I undertand Sergio - but as I said earlier the enclosure is fully sealed and bcos of the fan there is enough heat dissipation thru the enclosure surface - and as you can see the enclosure is pretty big. If there are problems I would have noticed already since I run the machine the whole day some times.

as far as the air filter idea goes - I will do it some day - but for now its working and I will leave it at that.

I know I need it bcos the servo drivers get pretty hot too while running a 3d relief file.

RGDS
IRfan

Hi Irfan,
I don't want to bore you but all the electronic equipment when not properly cooled will have a significant shorter life ( I have a good experience in electronics), I did not built the MM already so I don't know the value of the things you have in your cabinet and its sure that your cabinet will dissipate heat,but monitor and a PC have something between 500 to 700 watts sometimes more (if that's all you have in the cabinet), I'm afraid that this could be too much considering also that you are in a hot climat I suppose ..... anyway sorry if I disturbed you it was not my intention
RGDS
Sergio

Sergio - I am sorry if I offended you - but I will take your advise on this one - for sure !

will show it to ya soon :)

RGDS
IRfan

Irfan, I didn't feel any offence, it's just that I am the last who joined this forum and did not started yet anything so ... maybe I still feel me a bit insecure to give advice to someone like you that did that wonderfull job.:o
Anyway, this argument seems to me not fully developed but could be helpfull to many.
This two link are interessing and explain much better than I can. ( I was experienced with the problem but never thought that each 10° over 25° the MTBF will be cutted in half ! :eek: )

http://www.easydeltav.com/pd/WP_Heat_Airflow_Encl.pdf
http://www.hoffmanonline.com/stream_...169&pRID=16168

Sergio, we have discussed this subject in some other places before. We work in a very dusty environment with our electronics, so we have 2 choices:
- let the dust get into the electronics, or
- let the electronics stay clean, but be about 15 degrees warmer than ambient.

People say to use filters on the external fans, but then we forget to service those filters and we actually end with a fully sealed cabinet.

So we say a big cabinet, that is fully sealed from the beginning . . . . .

(I don't believe that figure of 10C = 0.5 MTBF. It is not my experience and I have never seen it mentioned anywhere else before)

Sorry Gerard but still I didn't read all the topic even if I searched for the argument. :o
about 10C = 0.5 MTBF, yes I think too it's a bit catastrophic even though it's not the only source I fondes and not the 1st time I hear about (the incriminated link is about some that sell cabinet for living if I'm not wrong ;) ).
My experience was with delicate electronics, (I worked for an international factory of broadcast TV electronics ), and most of the problems had a relation with hot temperaturesand not cooled rooms (the summer in Italy is a bit hot) , and even if I do not believe that from 25° to 35° there is such difference, with some other temperature differences and with some kind of electronics ( PC Hard Disks, processors etc ) the risk is high (this seemed to me the case).
ciao
P.S.
I'm sure 15° above ambient temperature it's not generally problem unless you live in an hot country where you can have 35-40° during the summer and maybe you go even above 15° more.....

problems at large
 

here is the video of my problems :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPHF909dGqg

well for a start I have to confess that I screwed up big time - in getting the length and width matching - say I took too many things for granted :( and here are the results

jagged cuts at large :(

now to get back to think on how to get things right - ANY HELP?

some more of mine :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3TmCBIba_U

Looks like mechanical "slop" - see the things mentioned in this thread:
Circles are not cut round - loose pinion gears

Ok sorted out that -

and the MM is working like a wonder now!

I still owe a review between my ball screw one and the Mechmate

I also ran into a new problem today

While cutting a lot of 1x1 squares ( using profile cutting) of 4 mm thk MDF, when the pieces jumped out they got sort of entangled witht the spindle and that causes the spider to twist and the pinin jumps the rack and we have the Z at a height more than the pre set zero -

I have read a section where suggestions are provided to beef up the spider - lkindly readers let me know if this is a known problem or needs some tweaking by me.

RGDS
IRfan

What would you prefer to break first, when you don't provide a strategy for controlling the trapped off-cuts? :confused::)

What you could do is to leave a tiny thin tab (bridge) at the end of the cut, or you can turn the whole piece into dust so that it doesn't fly out, or you can have a very strong vacuum table, or you can hold it down with a stick, etc., etc

Anyway, I wouldn't expect permanent damage to the MM.......how thick is your spider? (the cutter should snap before anything else does, but I don't know if you have super strong cutters . . . . )

Yes Exactly - I was expecting the cutters to snap - and it was a 2mm carbide one-

I did not leave any tabs bcos there were a couple of thousand's of those and i did not want to file them all near the tabs.

- there is no visible damage and the x and y hold their postion very well -

I think i should be more considerate while setting the feed rates - this was going strong at 150 IPM and I was testing things here.

the spider is like 5 mm thk I think - I will measure it out tomorrow

while comparing it to the ball screw one - IMHO - the spider probably needs a look thru for a further up revision - or its just me and mine who is having this problem due to my setup?

I donno - well I think I need some plan - to mitigate this in the future!

RGDS
Irfan

Newton's first law of CNC cutting: A 2mm cutter cannot cause damage to a 5mm spider. Something more complex must have happened. Where did your spider bend?

:D LOL newton's first law :)

Actually the MDF was hitting the spindle and not the cutter - it was mostly like a twist in the entire z assy,

also when my Z axis is plunged into any board it does not plunge in - instead it just bounces after touching the surface - this is very strange behaviour i saw more than once - i will chk for it today also.

RGDS
Irfan

G' the above was due to low torque on the Z motor - I have posted my Q in the trouble shooting section.

http://mechmate.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1769

HI some pics of how the machine looks now and though the problems - some work was done on the machine today - it held extremely well to the all X,Yand Z zero's.

Good stuff! The bucket reminded me that you have a spindle. . . . . Newton's second law of CNC says that the spider must bend before the shaft of the spindle. :)

Nice Irfan, I like the last photo. Would you share the DXF or EPS file for that. My wife has being nagging me to make a fold-up screen and something like that is just what the doctor ordered.

Irfan,

The panel you are cutting. It does not look like plywood. Is that solid wood that you buy that is already glued up in panel size? If not what is it?

Kobus its from the weblink you had given us earlier
http://www.craftsmanspace.com/
http://www.craftsmanspace.com/Patter...20ornament.zip

I have edited the file and its on the workshop comp - will get that to ya later - PM me your email id pls.

Nils - its the same ply wood as seen on the MM, its called veenered ply here (mostly pine) -look at the second pic and you will understand.

I was able to buy that years ago, here I think it's called solid core. It's like 5/8" solid pine glued together then a thin sheet of ply glued to each side to make it 3/4". It was very stable.

We call it blockboard or shutterboard, some call it shutterply.

tried 2.5d
 

Hi Folks - tried the 2.5d stuff and here is what we have

in the images you can see that due ti difference in the height setting of the two tools the part got screwed up - anyways it was my first and a try out -

tomorrow will try again - this time i will let the tool fall to zero - I want to have a auto tool zero setup - and have things wired up too - but I am just not confident on playing with mach.


I have a question though - if power is lost during the the cut - how to get back to the actual point where the cut was happenning?

is it documented anywhere? its time I read the mach manual much thoroughly.

thats it folks

RGDS
Irfan

Irfan,
I remember there was a discussion regarding this matter "if power is lost during the cut" but i can't remember where is it now , I think you need proximity switch to do that as per this post "Programmable Relay to Watch Dog the Limit/Home sequence"

Very Nice work Irfan :)... I really love to see great cuts by your Mechmate.. and Where are my grapes???

yup man thats in Q

nice cuts - u mus be joking - or just being cruel on me :D

btw while cutting I lost my laser cross hair lens :( and could not find it as I had already cleared the dust out!

RGDS
IRfan

Success
 

Finally - this took a total of 3 hrs!

and come out beautiful

RGDS
Irfan

Amazing!

Is that a porous MDF or a foam? What is overall size/depth? Did you run mainly x-direction and then step over a small y increment? Etc. Etc.! :D

Awesome work Irfan. masha-allah
Congratulations.

Congratulations Irfan, Nice work.
Thinking of changing router, did you find any noise difference between router and spindle ?

Beautiful!!!!!!

Thank you all for the nice words!

Sharma - a spindle is a big improvement over a router! the 2+hrs the spindle was running in the shop no one outside knew there was something goin on in the shop. Since I was very tired - I just went to sleep - :D during those 2 hrs.

btw- the MM did make a lot of rattling sound - funny that for rapid change of directions it makes sort of funny sounds.

G' that is MDF - the max depth was .47 inch and the cut started out in the center and moved to the periphery - used a 3mm ball nose for the final finish and a 8mm end mill for the rough material removal. the speed was set to 4000mm/min @ 1000 mm/s/s

RGDS
IRfan

Irfan,

Very nice job.

How about some more details. What size is the piece? What bits did you use?

I am looking for a lotus flower to cut in 2D. I have tried searching but I can't find anything that I like. Since it is a favorite for your country, do you have any thing that is nice. Side view.

Thanks

The size is 15x15 inch - the bits as mentioned in my previous post - the file was available for free download on the artcam forum.

lotus in 2d? nope -

Traceable images of lotus flowers

Gerald,

Thanks, they will work.

Nils' - do share what you do with the lotus - its interesting - never thought about it till now!

RGDS
IRfan

Problem posted here

http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showt...5703#post25703

Irfan,

I have a friend that would like me to cut a large relief lotus for the front of their house.

well - posting a SOS
 

I am not able to figure out what is the problem!

I looked and cleared out all grounding and noise issues, put new grubs on the motor pulleys - had earlier taken care of all the other gearbox grubs - flats - indents on the shafts - interchanged gecko's - interchanged motors

hmm now I think I will recheck all the bolts of the machine

if any of u have any ideas kindly let me know!

RGDS
IRfan

See Cutting out_of_round circles - loose V-rollers on Z-slide for a copy of this post and the solution.