Congrats! Dust at last!!!
Before I had my dust collector in place, I have think trice before I cut anything...
The dust is worst with MDF, solid wood makes wood chips which are lesser hassle but hassle nevertheless.

Well done Miguel - persistence pays off.
Now on to make lots of different stuff out of lots of different things.
My guess is you are going to learn your new craft very well indeed.

Regards
Ross

That's great !! You get #94 !! Nice looking build. I was out for a few days. Glad to see you got the VFD issue fixed !!!

Thanks Mike!!. I am still waiting for the Hitachi VFD but the Chinese one will do until then..

Congrats Miguel! :)

Congratulations!! Very well done!

Good to see that the machine works, did you solve the problems you asked about? Crank up the F (feedrate) in that test file a bit, I see you use good accel and velocity but the Feedrate inside gcode is slow for mdf, it will ruin your nice bit pretty fast if you dont keep him cool

@Danilo: Yes, the settings you recommended helped A LOT!!. Thank you for that. I do have to play with the feedrate a lot more but the MDF is making a complete mess out of my shop so I have to get a dust collector. I was thinking of getting something like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/Shop-Fox-3hp...-/150748076767 What do you guys think?

Builder's Log Update
 

Miguel,

Congratulations on completing your MechMate and earning Serial #94.

Here is the Updated Builder's Log.

Please review your Builder's Log entry and let me know any changes you want to make.

Thanks John!!!!!!!! Feels good having a number.

I just ordered my dust collector. I will have it in a couple of days. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001R23ST0/

Nice price dust collector. :D
If you are serious with good engineering practice, you should have a cyclone at the intake of the dust collector.

Really nice table.
Good job!

Lots of construction going on
 

I have spent a good part of the last week doing a couple major things that I felt were necessary so I didn't have to go back and re-do them in the future. I have wired three different disconnect switches on the wall to handle the MM, Dust Connector and a new machine I am building (secret will be revealed soon, I think it's and awesome machine).

I also ran the 3" PVC pipe overhead from the dust collector to the machine so it would keep things out of the way. One of the things I did which I think it's also pretty cool is I added t 1.5" vacuum hose to the system to be able to vacuum small stuff or even if I want to run a job without the dust shoe I can use the hole. Credits go to Sufcnc (Ross) on this idea. I am waiting for a valve/door/whatever you want to call it to be able to turn off the suction on the 3" pipe when I want to use the smaller hose. OHH and I didn't use your standard vacuum hose (Home depot wanted $32 for a 10ft section), online prices from what I found where not much better (specially with shipping) so I use sump pump pipe 1.5". $9.98 for 24Ft. I figured even if its not the same quality it's 1/6 of the price and after all it's only a hose :)

I received the replacement VFD this week so I will be installing it by the weekend so everything can come together.

Nicely done!
I like the 2nd auxiliary host. Will surely come in handy when clearing the table after each cutting session.

Miquel,

I have that exact dust collector. I would suggest that you think about using 6" pipe to the dust collector to get the best dust collecting. If you use the 6" metal AC pipe, you also don't have to worry about static or running a ground wire through the PVC pipe.

Nils;

My dust collector came with four 3" intakes. How did you connect 6" pipe?

Take off the input manifold and use a reducer from the big circular opening. Or better, reconstruct the dust collector with a phil thein separator - which you can cut on your mechmate.

Miguel

Your machine can cut the adapter.
When you stop laughing at my drawing skills that is.

Attachment 13120

Regards
Ross

Ross;

Thank you!!!. I see the light now.. I will try to do those cuts as soon as my new spindle arrives :(... Don't ask... Another electrical accident, and this time the magic smoke didn't stay inside the spindle..

Miguel

Ohh man.... be careful with the electricity :) as it can hurt the spindle it may hurt you. Maybe you should hire some technician just to get you some basic electrical wiring course. It may be cheaper than the new spindle and VFD :)

@Danilo: I actually think the problem had to do with the settings on the VFD :(.. I screwed something up. The wiring was fine since I had it working with the Chinese VFD but once I switched it to the Hitachi X200 all hell broke lose. The VFD spinned for about 2-3 minutes before it started smoking so I am guessing it had to do with the settings..

My first true cut
 

My son was so happy that he got his name engraved with the machine that he is taking it to school tomorrow to show his class. The whole time the machine was cutting all he could say was "thas sooooo cool", and of course a smile from ear to ear..

The name may actually look a little screwed up but it's actually the font I selected. I wanted it to look different.

Handsome sign ... handsome boy. So cool!:cool:

Good job! (son & sign)
How about a 4" name tag medallion for him. :D

Great Job Dad!

Thanks guys!..

@Ken: Metal materials to be cut soon.. :D

I spent most of my day tunning and fixing things on the MM. Not the best of videos but you can see what the end of days results were :). I started the day not being able to cut a circle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWYZOXud72s

Hi Miguel

Expected nothing less from you, straight up the last supper in 3D :D
And I can see those circles you cut on the spoil board too.
You have shown such vigor in your Mechmate construction and remained unfazed by setbacks (I also see the router on the Z slide), it is a credit to you.

Post plenty of videos and photos of your projects as it helps to inspire others.

Regards
Ross

Motors are tuned
 

@Ross: Thank You for your kind words. I have to say that it's addictive working on the MM :), Hey, I figured what do I have to lose if the 3D carving didnt work, right? I didnt even have the right bit for it but I thought it came out pretty nice.

I just couldn't see myself waiting a week for my new spindle to arrive so I made a trip to the local hardware store and I bought myself a 1 1/2 HP DeWalt Mini-Router. And I can even change the speed. It's the closest thing to my spindle I could find (12,000-24,000 Adjustable RPMS). I made the mount that I am showing on the pictures as a temporary thing BUT ****WARNING*** I wouldn't recommend anybody making their mount like that as it flexes a little when the router goes at any decent speed/depth.

The material I use for the carving was just plain old 2x8 pine wood used for framing/etc. Not what you would want to use for a carving like that but thats all I had.

Great looking MM. I see that your x axis rack is painted but the teeth appear to be free of paint. I am just about to paint my rails and rack and want to leave the rack attached to the rail. I need to keep paint out of the teeth of the rack and my best guess of a way to do this would be to take spare rack and use it to mask the teeth by engaging the teeth of the installed rack with the teeth of a spare rack. The problem is I don't have a spare lenght of rack to use. How did you keep paint out of the teeth of your rack?

Jim; Thank you. I actually used painters tape to cover about 1/8" above the teeth and then over the teeth. After I painted everything with the air gun I removed the painters tape and I used one of those 1" foam brushes you can get at your local hardware store and painted the area under the tape. It looks perfect and I am the only one that know since you cant tell by looking at it.