Thanks Greg. Looks like from your photo that there would not be any room for a spacer unless I used a different set of mounting holes in the car. I will trim my mount up like you did yours to clear the rollers.

When I cutt my y rails I had some problems. I tried using 5-1/2" cutting disks and they flexed on me during the cutting. The angle iron edge had waves. My x rails worked great but I used 4" cutting disks and they were alot stiffer although I had to change blades alot. So I remembered Rick a Superior bearing said the freight on the y rails would be alot less than the x rails so I ordered enough rail to do my y rails and my z slide.

If I build another I will spring for all hardened rail, I like it better. Here is how I did the z slide.

I hardened my pinions with a carburized oxyacetylene flame to a medium red and quenched in water soluble oil/water mix. It worked well, with this method there is no need to temper by reheating after the initial treatment, the water soluble oil/water mix cools slower than heavier oils like gear oil or ATF and are less likely to flare up. I wouldn't recomend doing this unless your sure you know what your doing, it is easy to melt part of a gear and make it unuseable if care is not taken on the heating process. However, if you do this method you will have to sand the inside of the gear to remove the deposit on the surface of the steel or the gear will not slide onto the motor shaft. Left pinion is hardened, right pinion untreated.

The other photo is the box that I will mount on the gantry and has my proximity relays. The proxy wires, e-stop, and pause/resume wires will run from locations on z-car and gantry to this box.
From this box a 7-core will go to the control box. 2 of the 7-core wires will bring my voltage to the box for the relay's and proxy's. One of the 7-core wires will be the GND wire going to the BOB The other 4 wires in the 7-core will e-stop, pause, resume, and relays. That will use all 7 wires.

I added a voltage out receptical for acessory's later (lights, lasers ect).

I will run the additional 2 estop wires that disconnect the power in an emergency in a seperate 3 core wire (couldn't get 2 core). This wire will not go through the small box that has the relays. Hope this all works okay:):)

Geeez, Ed,

I may be coming for a visit before you head my way. :)

Nice work.

Just for reference, my pinions are not hardened. It will be a nice test between Ed's machine and mine.

Hmmmm, I better keep a good log of run times, etc.

Ed, some guys put the eccentrics on the other side of the v-rollers.....that could give you more bracket clearance.

Oh I didn't think about that Gerald. I will take a closer look at trying that. I am thinking though I would still have to remove some of the material of the mount by reversing them just not as much as the way they are now. Thanks guys.

I would think that eccentrics on the other side would be a pain to adjust . . . . .

Motor tuning again
 

In Mach motor tuning, it has steps per box. If I am using the 7.1 gearbox should I leave that set at 2000 or change it to 14,200? Also on velocity and Accel what should be an aproximate setting before fine tuning??

I am not sure what exactly to listen for when tuning but with my laptop they all were very rough sounding and jump but with this new dell they sound very smooth to me at any setting so I want to make sure I am not running too fast and break something.

Ed,

Did you run the Mach3 PC test software on you computer to see if it is compatable?

yes with my new computer on the driver test it is basically a flat line with a very small occasional bump. Looks better than the one on the set up video computer has on the mach 3 tutorial.
The computer I have is probably overkill to run Mach 3
Duo core processor, 512mb ram, 160GB mem

It is running good just trying to make sure I am not over speeding anything and also checking on the steps per setting. The tutorial said for now leave it at 2000. So 2000 is for direct drive? 200 step motor and the computer divides that by 10 so that would be 2000. but with the gear box I didn't know if the 2000 needs to change to another number.

I'm at work right now Ed but I'll try to remember to look at what I have my machine set at.

In reference to the motor tuning, my wife rested her hand on the motors while I made the adjustments at the Gecko. She said she could feel whether it was rough or smooth. We didn't listen for anything. You'll need help for this because you can't reach your motors when you're inside the control box. That's why Gerald recommends doing the kitchen table setup.

Okay thanks Doug.

Shows how little I know, I guess I missed the thread on tuning the motors at the geckos but I do see the adjustment screw in the upper left corner. I will adjust those to where the motor feels the smoothest while they are turning.

If you could check to see what your set at on the mach 3 motor tuning that would be a big help also.

I did a little video of drawing the roadrunner. My ink pen kept flexing so the final picture was a little off but it was a good enough test to see that things are going to work. My pause, resume, and estop buttons work great. I haven't set up the limit switches in mach 3 yet (not exactly sure how yet) but the circut I built for the sensors is working correctly.
http://www.pueblopipesteel.com/ornamental3.html
if you go to this page and scroll down and click on the video. Sorry but it loads kinda slow. I need to figure out how to lower the video quality so the files are smaller.

Ed,

I think your link is bad.

not sure what is wrong it works when I click on it from this site.

try going to www.pueblopipesteel.com then to the last page

Doesn't work for me either Ed.

hmmmmm now I can't get it to work either, it is taking me to someone elses website with my web address???? I will have to call my web host tommorow and find out what happened. sorry

Ed,

I believe the Gecko instructions tell you how to tune the motors. I don't have them handy but I seem to recall that you set the RPMs to an extremely slow rate. Like 1/2 rev per minute or so when you are tuning them.

Your step rate must be calculated based on the size of the pinions you are using and your gear box ratio. Somewhere on this forum is a table that Gerald posted which will calculate the step rate after you have plugged in the appropriate values.

The acceleration rate I used was 25 for the X and Y axis and 10 for the Z axis. I don't remember now why they are different. You should play with this after you get it running. I had to lower mine when it locked up during rapid traverses of the X axis. Oh yeah, I remember why I slowed the accel on the Z axis and it was an experiment. I need to reset to 25 or faster. I think the Z and Y axis can be set much higher than 25.

Velocity was set at 1030.8 for each axis. It think this is the max rate I could get.

Good luck and holler if you need any more info.

I found the table. It's in the section about selecting the proper gear. Hopefully the link below will work.

http://www.mechmate.com/forums/attac...0&d=1207125382

Ed,

Did you pay your website bill? I am sure it is a server problem.

Thanks Doug, I will check that link out. I got the router mount installed and the holes that you use for the dust collector housing slide makes a perfect pen holder haha. Guess I need to watch more of the tutorials now.



Still don't know whats up with my website it was working earlier today they auto charge me on my cc so I know that is not it. Probably just a hickup on their server.

Ed, I know what is wrong with your website. Read the PM I sent you!!!!!!!!!!!!

My website will be down a few days, so I put it up at photobucket.
You can see it here now. Kindof a shot of the whole area at the start.
I have a little lead dress to do and mounting the router, and then should be done.

http://s148.photobucket.com/albums/s...rstdrawing.flv

WOW Greeeeat Road Runner

Hey Doug, I couldn't open the zip file on my computer but I found the page where Doug explains what I was asking, it is here

http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showthread.php?t=239

I am using inches for my native units in Mach 3 since that is the most common here.

I have 20/20 pinion so if I did the math correct, it would be:

1 revolution of the motor gearbox output shaft makes 3.1416" of travel .
or 1 x pi = 3.1416"
2000 pulses from computer will turn the motor one turn. Motor must turn 7.1times for one revolution of gearbox output shaft.
7.1 gearbox would make 14,200 pulses for one turn of the output shaft.

divide the pulses from computer by inch travel:

14200/3.1416= 4519.98

So if I did this correct using inches as my native units in mach 3
4519.98 pulses should give one inch of travel. So I will enter this number in the steps per box on the motor tuning page of mach 3.

ED,
Don't you have the 7.2 gearboxes, not 7.1? :confused:

I came up with 4583.6625 ....... just a ballpark.

OOps your right heath, i keep getting 7.1 stuck in my head for some reason, I will refigure that angain, probably is what JR has there

thanks for reminding me

Just rechecked and I am getting the same as JR, it would be 14,400 pulses per rev rather than 14,200.

The roadrunner drawing is larger and to scale now.

Much much better, this thing is awesome. haha. Can't wait to make some sawdust.

I had to reverse the x axis direction it was going the wrong direction but the other two axis were okay.

few pictures...

#1 geckos, fan, power supply
#2 air filter and fan set up
#3 poor man's XLR's
#4 first attempt to cutt wood......with a dull bit while waiting for new bits to arrive.

Bravo! Well done!

Ed,
Looking good. Congratulations. Keep the pics coming for the rest of us. :)

Very Nice Ed !!!

nice work. Congratulations. ...feels great the first time the bit throws a little dust your way!

Geralds going to have to start adding pages to the forum. Were getting close to double digits on complete machines.

Beautiful Ed. Congrats.

I don't want to offend any MM diehards but that red looks great .:D However, I will follow the rules and do mine in Ford blue. Way to go Ed:)

I also like the red. Looks great. Congratulation on completing.

Thanks guys couldn't have done it with out all the support and encouragement here from Gerald and you guys.

I have my website back up and posted a thanks to Gerald and everyone at the website next to the little short video.
Guess now I need to study software so I don't wreck my MechMate.

Ed, maybe I missed it, but, have you posted a link to your website ? Or maybe just post the address.

Paul