Anil I don't think you need to do any to the overhanging rails. My next machine will overhang about 4" with no support. J.R.

I agree with J.R. - those overhanging rails are really not a problem.

Gerald it's too late for me to do that now when all my friends hear from me what a nice guy you are. But speaking seriously grinder could become a very dangerous tool when you are thinking at something else during the cutting process.

OK, then I'll go ahead and round and deburr the sharp corners/edges pf the rails and let them overhung.

Sorry, I didn't know. Will be tracking your progress. Very eager to see the machine working.
all the best again.
Pady

Z-slide done
 

Doing z-axis worked out to be most time consuming for me, most time gone towards beveling z-slide plate. Then there was a wild spider so it has to go under the cutter :)
Attachment 7488
Attachment 7489
And the z-axis test assembled, I am sure everyone is going to shout at me for another mistake ? Rack holes on wrong side of plate. Anyway after drilling another 2 holes for rack I will put dummy screws on these and the screw pattern will look symmetrical :D
OR can i simply use tape ??
Attachment 7490
And it started looking familiar
Attachment 7491
And nobody is going to comment on my ugly weld or I'll stop posting pics :o

Almost there
 

Hey your almost there! soon you will be making chips fly and dont worry you always have to break a few eggs to bake a cake. It looking good.

Thanks Castone, The major part now (the part left is always major one) is finishing it all. All the deburring/cleaning/grinding/painting is a time consuming and never ending part :(

Hey Anil,

you have made nice progress with your build!

Don`t bother about bad welds, but never post anything with Led Lights...:D

Greetings
Claus

Claus, Thanks for the warning about lights :)

Belt drive plates joined today, ready for assembling after painting. Looks crude and not pretty as CNCed Alu. plates but I prefer weld over bolts somehow !
Attachment 7532

Quick and sloppy paint job :)
Attachment 7599

Attachment 7600

Attachment 7601

Attachment 7602

Attachment 7603

Attachment 7604

Attachment 7605

Mechmate is all over the place, Anil. Can see how u r enjoying the progress. All the best.
Pady

Pady, Much fun still remains as it gets assembled and the electrical / electronics part done, so hurry up and pack up if you don't want to miss all that fun :)

Getting closer :)
 

Aligning the banana snake rails is no easy task, some pics taken during the process.
Using a thread, first fixed the point that were correct and then pushed or pulled the rails where miss aligned.
Pushing the at one point using clamp was simple
Attachment 7681

Pulling the other way required more clamps :)
Attachment 7677
Attachment 7678
Attachment 7679
Attachment 7680

Then draw filed the points as needed and finally straightened and smooth using V block and sand paper.
Attachment 7682

Checking and it passes :p (my criteria being not so stringent as others here)
Attachment 7675

All Gantry wheels seems to sit without gap over the travel except 0,0 corner :( because rails is sharply bent and clamps doesn't seems to work on correcting such sharp bend.
Attachment 7683
Attachment 7684

And Gantry riding on rails...
Attachment 7685

Now moving on to Y rails, hunting for holes in clamp strip..
Attachment 7676

Its late today so final alignment of y-rails be done tomorrow, just a pic of y-car riding the (yet to be aligned) rails.
Attachment 7686

Partially assembled the belt reduction plates, pulleys on all of them are smooth, that's a great relief :)
Attachment 7674

By the way, had to undo and assembled these twice as I forgot to insert the belts first time. Anyone doing belt drives, don't repeat my mistake

Anil

You did a great job so far. Looking goood:)

Thanks Claus, I wish my build was as good as yours but as you can see I don't have patience like you :)

Look, I painted without even welding stop blocks, proxy, chain mounts etc, and I am sure I must be missing many more such things... :o

Look, I painted without even welding stop blocks, proxy, chain mounts etc, and I am sure I must be missing many more such things...

What seems to rush you... :confused:
Make sure you at least have stoppers ( Stop blocks ) :eek:

I also did not paint the last 10 inches of the rails to have my stop blocks welded at last. I wanted to get most travel so I waited with them until to the very last, to check most travel.

I don't mean to eliminate the stop blocks or proxies, Its just that I thought "the welding work is done so lets paint it :)".

Control box for sensors/buttons
 

My solution for connecting the sensors and buttons to BOB is to feed all the inputs to a control box riding on gantry (as discussed in past on this forum). Already drawn schematic in Eagle and doing the PCB, here is the rendering of the board (checking the size that can fit all those connectors :) )
Top edge there are 8 connectors for sensors, left edge is the power connector, right side the LEDs and bottom edge the connectors for buttons, probes and output to BoB)

Circuit diagram is also attached for someone to have a look at, I tried to keep it as simple as possible :)
Attachment 7740
Attachment 7739

Please (everyone :)) suggest if something is missing or not correct :

1. Take inputs from 8 NPN proximity sensors and combine them in one output to BOB. Four of them can be Home and other 4 Limit sensors. As all the inputs are ANDed, as many as required can be used and all other inputs can be left unconnected.

2. Eight LEDs to show the status of which one triggered the output. LED will be latched till reset.

3. Take Inputs from all three button stations and combine them in output to BOB. On each station there are 3 buttons a) Estop, b) Pause/Resume, c) Z-zero (we only need one button for Pause and Resume, though the controller will send output to 2 seperate line to BOB depending on the current state). All buttons are NO type

4. Take input from Touch plate (Active low) and Touch prob (Active high) and combine them together. ( As I haven't yet worked with Mach3, I am not sure of this combined probe/plate output can be further combined to the output from proxies or it need to be seperate output to Bob, please suggest ?). Anyway this is not going to affect H/W and can be changed in code anytime.

hmm need only three proximities to act as limit and home switches, on my machine I use only 3.

there is only one signal required for the Z tool zero probe,

Ok, I'll reduce the number of proxy inputs to 4.

Also while browsing thread on this topic I found the answer to my other question "Z-zero can be combined to other inputs ..."

So now there will be 2 inputs one N/O and one N/C from Probe/touch plate and there will be no separate output ( these will be combined in series with the output that is used for proxies).

Also noticed that there need to be an option for a seperating one of the output from X proxy for auto squaring, so there will be a jumper for this selection.

So now a smaller chip can be used. I'll draw a new schematic today. Thanks

I am Hari pradeep from kerala India.Can you give me prices for Hong Kong motors and drives if you are importing for me

Updated as :
- Number of proxies reduced to four.
- Jumper added for routing one proxy output to separate pin for auto squaring.
- Probe output combined with other proxy outputs.
- E stop is directly routed to BoB input, other buttons goes via controller.
- Smaller chip and smaller board.
Here is placement view, next to route the PCB and program uC.

Attachment 7750

Suggestions are welcome as I usually rush and miss things :)

Already got one suggestion to take thermistor input from spindle for early warning for high temperature before VFD shuts it down due to overheating, thus the work can be paused and resumed later. So saved one pin on controller for that, now searching for thermistor specs ?? (don't have spindle yet). I guess its some kind of NTC !!

Got some missing electronic parts for drives and fixed heat sinks. All of them tested good with motor attached. As small parts of kitchen table project sort of went well. :). I made 6 of them just in case i blow up one or two dring testing but it all went well.
Attachment 7775

looking forward to see them zip zap and zoom the mechmate

Anil, respect. You are a real electronics Guru.:)

Claus, making few circuits don't make you guru :)

Moving on to MM, the pic shows the way I managed to get rails seated on those twisted gantry tubes, as shims were not working I laid some welds on top of tubes across the length and using tightened wire, level and a flat slab grind off the high points.
Attachment 7829

Just to add, the rails were removed and then the welds were laid on top of tubes.

Few items from recent shopping :)
Attachment 7830

Attachment 7831

Attachment 7832

Attachment 7833

Attachment 7834

Attachment 7835