Some results of experimenting with soap stone. (Prelude to carving details in wood.)

[diggerop]

Heh. Morris and Robatoy each have a CNC bot. [ two! two! two! ...] Morris provided the link to his and suggested it might interest me Hence [ three! three! three! ...] : )

[Morris Dovey]

See Lew's post "O/T: How I Learned To Mind My Own Business"

Hey! No junk parts in /that/ machine (except maybe the HF router). I don't even dream of calling it a mill - it's just a router.

All of the slides (and the Acme-threaded lead screw followers) are cut from a 3" Delrin rod.

I can't honestly say anything about the accuracy because I don't have any equipment capable of measuring it. The step size is approximately

0.0002083" (probably much less than the runout on the HF router).

Yuppers - what you see on the screen is TurboCNC. It's easy to set up, reliable, and the support is good. The bad news is that it runs in an MS-DOS environment.

I think you can, but you end up making more of your own parts to get there. The interesting part of the design process for me was to work to minimize the number of 'critical' measurements needed for the complete machine to have maximum accuracy.

[ I found Lew's story:

I was walking past the mental hospital the other day, And all the patients were shouting, '13....13....13.'

The fence was too high to see over, but I saw a little gap in the planks, so I looked through to see what was going on.....

Some idiot poked me in the eye with a stick!

Then they all started shouting '14....14....14'... ]

[Robatoy]

Both. So far I have been lucky to get paid for the challenges I have wrestled to the ground.

lighthouse is experimental, trying to find out where the practical (not ultimate) limits on my machine are.

I use a combo of Vectric Aspire V2 and FlashCut.

[Greg G]

OK- then it's [four! four! four!...] (Don't mind the short bus parked over here.)

Or perhaps 3.5 would be more appropriate at this time. The controllers are still breadboarded and the firmware for the micros is still beta, but given the inspiration provided today...

Planned to do it back in the late 80s, but nasty things like lawyers and survival got in the way. Sure has gotten a lot simple to DIY one in the interim, however. There's a whole bunch of software I don't have to write available now.

Greg G.

[Robatoy]

General 40-996. (Mine doesn't wear that funny green hat. Some farking clown thought it would increase safety...as if...)

[Greg G]

Hey, I've been told to do that before, mister.

Well, at least that avoids the erratic LPT port timing issues under Windoze. I've got a copy here somewhere, along with some other stuff from years ago. Yeager I think. Never used any of them yet, so can't comment on use.

With machinery, the next version will be better than the last because you have machinery to make more accurate parts for the next version. I take it this becomes an obsession and one is never enough. ;-) My problem is not having a metal working lathe - only a wood lathe.

Funny! I missed it the first time around.

Thanks for the info.

Greg G.

[Greg G]

Thanks for the inut.

Greg G.

[Greg G]

Cripes - that is some serious machinery. I assumed you had DIY'd something together. My lowly Unisaw bowed in reverence to this behemoth and slunk away into the parts room.

48x96 - grumble... Has anyone told you that you suck yet? As for the hat, hope it's not fluorescent orange/yellow/anything. It just isn't a General if it ain't Green with red maple leaf.

The local dealer carried General as well, and I leaned that way on the saw, but the deal on the Delta was too good to pass up. One of the last to come from Tupelo, MS. Then to China, then back to TN. The blowback from the import must have been significant.

Thanks for sharing. The brochure was interesting reading; pseudo geek that I am.

Greg G.

[Steve Turner]

Heh. Heh heh. I think he gave up counting a long time ago. :-)

[Robatoy]

[Robatoy]

welll.*coughs* it's /really/ 50 x 100 but what's another 2.72 sq ft? (Handy for those 49x97 sheets of MDF and melamine though.)

[Greg G]

OK - you suck 2.72 sq ft more than you did. Happy now? ;-)

Greg G.

[Morris Dovey]

You're being improperly modest. Do you still have the photos of your backlit inlay work? Would you post a link, please?

[upscale]

Hey Robatoy, I was at a Games Show/Hobby Show yesterday at the international centre yesterday and one booth was flogging a CNC machine about 3'x6' in table size.

Parts and plans for the machine is supposed to cost something along the lines of $500. The one they had there was made out of mdf, but they apparently have plans to make housings and superstructure out of metal, if that's how one wants to go.

Considering your experience with these things, likely much more sophisticated that this one, would you say I'm headed down the right beginner's track if something like this is what I started off with?

[Greg G]

many relatively expensive parts such as the ACME drive shafts, zero backlash compensating drive nuts and mount, shaft couplers, guide rails, slide bushings, rail blocks and the basic structure (even if DIY of MDF). You also need an appropriate spindle motor, bits, and CNC software for driving the unit and another for generating the G-Code. (Simple designs can be coded by hand, however.)

Greg G.

[Morris Dovey]

a z-axis stepper and right below it is a 3-motor kit. How about a y-axis stepper?

What Greg said, and I've had good experiences with

have their 4-axis package with their 23-205-DS8 steppers and like it.

[Robatoy]

[Morris Dovey]

backlighting.

That lithophane looks pretty good, tho - and I think you snuck in a sawhorse drive-by. :)

[upscale]

Understood and knew all that. What I showed may have only covered

25%-50% needed parts list. What I really want to know is if the type of stuff I did link too were of sufficient quality to begin build what one would consider to be an above average CNC machine. Guess the question should have been do these parts qualify as a really decent starting point or should I be aiming higher?

[upscale]

Hey Morris, don't chew me out. I barely know what a 2-axis stepper does. I'm guessing a 4-axis model adds a few more directions to that equation.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

By the way Morris (and Robatory and anyone else who wants to take part), I'm going to be picking your brains while I build a list of what to buy. And then, you can tell me what to add or subtract. That's after some considerable discussion.