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Fozzy's Build OR 10 impossible things to do before breakfast

Discussion in 'Phlatprinter BUILD LOGS' started by FozzyTheBear, Aug 13, 2009.

  1. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Build Continued........

    Dr Frankenbear says...Lets enter the Lab and see what's on the Slab Mwwahhhhh Haaa Haaaa :twisted:

    OK as promised earlier.... Here's the progress photo for the Z-Carriage.. This is the bottom half with the linear bearings at the rear and the vertical Z-Rails and block. The tool carrier bolts onto that block. I haven't got the lead screw installed here, but you can see where it goes.

    I still need to shorten some of the bolts up, and drill and cut the 38mm hole for the motor in the bottom plate on the right. As you can see it more or less matches the sketchup picture I posted this morning. I've had it running up along the bottom Y rail and it's as smooth as silk.

    I'm going to be working on the top section tomorrow. It's much easier than this part. Then I have shorten the Z-rails, fit the lead screw and get the motor in place. make a tool carrier and vertical support posts... and figure out how the Y-Drive Nuts go in.
    [​IMG]

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  2. xtremeRCpilot

    xtremeRCpilot Member

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    What the .... Fozzy!! Did you machine that today? Looks awesome!!!Do you have a machine shop in your workshop!! Keep the pics coming!


    John
     
  3. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Hi John,
    To be honest there's not a lot of machining involved there..... I do have access to a lot of machine tools, yes..... But the only things I used to put this together are a pillar drill and hand tools, and yes I cut and assembled this today.

    If you look at this post: http://www.phlatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=106&t=1040#p9000 Then you'll see where I snagged most of the bits from, apart from the carriage frame and that only needed cutting and drilling accurately in the right places to put it together.

    The reason I'm posting it, is that it's not beyond anybody to do this. It's just that you have to work to closer tolerances when you're cutting and working with metals instead of wood otherwise it won't run freely. It took about five or six hours to put this together. I have tried other assembly over the last couple of days, and scrapped two ideas when they didn't work out.

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  4. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    Nice work Julian!
    Can't wait to see how it performs.
     
  5. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Thanks.... I'm not anticipating running it much faster, but it will get more of the torque into the head where we want it, instead of it being absorbed in the friction of the mechanism. Thus allowing me to cut thicker materials and use deeper passes on multi pass cuts.

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  6. xtremeRCpilot

    xtremeRCpilot Member

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    Great Job Julian, this is what separate the Men for the Boyz :) You my Friend are a true craftsman!!!Keep up the nice work!!

    John
     
  7. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    ROFL... :lol: Careful John, you'll have my head swelling up...

    It kind of comes from my previous existence working in film and TV... I was a sparks and camera technician, I used to strip and rebuild Movie Cameras. Some of those are more like watch making than engineering. I've converted a few of those for motion control and designed motion control rigs, so the movement in the phlatprinter I understand almost completely. I've also built a few passenger hauling miniature steam locomotives... I'll have to post a picture of one of those when I dig one out.

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  8. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Build Continued........

    Trust me to open my big mouth and put my foot straight in it !!! :lol:

    It's turned out not
    to be easier to do than the bottom part.... :roll: :oops: ...... Got it all together having thought that I'd measured things to the very last degree... Only to find that I must have miscalculated the top clearance and consequently the top of the carriage was about 1/8" too high. HUMPF!!

    So! I break it all down again and figure out that I need to rotate the bearings and support plate by 90 degrees, and re-drill for the z shaft mounting blocks. Only now they extend 1/4" too far towards the drive roller and I've got to get back in the engineering shop tomorrow and mill 1/4 off the depth of them. Ahh well! Such is life.

    So sorry guys... no more pictures today.

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  9. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Build Continued........

    Egor!! Fetch the chains!!! we need to tame this beast... MMwwwaahhh Haaa Haaa Haaaaaaaa!! :twisted:


    Well after a frustrating weekend where the Z-Gantry top half decided to yank on my chain and not fit below the table, I finally sorted it out by rotating the top bearing mount by 90 Degrees and milling 1/4" off the mounting stubs. Got the motor mounted and shortened up all the excessively long bolts and cap screws. The tool carrier and the Y drive nut frame still has to be added.

    Drilling the motor mount took a while, I only had a rubbish hole saw that really needs sharpening, but with a little bit of oil it finally got through the alloy.

    I now have 4" of useable Z-travel and in the machine it clears the tool to 26-3/4" of Y travel.
    [​IMG]
    The z-Gantry itself is now complete and I can move on to the Tool carrier, Leadscrew and Drive Nuts...... The Z here was originally designed for a 1/4" dia 26tpi thread.... Obviously not ideal for the application but slower Z speed than X or Y speed is quite normal on most machines.

    The above said, I'm now debating whether to fit the same 3/8" ACME Leadscrew that's going on the Y axis. The advantage would be that I could machine the end of that down to 1/4" to make it an easy couple with the motor shaft and fit thrust bearings top and bottom of it..... and the bonus would be higher feed rates. Still undecided whether to go for the 26tpi or the ACME Any advice on that guys??

    More pics later this week....

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  10. rjarois

    rjarois Moderator Staff Member

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    bear, the 26tpi is awful fine....if i recall even at 20tpi i was only getting 15ipm rapid on the z-axis. ultimately i ended up with a 3/8-8 four start acme on both the y and z axis. it has been tested to 400ipm rapids, but it has been backed down to 300ipm rapids all axis for reliability. if i were to do all over again i would consider using the same z-axis high pitch screw, with the addition of the y-axis belt drive. this would be the making of a sweet printer. well mine is sweet, but with a 1000ipm y-axis rapid, it would be sweeter...i have changed up my set-up 3 times...you have the opportunity to get it rite from the start. also if you plan on high pitch screws, the stock steppers are to whimpey. all my steppers are 260in.oz. rated. save some money and do it rite one time....also get all the other fellas input before making any decisions. also like we talked before, don't get your expectation to high with the linear rail y-axis...you will realize allot of flex in this area. mark and Trish did a great job in this area with rigidity in the MK-2. the old ghetto monkeys 2 cents, lols. randy.
     
  11. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Thanks Randy,
    I very much appreciate your advice.... There's nothing better for me than having someone who's already been there and done it tell me where the pitfalls and the plus points are.

    I'm kind of used to building big heavy camera rigs where the camera moves have to be absolutely repeatable with not only each axis locked to each other axis, but the whole lot locked to where they are when each frame of film is exposed. This was a long time ago now and to be honest the technology has moved on massively since then and the cost has dropped dramatically.

    So while I understand the principles and what can be achieved with very large pieces of machinery with very heavy stepper motors and big chunks of metal, it's very difficult for me to comprehend scaling it all down to the size of the Phlatprinter. That's one reason I think that Mark and Trish have produced the most spectacularly good piece of design work. The accuracy of their original parts is astounding.

    Thanks again for your help.... I can't express how useful it is! It really does make it easier to think through how to achieve things that are a bit outside the box.

    I think I will be going to ACME thread on the Z axis..... just working through how to get it working now.

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  12. rjarois

    rjarois Moderator Staff Member

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    bear, i have one other recommendation.. the fella at dumpster cnc makes a very good product, at a reasonable price. you may want to check out. also he is a very nice fella, answering questions about my acme screw drives. randy.
     
  13. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Thanks Randy,
    I'll be sure to check them out.... :cool:

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  14. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Build Continued......

    Just a couple of pictures today.... one of the carriage in place in the printer... Runs like silk, so I must have got the rails in parallel LOL :D Actually I know I got the rails in parallel because I put a Dial Test Indicator on them and the run out over the entire length is less than 1 thousandth of an inch. :D
    You only have to raise one end of the printer by the slightest amount (less than 1/32") and the carriage scoots from one side to the other.
    [​IMG]

    Second picture is of the alloy rail support blocks that Randy and Crash asked about last night. They're 1-1/4" square section blocks, with a grub screw top and bottom retaining the rails. Makes everything very rigid. They're bolted right through both outer walls of the case.
    [​IMG]

    That's All Folks!! ..........

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  15. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    Looks like it's just floating there. Fozzy, what's that tiny pin at both ends of the Z rail blocks?
     
  16. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Glad you asked.... The tiny pins at the top and bottom are stop pins... They stop the tool carrier from running right to the end of the thread. In my case, when I get the thrust bearings in place at the top and bottom of the leadscrew, they'll stop the tool carrier from impacting on the bearings if it over runs.

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  17. 3DMON

    3DMON Moderator Staff Member

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    Very slick looking!
     
  18. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Thanks! I'm on to some complex engineering tomorrow... should be fun, making anti backlash fittings and turning the ends on the leadscrews... Still waiting for the damned bearings to turn up though! :(

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  19. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    Fozzy, this is a work of art!
    I am so curious to see how this baby preforms. :)
    Good job
    Mark
     
  20. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Thanks Mark!
    I should have some more progress to show before the weekend.... By Friday night I'm hopeful that the Z connections and leadscrew will all be in place and I'll try and post some pictures and maybe some video of the Z stepper tests.

    I'm not really anticipating much higher speeds, in fact I'm not really aiming for them. The target is being able to cut thicker materials and the robustness of the design should allow that. It should allow more of the stepper torque to be transferred into the cutting bit. I know the stock steppers are not ideal, but I want to see what I can get them to do, before I think about upgrading them.

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  21. Jnida63

    Jnida63 Member

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    I used to say the same thing about not needing more speed, trust me, you will want more speed once you sit for an hour waiting to cut a complex plane :D .
    The good thing is the way you are modding it you should be able to get awesome speeds from the linear bearings and things you are putting in.
    Although it will never reach the MKII's speed it is nice to be able to cut a file at least 4X faster than a bone stock MKI.
     
  22. tvcasualty

    tvcasualty New Member

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    Fozzy, I agree, it's nice to have the speeds to transverse the cut tool from one cut to another, even if you don't use the speed on the actual cut.
     
  23. FozzyTheBear

    FozzyTheBear Member

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    Well!! Things seem to be going OK for once.... LOL :D I've just run the Z axis outside of the machine for the first time.... 75 inches per min. This on the stock 90 Oz steppers, running 3/8" X 12 ACME single start Leadscrew. 1/8th steps 19200 steps per... This is first run, before anything has run in and loosened up. I'll try and post pictures, and maybe some video over the weekend if I can.

    Next job is to sort out the Y Axis......

    Best Regards,
    Julian (Fozzy The Bear)
     
  24. kram242

    kram242 Administrator Staff Member

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    75 inches per min! on the stock steppers... :shock: Thats awesome Fozzy! Great job
    Mark
     
  25. kyyu

    kyyu Active Member

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    That is a pretty amazing speed. Fastest, I remember hearing of is like 45 ipm, with that setup. I would be very interested in how you did the thrust bearings. And the nut. And the coupler. Basically, everything. :)

    -Kwok
     

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