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Subject: Re: RE : [Homebrew_PCBs] DIY Drilling station

From: Alan King <alan@...>
Date: 2005-05-31

mycroft2152 wrote:
> Hi Alan,
>
> How about a couple of extra pictures? Would help in building mine.
>
> 1. the mounting of the screw end opposite to the motor with bearings
>
> 2. Close up of the nuts on the screw shaft.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Myc


I'll stick these up in the same directory shortly.

http://home.nc.rr.com/alan69/CNC/

Ah already put them up. Used CNC2 so they're seperate.

Bearing is the bearing, tape made it a pretty tight press fit into the hole
drilled in electrical box. But the real anchor for that threaded rod is the
coupling and motor at the other end, this bearing is only to locate the end
properly.

X nut is a connector nut with groves cut to fit a cut up angle bracket. Note
that you could just turn the bracket up vertically so it would be flat under or
over the nut, and use a fender washer and clamp the nut like the other axis, may
be a little simpler. I actually just taped things together here temporarily,
and then used a grinding wheel on the machine itself to cut these parts.
Machine, make thyself. I think it is the only machine cut of any sort on here,
it should be eliminated and could easily be. Should be a totally drill and bolt
together kind of endeavor.

Y nut, the motor mount was located to put the shaft and nut just under the
frame. Fender washer around the nut for a soft mount and clamped with a strap,
nothing to it. Could be easily moved to center etc, but I can only deflect the
other side of the frame about 1/8th or 1/4 inch with noticable force, it simply
tends to be in line for drilling etc.

The rails are very strong, with a little more work and rearranging of things
this could be made into a monster system. It was plenty accurate for drilling
and light machining as it is, so I didn't go further.

I looked at the split system like the one Esteban posted. Can't remember
exactly what it was, but there was something I wanted to do with it that was
better with a full gantry type. But it will work fine like that, and setup
would be a little easier than free rails. Looks like printer rails in the pics,
I've got 30 or 40 printer guts laying around myself, never got to them the
drawer slides were a bit easier and accurate enough.

Ah, there is the drawback, your lower rails have to be twice as long as what
you want to cut with a sliding table. The distance it can travel is minus the
length of the table. Mine can do 1' x 1' while only being 18" square (for the
cutting area part, I have a bigger table with the motor mounted out of the way,
it could be closer). It'd take 30" or so to cut the same with a split table.
My machine is pretty small and portable too, thought about hanging it on the
wall. That was it, if you start making a larger table then 2x

Alan