More than half-way there. I think if I sell all the copper that is inside and not needed, I will get about 1/3 of what I paid for the complete machine.;)

Nice AQUA Screen for Mach3 with WADKIN LOGO :D

Attachment 12808

Were you able to resize the window to fit within the screen?

I changed the screen from INSIDE to OUTSIDE of the box and can now use the FULL screen size. In Mach3 under General Config, you can also make the screen bigger to fill the wide screen.

Ah Kobus - this is a small one - I have seen one Wadkin which has a 4x8 bed, and its extreme to see the whole 4x8 bed move in X and Y -

hope to see this working soon - our best to you!

Working bed is about 900 mm x 1300 mm

Finally the control panel is wired. I could not find a dealer to purchase a piece of Perspex or some other material to make the front panels during this holiday season. So for the interim it is painted 6mm plywood with 'stickers' made from plain white paper printed on the home computer and sealed with my wifes clear nail varnish.:o

Attachment 12829

Attachment 12830

Excellent work. We would have never known.:)

make a remote using that manual pulse generator!! its very easy to hook it up to mach3 using a couple of pins of your BB and taking 5V from USB or you can use a second parallel port.

Too much work and extras. Once my wirless trackball keyboard arrives it is done...no extras.

Decided that my 'homemade' stickers will not do on the Wadkin.
Bought some ROWMARK rotary engravable plastic .. http://www.rowmark.com/rotary/Rotary..._Materials.asp

But to engrave on this 1.5mm thick plastic I needed FLAT table and a vacuum table.

So I made a 650mm x 650mm vacuum box.
Attachment 12860
To get it to stay a flat as possible I made inside baffels.

Then I re-surfaced my table ... Yes Heath... I do it from time to time....Was it Heath ???:rolleyes:
And the new box with my new 52mm table top trim bit...WOW does this thing make a mess with all the MDF dust.

Attachment 12861

Here is the vacuum box with 4 ZONES... Pierre doing the quality inspection.

Attachment 12862

Wadkin control panel eventually finished.

Attachment 12863

Ah Kobus - is there no charge pump on your BoB -you still worry about the drives and PC getting power at the same time :D

and the surfacer router bit, where did you source it from??

Hey Kobus,
Yes it was I that taunted you about that spoilboard. :) Nice to see your bi-decade surfacing. :)

Ha ha, just need Hennie to come on his broom to clean up :D

Irfan, I bought it from Pro-Tech. My local supplier have them for R 420.00 incl.
Rather safe than sorry...get PC going then only power up drives for me.

Hi Kobus

We both experimented with vacuum today it seems.
I see your vacuum table is shop vacuum powered.
Most people have one of those around, even if it might be on "temporary loan" from the main residence :)

If that MDF dust is bothering you as a consolation I breathed through an offcut of it today to actually check just how porous it was (along with plywood and particle board).
Quite porous as it turns out and the technique I used gave very precise feedback on just how different they were.

Keep up the good work - I really enjoy all your projects.

Regrds
Ross

That is a good looking portable vacuum hold-down box. & a fierce looking QC inspector. :D

No Kobus you made the mess you clean it up! I have my fair share of cleaning up,Jack is only starting on Thursday.Heath this is going to be a good year there is proof that Kobus resurfaced his table.:)

It's moving... and underneath the plywood table I found a VERY VERY nice Vacuum table..
Attachment 12883

:D Kobus - you just post a picture and tell its moving - not fair!

haven't you heard?
it's moving pictures :D but manual... you have to move left-right to see it

I would also like to see a video of it doing some moves or better... routing
are those some dust covers around the ballscrew?

What a bonus that vacum table , so you just put the mdf on it and go ?

Kobus, how many cutter marks on that alu vacuum table already? :)

Ha ha funny guy's. It is not 100% complete...waiting for the spindle and Z- axis motor mounting plate. I am so exited that the X and Y is moving that I had to show something.
Will make video when I go out again to work on it. (machine is not at my place, but in Uncle Ray's workshop in Orange Farms.
Danilo, yes some sort of concertina dust covers around the ballscrews.
Yes Normand, if you add a vacuum pump that is what can happen.
Amazing as it seems, but I could not see one single cutter mark on the table Gerald. I suppose they ALWAYS used it with a spoilboard of some sort.

Behind our old Woodstock factory was a company with a big CNC and alu vac table. Twice they "oopsed" and had the massive table fixed at over R20 000 per time. Then they put a sacrificial board over it.

It look like its a 2 zone vacuum table like mine. Is ther a vacuum intake on both side of the table?

Hi Mike,
Don't know much about vacuum tables, but this looks like 4 zones to me.
There are only 2 vacuum pipes feeding these 4 zones. Will have to take a closer look.

Attachment 12890

I have another problem :

Has anybody used a YASKAWA VFD Type V1000 (CIMR - VCBA 0010BAA) drive.
Wow I thought my old OMRON was difficult to set up, but this thing.
If there are anybody that could look at this thing's setup and give me a hand I will appreciate it.
Thank's

In between cutting small stuff, re-furbishing the Wadkin there is still time for father and eldest son to 'BOND'
Our latest project nearing completion.....1978 Yamaha XT-500

Attachment 13041

Hi Kobus
That’s a lekke bike, the old thumper, we used them in the SA military to patrol the Namibia/ Angola border, we had a quick release bracket on the handle bar to mount the R4 assault rifle and used the decompression lever to “pull” the trigger. Good memories, wish your son many miles of smiles

I know this is not a MechMate, but building my MechMate gave me the knowledge to get this machine moving again.

After MANY interruptions like work, work, work, distance to machine (97km one way every timeI want to work on her) and a recent trip to Sweden I finally finished her this afternoon.

Done some 2d and 3d cutting without a problem...SOLID as a ROCK.

http://youtu.be/b4yfYRnBVYM

This machine is well made...I am amazed by the quality of the rails and the ballscrews....she runs like a dream.

Nicely done!