Homemade vertical mill/drill CNC project

[matthewsx]

Assembly with new Y-Axis, already planning next upgrades

 

[matthewsx]

It cuts aluminum just fine....

 

[matthewsx]

Back together with some improvements like replaced the Y-axis screw with a straight one, fixed geometry for max table travel and stainless cover between the base and joints.



I have some cast stock to make workholding fixtures so I can ditch the cheap vise.

John

 

[matthewsx]

Well, this was today....

The Z axis wouldn't go up or down, the roll pin that holds the ring onto the ballscrew sheared so I figure it's as good a time as any to strip her down and redesign all the stuff that's been bugging me.







John

 

[matthewsx]

I re-arranged the ballscrew and head mounting, then mocked up a direct drive from underneath to test capacity. I'll definitely have to go to a NEMA 34 stepper motor but was planning on doing that anyway (I already have the drives). Also I ordered some epoxy so I can start building the mold for the epoxy/granite base I had planned originally.



John

 

[matthewsx]

Finished getting my garden in so I had some time to get back to the mill.

Built the Z axis mount for my new NEMA 23 425oz motor.





It works great so I put the mil back together, still waiting on epoxy so I can pour the base.



1ohn

 

[macioman]

How did you determine the appropriate center screw size for optimal bed size/weight/travel?

 

[matthewsx]

How did you determine the appropriate center screw size for optimal bed size/weight/travel?

Hi and welcome to the forum.

That's a great question but one I really don't have an answer for. When I bought the X-Y stage off ebay it had a little bitty thing for the Y-axis.

Homemade vertical mill/drill CNC project

I'm sure some of you have seen my posts in the general section about this project. https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/homemade-vertical-mill-drill.77611/page-3#post-664686 But now that I'm ready to start on the controls I figured it would fit better here (mods please let me know if...

www.hobby-machinist.com

I knew it probably wouldn't work but set it up anyway to make sure. I already had a 1605 ballscrew and some linear rail so that's what I went with. The new Y-axis was really just a SWAG on what I thought would work but there was a lot of trial and error in getting everything lined up right.

There are a bunch of guys on here who can probably give a more scientific answer, and there are books with calculations + manufacturers documentation to go on if you are designing from scratch. My project is really a design as you go exercise more than anything else.

Hope that helps, let us know what your goals are and maybe we can give specific advice.


Cheers,

John

 

[matthewsx]

I've been using this Teknomotor ER20 spindle on my project since starting out. It always got hot when running at lower RPM's and the way I had it mounted was pretty clumsy with a lot of hidden fasteners that made it difficult to put on and take off.



Several weeks back I was using it to enlarge a BXA toolholder and it overheated and stopped. This has happened before and I was able to let it cool down and use it again. Not this time....



I found this little Sherline upgrade spindle from GlockCNC. I bought a factory second with more runout than usual and some blemishes, I think I can live with it and if not I'll look into getting the taper ground. It's ISO 20.



I ordered one of these sewing machine servo motors from eBay, it should have enough power for my needs right now.



Counter-bored this block of aluminum I was already using so I can fasten from the front with locknuts.



Re-drilled this other piece so I could turn it 90 degrees.



Broke a cheap tap while getting the motor mounting situated, fortunately I had an easy workaround with drilling another spot and through bolting.



Decided to change to a metric fastener for attaching the two pieces of aluminum since I have a really nice 6mm bottoming tap.



Bolted up the spindle and motor mount.



Need to make some pulleys but I'm pretty happy with my day's work....



Thanks for looking.

John

 

[matthewsx]

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