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Day 11 and it runs....

Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:25 pm
by suntravel
Well after working with CNC for 30 years in my job, I started my first DIY CNC for hobby :)

11 days ago I got my Acorn kit and started to convert a Paulimot F207 (kind of PM25) into a CNC mill.

Used 4Nm Stepperonline closed loop steppers, a ThinkPad All-in-one PC and an old XP Laptop for programming the CL57T drivers.

X was already driven by one of the Steppers with an pulsegenerator and gassprings installed on Z, ballscrews on X an Y

For making the brackets i also used only the mill with work in progress and the lathe.

First I benchtested the Steppers, NPN home switches, output for MQL cooling and a swiss made toolsensor, after this I made the brackets for the steppers, installed them and now all axes are moving like supposed to with the weird benchtest setup. Will put this stuff tomorrow in the cabinet and hope to make the first CNC part on sunday.

For me with no education in electronics it is a success to came so far this fast. Very cool and userfriendly stuff you have made Centroid team and a bunch of information bundled in one place together with this forum, so every noob can build its own CNC :D

Next steps are ballscrew for Z (i suppose only the overpowerd gassprings are not good enough to get rid of backlash)

Servo for the spindle ( found one wich works with 0-10V speed and inputs for Dir and enable )

Stepper on the rotary table for the 4-axis

Getting deeper into fusion 360, on my job I use a CAM system from Traub.

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Kind regards

Uwe

Re: Day 11 and it runs....

Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2021 12:19 pm
by suntravel
Next update...

put everything on the board for the cabinet, and surprise, works as it is supposed to.

Changed the remaining driver to ALM NC to wire them in series.

Also tested a swiss made Tool Height Measurement Device with an NPN proximity sensor. After 20 runs got a precision under 0,005 mm, good enough for me and a bargain for 109€

First measurement was a bit off, because i forgot to clean the end mill from chips.

Tomorrow I will mount the NPN proximity switches for homing, put the board in the cabinet and make the first chips with CNC....

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Regards

Uwe

Re: Day 11 and it runs....

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2021 11:37 am
by suntravel
Today i put everything in the cabinet, installed NPN proximity switches for all axes, and tested homing and did a testrun....

After 10 times running the program the machine hits the endposition with under 0,005mm, no backlash dialed in the software.

Quite happy with this :)



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Regards

Uwe

Re: Day 11 and it runs....

Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2021 6:31 pm
by cnckeith
wow! great post nice to see and read, nice shop!

Re: Day 11 and it runs....

Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2021 2:37 pm
by suntravel
cnckeith wrote: Sun Oct 03, 2021 6:31 pm wow! great post nice to see and read, nice shop!
Thank you :)

My shop is only a small room in the basement of my house, I have everything to carry downstairs by hand. Thats the reason for a wobbly benchtopmill and not retrofitting an older professional machine like Haas.

When I decided to build an CNC, the first thing attached me to Centroid was that you are making machines for V8 tuning (was my life long ago but ported heads by hand with a grinder) and of course ist looks better to me than the stuff most people are putting together with Mach3 or Linux CNC, because i wanted something thats easy to build and runs stable. No surprise i got what I want with the Acorn stuff, easy to use and pretty straight forward to build if you read the documentations.

Today i tested the DXF import to mill logos in my blades. DXF with splines will not work, had to convert them to polygones and then its a breeze to generate g-codes.



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Kind regards

Uwe

Re: Day 11 and it runs....

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2021 3:37 pm
by suntravel
Made the first usable parts today, only with Intercon, took me 70mins from start to bolt the part on the mill. Like the way Intercon works if you get used to it. What I am missing is that besides the toolpath the path of the final part is visible. Toolpaths from Intercon are kind of old school but fast workflow to make easy parts not going to a CAM system first.

So far I am under 4000 bucks for this mill incl. bought it new, Centroid Pro, WMPG, 24" Touchscreen PC Hybrid servos and material to put it together.

Runs up to 8000mm/min ( about 236 inch/min ) with a precision of 0,02mm (0,0008 inch)

Speed is kind of useless until I spend an other 1000 bucks to make the spindle run over 6000min-1 with a servo.....



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so far I am happy with centroid and this build an consider it as a success for my small bassment shop :)

Regards

Uwe

Re: Day 11 and it runs....

Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2021 3:38 pm
by suntravel
suntravel wrote: Sat Oct 09, 2021 3:37 pm Made the first usable parts today, only with Intercon, took me 70mins from start to bolt the part on the mill. Like the way Intercon works if you get used to it. What I am missing is that besides the toolpath the path of the final part is visible. Toolpaths from Intercon are kind of old school but fast workflow to make easy parts not going to a CAM system first.

So far I am under 4000 bucks for this mill incl. bought it new, Centroid Pro, WMPG, 24" Touchscreen PC, Hybrid servos and material to put it together.

Runs up to 8000mm/min ( about 236 inch/min ) with a precision of under 0,02mm (0,0008 inch)

Speed is kind of useless until I spend an other 1000 bucks to make the spindle run over 6000min-1 with a servo.....



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so far I am happy with centroid and this build an consider it as a success for my small basement shop :)

Regards

Uwe

Re: Day 11 and it runs....

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2021 2:29 am
by cnckeith
Nice! thanks for posting the additional photos and video..great to see.

post a fresh report.zip so we can see your config settings.

Re: Day 11 and it runs....

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2021 6:28 pm
by suntravel
cnckeith wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 2:29 am Nice! thanks for posting the additional photos and video..great to see.

post a fresh report.zip so we can see your config settings.
Next week when the next step runs....

Working on a fast zero bucks way to get more spindle speed, simply attaching my Makita RT 0700 to the mill for engraving or using small endmills for aluminium :D

But even with the sucking 2250rpm i am quite pleased with the surface finish the small mill brings out after some scraping of the moving parts...

Besides the mostly smooth running Acorn makes a small stop at the apex of G2 /G3 wich leaves a tiny mark on the parts.

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Regards

Uwe

Re: Day 11 and it runs....

Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2021 6:39 pm
by cnckeith