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Openbuilds 4x8 cnc

Discussion in 'CNC Mills/Routers' started by Sam Keller, Aug 14, 2020.

  1. chuck english

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    Sam,
    You said programing the controller was a learning experience. Can you elaborate a little on that? Im not a technology guru, to say the least!!!! Im an old man with a young mans wants.

    If you had access to CPU, would you still buy the stand alone controller or just the controller board to connect to computer. (My wife works on cpu's so I have access to them.). If you think stand alone, which would you go with now vs the one you used?

    I was thinking maybe a hybrid router/plasma.. Any comments on that? I watched a viedo on that and it would be really cool to do both on one machine.
     
  2. Sam Keller

    Sam Keller Well-Known
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    Chuck,
    The first cnc I had was a Bob's E3 cnc with an Audrino board and ran off a laptop. I had to flash a file on it that had all the settings pre-configured and it was ready to go. My new cnc i had to figure out how many microsteps and amps to set the drivers at and then on the controller, how many steps per revolution to get it to move to go 100mm when i told it to go 100mm. When i first tried it, it went like 400mm when I told it to go 100mm. The belt drives and the screw drives are different values. And then there are speed and acceleration settings also, at first I had them too high and my stepper motors would be jumpy or stall. I finally got it to run smooth and fast by lowering the acceleration.
    That said you will probably have to do the same type of configuring on a computer for the drivers and motors.
    I still like having a stand alone controller over a computer and separate board. I turn it on, home, plug in my usb stick and go. But either one will work well, I'm still a fan of the Audrino boards.
    I think a dual router and plasma machine is a good idea. I don't have a need for it but am thinking about putting a laser on mine.
     
    #32 Sam Keller, Aug 31, 2020
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2020
  3. chuck english

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    Hey Sam,
    Im about ready to make the plunge!! What controller do you think you would get now? Any other different things you would do?
     
  4. NickEng

    NickEng Well-Known
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    Hello all! I am new to the forum, but I have enjoyed reading all of the good info on the site. I am the son (and the one with the brains) of chuck in this thread. All joking aside, I will be helping him with this project and both of us are stupid especially about cnc routing or anything involved. However, we are pretty persistent!

    I will have many questions as well, but my first is about the designing software. I have just started using autodesk inventor. I have been using it to do some 3D printing. I assume that you can use this for cnc? If so, is it a simple process to convert the design to a compatible form for your controller? Do you convert it to g code in order to rout it? Thanks again for any help!
     
  5. Sam Keller

    Sam Keller Well-Known
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    I really like my controller except for the fact I can't have the 4th and 5th output as a slave to my extra x and z motors. Below isa couple good ones, the rattm stand alone has 4 axis and I'm pretty sure you can slave the4th axis and possible make that axis self squaring. The second one looks good if you want to use a computer instead of a stand alone but you should research them first
    Capture+_2020-09-10-10-53-19.png Capture+_2020-09-10-10-58-17.png
     
  6. Sam Keller

    Sam Keller Well-Known
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    You have to create a toolpath in the software and then save it to gcode, then open it in your controller. I use Autodesk fusion 360. Not sure about inventor, i have modeled in it before but haven't created a toolpath.

    There are some free programs on openbuild you can use it looks like and a few others if you search for them

    It's a learning process but lots of how to videos or there
     
  7. David Bourne

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    Great minds think alike!!!

    My build is slightly different, 15mm width steel reinforced PU belts run internal to the C-Beam with tension plates on either end of the C-Beam to allow full tension. T12 screws on the High Z axes as well.

    Still working on the X axis system, I am considering rack / pinion as well as belt, waiting to see which will be more cost effective, probably belt drive.

    Custom Gantry plates also use 8mm bolt wheel sets for extra rigidity (no danger of coming off the rails) and allow me to position the Z and the X C-Beams towards the back of the gantry. This gives extra space on the X axis and puts the Z gantry nearer the centre of the X 'High Z' gantries' so less twist should occur.

    Fortunately in the UK we have the option of longer than 1.5M c-beam so I can fit a 3M straight in for the Y axes if I want to but the joint method of two of 1.5M c-beams would still work well a long as alignment was given a lot of attention.

    1.jpg 2.jpg 3.jpg
     
  8. KramE

    KramE New
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    That is a very interesting build.
     
  9. chuck english

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    Hey Sam,
    Can you take a picture of the x axis motion actuator mounted. And any other pics you can. I've ordered parts, so now I'm getting nervous. You have a piece of vinyl siding, I guess its just a shield for electronics? What about the wiring going to the ceiling?
     
  10. Sam Keller

    Sam Keller Well-Known
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    gantry belt.png
    20200813_104327.jpg
    I drilled and tapped holes for the motor and the idler pulleys. I drilled out the center of the plate so the drive pulley would go thru and I used a hole saw to cut the motor pilot flange diameter. There is already a square depression in the plate so it just ground out the diameter to the same depth if that makes sense.

    I could have put another bar across the x gantry to run the wires but decided to hang them from a cable and pulleys. I have cable retractors between the loops to draw it back. It works ok, still have hangups once in a while.
     
  11. KramE

    KramE New
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    How did you decide the location to drill the idler pulley locations?
     
  12. Sam Keller

    Sam Keller Well-Known
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    Well i wanted them close enough to the motor pulley to work right, i couldn't go lower because they would hit the c channel and had to miss the pre drilled holes in the plate. So there wasn't much choice but it works very well
     
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  13. NickEng

    NickEng Well-Known
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    Sam,
    You said you used arduino in a previous cnc router. Would it work with the setup you just built? What about a raspberry pi? I don’t know much about them but I think they are similar to one another. Assuming you could use one of them, would you need the control board (like the one you suggested to chuck in earlier post) to go with them? I know these are stupid questions, but I’m a little lost when it comes to controlling this thing...
     
  14. Sam Keller

    Sam Keller Well-Known
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    Yes you could use either an arduino or raspberry pi board and your computer is your controller (there are several free programs out there to interface with the control board) so you would not need one like I posted.
     
  15. Ted Moyer

    Ted Moyer New
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    Thanks for the awesome dust boot recommendation! Price is also amazing! I purchased one by the same company and its coming tomorrow!! Most boots are $100+ ridiculous!
     
    Sam Keller likes this.
  16. KramE

    KramE New
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    What hardware did you used between your gantry plates on the x - axis?

    ?mm screw - plate - shim- wheel - shim - ?mm spacer - shim - wheel - shim - plate - locknut?

    Thank you so much for answering all of our questions!

    +Edit: Is this information in your step file?+
     
    #46 KramE, Sep 18, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2020
  17. NickEng

    NickEng Well-Known
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    Would a raspberry pi 3b+ be able to control the stepper motors through the gpio pins? I have read the raspberry pi will control stepper motors, but I am not sure they will handle the amperage draw of these motors? Would you need the raspberry pi and a controller board to handle the amps? Thanks!
     
  18. Sam Keller

    Sam Keller Well-Known
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    I'm not familiar with raspberry pi except for people talking about using it. The raspberry pi 3B+ doesn't look like a cnc controller. Here is a link that talks about it.
    Raspberry Pi Alamode CNC Controller
     
  19. Luc vallieres

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    I like it! Thank!
     
  20. theSalcedo

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    Typically the rpi would be used to push the gcode to the controller that drives the stepper drivers (using cncjs, for example) - so no, the rpi will not control the motors, but can act as a passthrough to get the gcode to the controller
     
    Sam Keller likes this.
  21. chuck english

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    ok Im really slow; so exactly what do you need to get from cpu (thats what Im planing on using for now), to run the nema 23 stepper motors.Or maybe I should be asking to run the entire machine. If its a controller board, which would you use for this setup .Sam told me to research and I did but still confused. Thanks
     
  22. Peter Van Der Walt

    Peter Van Der Walt OpenBuilds Team
    Staff Member Moderator Builder Resident Builder

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    Just get a BlackBox (aimed at beginners, easiest solution, more than powerful enough) see https://docs.openbuilds.com/blackbox
     
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  23. theSalcedo

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    I agree with Peter - the Blackbox will get you up and running in no time.
     
  24. Sam Keller

    Sam Keller Well-Known
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    Yes I agree, the black box is probably the best and easiest choice. I almost bought it but I was trying to buy a 5 axis with 2 slave drives which I did not get with my controller.
     
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  25. NickEng

    NickEng Well-Known
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    So if you get the black box, would you still need the dm556 drivers? It says it includes drivers?? Also, if you get the black box you would be limited to controlling 3 axis. If you ever wanted to upgrade to control more than 3? Thanks all!
     
  26. Rob Taylor

    Rob Taylor Master
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    BlackBox is essentially an Arduino Uno, 4 DM542s, a relay and a bit of terminal plug IO in a box. You shouldn't need anything else.

    If you want more axes in future, the best bet right now is either LinuxCNC (control runs on PC, needs parallel port and/or expensive BOBs) or grblHAL (runs on a 32bit ARM micro board, should be cheap, needs external drivers etc). But you could probably get some support with the latter from @phil from seattle. Seems to (I haven't looked into it too hard yet, I use LinuxCNC) take the best parts of LinuxCNC and simplifies them using grbl, which sounds ideal for a lot of projects.
     
  27. KramE

    KramE New
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    What length of screws did you use to secure the c-beam to the XL gantry plates?
     
  28. Sam Keller

    Sam Keller Well-Known
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    60mm screws and 9mm spacer (6mm+3mm) spacer in between the wheels.
    20200922_142514.jpg 20200922_142509.jpg
     
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  29. KramE

    KramE New
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    Excellent! Thanks for the pictures too!
     
  30. chuck english

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    Hey Sam,
    Got several questions for you. Bet you didnt know you were opening up this can of worms.
    Trying to put this together by pictures is tough on an old dumb man.
    1. In the pic I see a piece of aluminum angle under the plate running down x y axis. Not sure what its for.
    2. Did you just drill and screw through the aluminum plate you made into the c-beam? The one you used to mount motor.
    3. I was thinking of letting cbeam hang over table 3-4 inches. I built table 5x8. That would give me a little more length. I think the c-beam is plenty strong enough for that. Your opinion?
    Thanks for all your help
    Chuck
     

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