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myOX : a 4' x 2' OX with potential

Discussion in 'CNC Mills/Routers' started by Serge E., Jun 19, 2014.

  1. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    Serge E. published a new build:

    Read more about this build...
     
  2. Mark Carew

    Mark Carew OpenBuilds Team
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    Great start write up, sounds like this is going to be a fun OX build to follow along with :thumbsup:
    Looking forward to seeing your build come to life @Serge E.
     
  3. Bmoz

    Bmoz New
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    I am interested to see how this size works out
     
  4. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    Me too ... It looks solid enough, but I can see the parallel 20x60 have a bit of gap towards the centre. Some flexing might come in play once router is mounted. It looks like the gap is allowing some twisting - Z-axis movement back and front, no router mounted. Precision work will be affected.

    I'm already thinking of different configurations for the X-axis beam. It will need different Y gantry plates. While making the two parallel V-slot act like one there would also be value to make the X-axis carriage wider as well to reduce 'twisting'.

    Although affecting the choice of routers, maybe placing it between the beam will allow for a firmer build ? The Z-axis assembly would then sit straddled between double 20x80. I'll have to play with SketchUp as a picture is worth 1000 words.

    First, let me get the base myOX running as I will need it to make new plates.
     
  5. Robert Hummel

    Robert Hummel Custom Builder
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    I drilled and tapped mine to join them in the middle with an M5 screw.
    It pulled things tight and squared up my Z assembly big time, all the wheels now sit in the groove nicely ;)
     
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  6. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    I was thinking about that approach as well. But wanting to get a bit more travel on Z-axis I am looking at ways to make it firmer as well. The Y gantry need to be taller for X-axis to clear taler work pieces and allow for more Z above the spoil board.

    The single M5 keeps cost way down. So definiteely a viable approach.

    Ideally, for working the molds I am thinking of doing I need minimum 6" height of work piece unless I can rotate the work piece without loosing alignement. Unless I work on 3" or so slices of the mold to later stack and glue into final mold.

    For now, I need to get back home and finish myOX in its current physical config ... rest will follow as needed and time/budget alows.
     
  7. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    I could not resist, I bought a MasterCraft 12A plunge digital router with display. It is similar to Dewalt's DWP611 and DW618 or similar... It was 50% off (!!!) at local Canadian Tire store, minus some 30$ of their coupon money. So I got it for about 70$ instead of 200$. Difficult to ignore the opportunity ...

    It might be a tad heavy. But, with its on board microprocessor, beginner me can simply key in tool type and size, material type being worked on and the router will adjust rotation speed on it's own while allowing for over riding the suggestion. It also has soft start. Good deal, eh?

    Picture will follow once I get back home ...

    The "Dremel" I have from my dad is actually a two speed MasterCraft unit with a flex shaft. It runs at either 20k or 30k rpm, even with flex shaft ... The resulting "tool" end is basically a thick pen format. This could be nice for working deep in work piece with little worry of interference due to router size.
     
  8. Rick 2.0

    Rick 2.0 OpenBuilds Team
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    $70 CAD is like... $65 in real money ;)

    Seriously, sounds like an excellent deal. Can you see any way of adapting down to 1/8" bits should the need arise?
     
  9. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    Depending on the day, yes. At times, although rarely, it's like 75$ real money. ;) Canadian Tire also has its own money (instead of points 1 or 2% of purchases at store and with their Visa card) ... It paid for the tapping set I needed for this project.

    It's 1/4" and 1/2" out of box, should be able to go down to 1/8" with proper adapter, as found on the bigger "dremel" I already have... I'll eventually find out. I was thinking of trying the flex adapter on the router to move the router out of way of work piece area. It would be nice to end up with basically just the "pen" toward the work piece. Time will tell.
     
  10. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    I'm back !

    It's summer and I should have plenty of time to get things back on track with myOX.

    I'll need to get a few t-nuts to make the work surface nice and solid, but other parts of the project can move ahead without them. Everything else is in, just needed to clear a few unexpected last minute projects: like a section of fence to take down, since the neighbour wanted a different style, and recycling pile of wood into a sweet pool shed to store all the floats and such.

    As I told the wife, wait until I get myOX going ... we'll get really nice carvings to decorate the sheds, yard, ... Buttered a bit by adding that most of the hard work will be done while I'm in the pool with her. ;) Can the emergency switch be remote enough, waterproof and with a video feed to keep an eye on myOX at work ?!? Maybe I should of made that new pool side shed a bit larger so myOX could also enjoy the pool... hmmmm , there might be enough wood left over to build an extension to the shed !
     
  11. raykholo

    raykholo New
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    I'm shooting for something like this, with some modifications: First off, I wanted a 2' x 4' spoiler board. Then it occurred to me that the material I'd be cutting tends to come in a 2' x 4' sheet as well and I might be wasting a bit much considering we lose several inches in each axis due to the size of the plates. Does anyone have a rough figure for that btw? So now I'm thinking about making a frame out of pine and the 2'x4' spoiler board would go inside that.
    I'm also going less overkill than the OX, using Nema 17 steppers and GT2 belt, so it's possible to think of it more as a large routy with custom plates.
     
  12. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    Don't forget 1500mm is actually nearly 5'.

    MyOX actually has a working area of (a bit) more than 2' x 4' ... depending mostly on the spindle/router used. The Y axis is infinity, instead of 2', if work piece slides through as it is worked on in 2' or so sections.

    Taking quick measurements off myOX there is about 3.5" from centre of Z-axis to either full X-axis position with nearly 5' plate to plate. That leaves at least 4' work area with a big spindle or router mounted and a bit of room to

    I'll know better once I mount the router/tool.

    Not certain I would go to NEMA17s all around, unless you find some strong ones.

    Don't cut corners on the tool, just the work piece ;)

     
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  13. GrayUK

    GrayUK Openbuilds Team Elder
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    Serge said. "Don't cut corners on the tool, just the work piece"

    I really like that!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

    Gray
     
  14. Seul Kee

    Seul Kee New
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    Could you tell me how heavy is your new router? And how would you mount it on Z axis?

    I also wanted to use a router but ended up buying a 1.5kW water-cooled spindle package from China (at about U$400) that comes with a VFD and a (heavy) mounting bracket, a water pump, etc.

    My (maybe premature) concern is whether the NEMA 23 motor would handle the combined weight of more than 5.5kg of the spindle and the mount along the Z axis.
     
  15. Rhinofart

    Rhinofart New
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    How has your experience been with Protodrake? I'm also in Canada, and am having a bit of a hard time sourcing some of the parts. In particular I'm not able to find:
    V-Slot 20x80mm (1500) (Could I bolt a pair of 20x40's together??)
    Acme Nut Block 8mm
    gShield v4 Shapeoko Bundle
    I have just about everything else on order between OpenBuilds, and Protodrake, locally at Canadian Tire, and I'm really looking forward to building this machine. It's going to help me in my custom PC Builds a lot.
     
  16. Rick 2.0

    Rick 2.0 OpenBuilds Team
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    Protodrake is indicating they have 20x80. If not try https://snbinc.ca/store/products.php?41&cPath=13

    At this moment, the Openbuilds store is showing 8mm nut blocks in stock which may or may not be the case when you see this.

    Inventables has the gShield V5 and the Uno with the grbl already loaded: https://www.inventables.com/categories/electrical/microcontrollers-and-accessories
    The difference between gShield V4 and V5 are described here: https://github.com/synthetos/grblShield/wiki/gShield-v5-Notes
     
  17. Rhinofart

    Rhinofart New
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    Hey Rick!
    Thanks for the additional info! And it's brought me to more possible add-ons to my Ox Build.
    https://www.inventables.com/technologies/quiet-cut-spindle#30416-01
    https://www.inventables.com/technologies/spindle-speed-controller
    http://blog.inventables.com/2014/06/shapeoko-upgrade-quite-cut-spindle-with.html

    This spindle should be a lot quieter than the Rigid Hand Router I was going to use, and making a mount for it will be a lot easier. I like the idea of the spindle speed controller. I'm a little confused about the power supply though. I ordered the 12V/30A Power Supply from OpenBuilds, so will that power the steppers for the XYZ, and then I would get the 48V powersupply as well to control just the spindle?

    Also, would this unit https://www.inventables.com/technologies/3-axis-dsp-based-digital-stepper-driver replace the gShield V5 & Arduino Uno?
    I'm sorry if these are obvious questions for you guys, but this is my 1st forray into this world, and I would most defenitely like to get it spot on the first time round.
     
  18. Rick 2.0

    Rick 2.0 OpenBuilds Team
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    Sorry @Rhinofart but I'm not the person to ask about electronics, especially spindles. I would suggest that if you go with both the Leadshine driver and the spindle that you consider a 36-48V power supply that will support both. But you'll need to get one of the electronics wizards on the forum to chime in to truly lead you in the right direction.
     
  19. raykholo

    raykholo New
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    I think that's my cue. :)
    Rhino, at almost $300, the board you link is overkill. I'd just use a ramps 1.4 + arduino mega. I just ordered a kit of those, 5 A4988 stepper drivers, and an LCD (in other words all the control electronics for a 3D printer) for $40 from China. That's for a printer though. For my upcoming Routy-OX build I was just going to rig up an Uno or older equivalent to 4 stepper drivers and replicate the grbl shield layout.

    My router is going to use Nema17's and GT2 belt, I understand that it's not as robust as what the OX is intended for, but my printer has been lugging around a pretty heavy 18" square MDF bed using Nema 17 and A4988. So you most certainly can drive this with RAMPS, I'm just going to try to rig it up with components I already have.
     
  20. Rhinofart

    Rhinofart New
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    Hey Ray.
    Thank you much for the additional information!! I'm a firm believer in overkill. ;0) When I was doing my reasearch on the board, I found that I could do some other programmable things with it. As such, I was thinking of possibly a circuit to go to a pump for some cooling of the tool bit if I'm working with a lot of metal or something like that.

    In the end, I'm going to make this an All in One unit. I have an older AM3+ motherboard with a parallel port, Quad Core, 8Gb RAM, and a 500Gb HD that I was going to stick in it. Going to do up a custom housing for the electronics underneath, and then just hook one of my extra monitors, keyboard, and mouse up to it. Then I'll have a complete design, and build machine.

    Do you have a "Build Log" of your printers and such? A 3d printer would be a spiffy addon to my newly growing tools collection.
     
  21. Rhinofart

    Rhinofart New
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    Thanks for the nudge in the right direction Rick!!
     
  22. raykholo

    raykholo New
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    Just for the record, RAMPS has plenty of expansion ports and you could hook a relay (with backwards diode) to one of them to drive your pump.

    The printer I have is a gMax which I sourced myself and put together from scratch. Link. The manual (downloads tab) is pretty thorough and I was able to derive a parts list from it and filled in a lot of the blanks with the help of Gordon, the creator.

    I'm working on a few things right now, namely a Cohesive 3D printer of my own that can print electronics inside of plastic, and more info can be found here. I have a lot of it designed in CAD and I would release those files after the anticipated Kickstarter campaign this fall.
     
  23. James McKeand

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    Take a look at this from the Resources: http://www.openbuilds.com/resources/v-slot-connector.40/
     
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  24. raykholo

    raykholo New
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    James, in a completely different context, that is awesome! Thanks for the link.
     
  25. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    The router, out of the box is about 4.2kg. This includes the standard router base which I will obviously remove. Stripped, I'm thinking about 3.5kg but mount to be added. Which brings me to figure a good solid mount. I find my Z-axis a bit loose, sideways with no way to tighten it. Top wheels seem to be the problem ...

    I've been busy with the wife's to do finishing the bar (ceramic counter top), modifying the deck, ... I've mentioned "if I had the myOX ..." enough that she's getting curious. ;)
     
  26. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    Protodrake was fine, but all the V-slot and such seem to go faster than it is produced. It took a while to get all the parts together.

    If you don't mind ordering from the States, try also Luthier (http://www.opensourceluthiersupply.com/), I had a fair bit come from them in addition to ProtoDrake and OpenBuilds. Had some stuff from China like the Arduino, the steppers and some bling. They came in at about the right time as well.

     
  27. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    This simple looks interesting. However, if I read correctly, the speed can't really be controlled with the Arduino/gShield setup because of the "need" for a relay to handle the higher voltage ... I'm not one to confirm either way (at this time).

    There will always be something to tweak, don't worry too much about getting it spot on the first time ...
     
  28. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    Sweet ! I was thinking of doing something similar, but this will be much easier ... once I get my Micro 3D Printer (hoping it does the small 'plastic' parts properly ... at 300$, during KickStarter, it could be a risky gamble). Like Sage, the author, says, it needs to be a tight fit anyways to do the work properly.

    I can see myself taking myOX apart more than a few times as it gets tweaked and used. There could be a baby myOX or two for Christmas ...
     
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  29. Rick 2.0

    Rick 2.0 OpenBuilds Team
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    Yeah, I have the same hopes... (I'm on the November list so I also hope I'll see it by Christmas.)
     
  30. Serge E.

    Serge E. Journeyman
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    Well, I think I finally caught up to the wife's ever growing to do list and, best of all, I recently received the CNC xPRO controller board (populated) and all of the remaining 'necessary' hardware bits to complet my myOX.

    After playing around with the Arduino with CNC shield (3.0) for a bit with no steppers stepping, I plugged in the xPRO, right out of the box, too eager to hear the sound of stepping steppers, and ... tada ... all is well even with just the 12V 33A power supply.

    This is getting just to easy ...

    I'm looking at a pile of wood my wife wanted me to throw out or burn and I see soon to be work of arts ! ;)
     
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