching my head as to whether or not I still need those, running G203Vs. I know there is an internal fuse, should I go ahead and have an extra layer of protection, or am I just adding another potential failure point on each line? I have the box for 4 fuses, and have a spot I could put it in relatively easily, just curious as to whether or not its still needed, with the extra protection built into the G203s?
Thanks.

Nevermind, found it in the G201/202/203V comparison thread. No external fuse needed. Peachy.

Erick,

Fuses are not needed that is correct. But it is nice to have during setup and later for trouble shooting as you can pull any fuse like a switch to isolate a driver/ motor problem.

al

That's a good point, Al. Thanks for the suggestion. :-)

Well, making some good progress out here, finally. Got my control box almost completely wired up. Need to cut one more hole for the 2-wire cable gland, because I'm dumb and forgot to put it in when I drilled the other holes. Got a 4-prong twist-lock outlet installed on the side of the box, so I can unplug the control box AT the control box. Works great, stays positively connected, comes out easily. Going to put a 90 degree connector on it, like I have on the wall, though. So the cord hangs straight down instead of coming straight out.
Ran most of my wire and connected up my Y-car motor because I wanted to get some satisfaction of making something move. Ran it back and forth in test mode via the BOB, so we officially have movement, if not exactly computer-controlled movement just yet. :-P
I am having trouble running the 4-core wire through the cable gland I got (which has 4 holes). Any suggestions for slicking down the wire a little bit to get it to go through?

some pic of the cable gland & their arrangement would be great.

Wiring
 

So, I managed to fix my problem. After struggling and fighting it, I finally just grabbed some lubricant. A drop here, a drop there, and they slid nicely in.

Will post another pic in a little bit. But I'm happy with how the wires are organized at this point. Need to ziptie them down at the entry to the cable chain, but otherwise, in good shape there.

I'll also be making a cowling to go over the wires and protect them from getting bumped, dinged, etc. and keep dust from settling onto the cable glands. Those glands are really tight, so the chances of dust ingress are pretty much nonexistent, but protecting cables never hurt anyone.

http://www.amazon.com/Clearglide%C2%...ords=wire+lube

works great -

Hmm, will have to look at that next time. Really happy with how the cables are sitting at the moment, though I'm going to make a 1/8" thick platform to raise my cable tie points up level with the entry into the cable chain. Currently, they're a little low, and bump up and over the cable chain attachment point.
Also going to make a bent bracket at the top of the X-axis cable chain for the other end of the cable chain to attach to. I feel like the wires are a bit tight where they bend at the end of the cable chain and I'd like to relieve the strain a little. Anyone else run into that problem?

Aiming for #114 (can someone PLEASE finish up #113? I'm almost done!)

Working on fixing my proximity switches and hard stops. Have a bit of work to do on the Z-axis still (not installed at the moment, that's the next step I'm tackling) but otherwise, about ready to hook a computer up to it and start playing. But I want the hard stops installed first, even if I'm just jogging it back and forth in the middle of the table.

Well, #113 is done, I guess its time for me to get this thing going. Official first cut scheduled for this Sunday. :-)

Well, yesterday was frustrating... From Mach3, on the Diagnostics screen where it shows the pins of the Parallel Port cable, I'm only seeing 4 active pins (in green). How many should we be seeing? I've checked continuity through the parallel port cable, and all 25 leads were in good shape, low resistance. When I jog the x-axis, the motor makes one very faintly audible click, and nothing. I'm in the process of reinstalling Mach3 and redoing all my settings from the ground up, but if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Hi eric.
Don't know if you did already but check the connections on the. BOB. I found that I had the slave wrongly conected. Maybe it can help. I allso had n problem with a paralel cable before where all looked good but it just didn't want to conect so I chucked it and got a nother one problem solved.

Thanks Paul, I actually just got the problem figured out. I had a dyslexic moment, and had entered the Step/Dir pin numbers in reverse order when setting up Mach3. Walked back through my setup from the very beginning (make new notes along the way) and now I have the gantry and Y-car jogging all over the place very smoothly. G-code movement is still pretty rough and slow, but I'm sure that's just settings that need to be tuned.

Cool have fun

Excellent!!

Eric.
When you have your settings set and all is running smoothly, make sure that you write your settings down in a book or diary.

Nothing worse than having to go through it all again.
The hard drive went on my old machine and I lost my settings.

Great suggestion, Al, thank you! I will do so. It'll go in the front of my Mach3 folder.

Even better....make a copy of the XML file once it's configured.
I have had to restore my Profile more than 1x per year on the #28 machine.

Well, it has been a long, hard-fought battle. But yesterday, I cut this...

I'll post a video up in the next day or two, but its finally going!

Quick stats on the machine:
5'x9' cutting area.
8" Z-axis.
SuperPID control of router (PC 7518)

I think I may be the current 'winner' for longest buildtime... :-P

Very Good!!
How do you like the SuperPID?

Size
 

Having a 20 foot machine sounds great but why would you need it that large. All the material I see at the lumber yards is 4x8. Just want to know. I saw a guy on TV that makes jigsaw puzzle boats. He uses, I guess 4x8 marine ply and cuts out all the pieces.

Its only 5x9. :) Love the Super PID, except for one thing. Working on how to keep the router from starting up before i get a +5v control voltage to it. Kind of a weird little situation, but not a big deal. In general, though, it is fantastic.

Looking good Mr. Smiley.

If you are using Mach 3, I believe there is a "Charge Pump" function.
This has something to do with stopping the spindle from switching on accidentally.

I think the Charge Pump is active, but I'll check. Should the PMDX-126 be supplying any +5V before the charge pump is activated?

Charge Pump
 

I read the PMDX instructions. I think the name charge pump is misleading. I would think charge pump would supply positive voltage to a device and keep it at a ready state. It is just the opposite. It keeps the voltage at a low value so that the device is not able to run. I would think they would call it safety mode. The are probably the same group that told Obama to call the insurance package affordable.

So what do I need to do to get a Serial number?