Scratch Build – Complete Puddidium235 - Feb 2023 Complete +Final pics

I know you guys are quietly waiting in anticipation of my failure, but this week went fairly smoothly.

-Except for the photography. This is a blurry shot of a 1" angle supporting the Y rail. I had to saw off that extra bit so the Z assembly would clear.

-This bracket is why there was clearance problems.

-I needed a spacer for the pulley stuff. I have a ton of polycarb still, but I thought I'd drop some color into the project.

-Ignore the carpet... This is the wacky setup I needed to drill out the rails for tapping.

-And here's why the carpet looks awful.

-This came out really nice. I decided to mill it out properly with a 2nd pass. I didn't even need to deburr.
Next up is the belt/pulley shenanigans, but I need the big parts to continue. Those are due in sometime this week. Thanks again, Bill.

 

Jesus that's clean! i wish i could do that to metal that thick!

 

Switching to something more expensive than $2 double-end bits seemed to have helped too.

 

Reminds me of Colin Furzes workshop on youtube, I'm amazed he's not set his on fire yet lol.

 

For a 36 year old carpet, it cleans up pretty well. We never changed this room because it's the 'workshop'.
Fire hazard stuff gets done outside. I've seen how fast carpet lights up, and the idea of it burning is terrifying.

 

Time again for everyone's favorite train wreck, and DAYUM did I mess up this time.
But first:

-I think I need a few more pulleys to take up the slack. For those just in; a these lengths, the options jump sizes wildly. I had to opt for a belt with 6 extra inches to take up.

-I made some more brackets from leftover bits of 3/4" angle. Pretty, aren't they?

-Then, Christmas!
-Then, almost immediately out of the packing I noticed something was off... Yep. I screwed up big time.

-I measured nearly everything when I got the motion parts... Nearly everything.
I got called away and never finished checking stuff. Did I mention dementia runs in my family?
I can fix this...probably. I just need to re-mill the hole on this one, and for the other two on the Y rails, I'll skip trimming the 80-20 rails and use the gap to fit a spacer.

This is the goof that troubles me the most. The previous part dimension goof could be traced back to reading the wrong line on a jpg artifact-y table written in Chinese...by an idiot. This one I'm not sure what happened. I think I'm a victim of a design revision.
The big problem is if the rails are out of spec, EVERYTHING is off. My expensive (probably) custom parts now need to be milled more.

-So at the end of the day, I was here. The height of the rails seems to be right. I need to re-make the motor mount angle bracket for the Z to fix the offset. All my sweet alignment tabs for the rails are useless. I may need to make some shims for assembly.

-Day two, and I think I can get the Y rails working. One thing is for certain; I need a bigger table to work on this thing.
Wish me luck.

 

OK, I thought I'd drop what little info I have for an update before I get 'caned, (gotta have a hurricane for each project, don't 'ya know.)

-Saw horse desk! The battle for table space in the work room is intense. I've claimed every available flat surface at this point.
-Anyway, I've gotten the mounts for the side rails re-milled and tapped. I now have all 3 axis rails sliding. Getting the screws to fit is the next bit to do. The heads were oversize and oblong, so I had to grind them down. They also hang out the back of the plates.

-The real 'fun' will be the ballscrews. Here you can see the mount and the plate it's supposed to bolt to. All the others need a 1.84mm spacer. This one needs a pocket in the plate...and I have no way to measure that.

 

I don't know anything about mills, but to me that looks pretty sturdy.

 

sure you do, get a dowel and a razor blade, subtract half the thickness of the blade

 

Thanks, guys!
It's getting pretty solid, but there will always be flex in the table. I'll need to level it on the surface I built for it... out of trash lumber.
@Osgeld -I have no idea what the dowel is for. I'm thinking I can remove the plate and have access to measure with just the bearing angles.
-I know none of this makes any sense to anyone. Bear with me.

 

I feel your pain. I spent ages redesigning some metalwork for Asteria II because the old stuff was very scruffy, finally got it ready and dropped a lot of money getting things bent for me (because I messed the first lot up doing it myself) only to find I'd made a major cock-up on dimensions and everything is off by 1.5mm. I can shim it but it defeats the point of redoing the work, especially as 2 parts are actually visible, rather than structural

 

There was a stock case I modeled for Bill that had two mis-positioned side panel screws. I only found it after the 3rd rig, and Bill said, "Yeah, I've been drilling those holes out a little wider."

 

OK, so that hurricane was a bust. We didn't even get a breeze out of it. I would have liked some rain...

-Pretty milled plates + screws sticking out + angle grinder. Sorry, Bill. This thing is starting to kill my back. I'm cutting corners as much as I can.

-Originally I was going to mill the undersized holes out, but I decided not to cut the 8020 rails to fit and add spacers instead. This has a raised spot on the underside that fits in the hole really tightly. I used this as a guide to make the new tap holes.

-New holes drilled out diagonally.

-They are a 'perfect' fit.*
(* not really. I'm taking advantage of the play in the bearing seats to get them aligned.)

-I bought this bad boy specifically for milling the rails. Here I'm trimming the horizontals to fit.

-So with those, I have the screws fitted, and the dual Y axis screws track properly. Do you like my pretty table base? It used to be someone's homemade waterbed frame.

-With the horizontal rails fit, I can work on the drive belt. I'll have some trouble with the final calibration because the pulleys are too tight on the shafts to adjust.
Edit: Also, Yes. I'm using the messed up router clamp as a spacer under the blue plastic. -I'm cheap.

 

So before you continue with Puddidium, you first have to finish Pullydium?

 

ARF! More puns!

 

This thing's looking Thicc
I love it!

With the lead screws belt driven together, how do you plan to align the gantry to get it perpendicular to the Y axis? Slots, loosening the pulley, a big hammer?
This is really the only thing that makes me shy away from a gantry style mill, I definitely prefer the fixed bed design it allows for.

 

Thanks! I actually tested the gantry with the motor yesterday. To align, I backed both sides into a matching acetal dowel and put the belt on.
I need some Loctite on the tensioner pulleys, but it worked fine. You are right, though. Getting it fine tuned by loosening the drive pulleys will be next to impossible. It took a rubber mallet to get them on the shafts.

 

Good work, excellent!

Making a CNC machine is an old dream for me too. Now you have added an inspiration to this thing.

 

Thanks!

-Def not very inspiring wood working, is it? This is a rough table I slapped together from scraps and a total lack of planning. I haven't added bracing or the casters here.

-I was stuck here for a while waiting for screws. I managed to test the gantry with the motors. Aside from the un-loctited tensioner pulleys working lose, It worked.

-The screws finally showed up yesterday afternoon, so I got to work putting the Z assembly together. I fixed the clearance problem with some plastic spacers.

-To fix the rail offset issue, I fit the old angle bracket to the top, and marked the position of the shaft using the square nut.

-Next I found the center of the nut edges with a double point protractor, and measured the chicken scratches with a micrometer.

-Then I slapped a new bit of angle in the mill. Here you can see the tiny notch I put in the corner for a zero reference point. I line up this pointy dremel bit on it and change to a mill bit. The red marker is because I'm blind as a bat.

-Cut the part, then flip the angle and repeat. Ghetto, but effective at my tolerance levels.

-So with that part, I have a full rig. I can track all 3 axes. All that's left is a ton of tweaks and missing screws...and loctite. -I keep forgetting that one. It's kinda important too.

 

just use super glue its the same stuff (lol, no seriously its not do not do that)