Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

Bit of an update here.... I started out with the concept for this thing in Fall 2015, was building it by February 2016, and I had the first prototype working and making 5 axis parts by July 2016. Now it's August 2017. I started building a version 2 prototype (V2) at the beginning of July 2017, based...

What he said. More photos and videos of the beast in operation please, but what you've shown us so far is a thing of beauty. How are the plastic guides holding out so far, considering smooth motion in the 'allowed' degree of freedom vs stiffness in the others? Rather than the strain wave harmonic d...

I'm looking at a few different geometries for the enclosure, some of them are flexible. Most of the printer volume will be surrounded by fiberglass like a fabric cage. The versions of the enclosure that have the hotend in hot air will probably be water-cooled, although I don't plan on printing much ...

Bringing this back from the dead because I've been working on it recently. I had a computer death in August 2015 and I lost all of my files and CAD for the printer. I remade them of course, but the data loss combined with moving and being busy with other stuff kept me from working on the printer for...

Thanks for the support everyone! This is the azteeg x3 pro wired with 8 steppers. They're all drawing 2.25 amps. I need to get a fan on this thing! And an enclosure. azteeg x3 pro wired up.jpg On the first or second page of this thread I talked briefly about a repeatable limit switch for this machin...

Another update on this thing. I haven't gotten that much done in the last few weeks on it. It can turn, thread, and mill parts in an ER40 collet or a 5 inch 3 jaw chuck. The spindle is eccentric by about 0.00015" or 3-4 microns because I used cheap non-precision bearings, but that's actually be...

I considered doing the mach3/linux cnc thing but I wanted to end up with something a little more future-proof. All of the parallel port stuff is going extinct, and it's kind of a pain to have to have a computer wired up to the machine all of the time just to run it. Right now I'm maxing out the numb...

overview1 june 24.jpg Just a tease for now, I have to finish a few technical papers before I can show the rest of the machine. I ended up going with an Azteeg X3 Pro board for now to control it, I want to use the high end smoothieboard in the future whenever it comes out. It's running repetier host...

Small update, bigger one coming next week. This is the new main spindle pulley design. It's threaded to fit on the back of the spindle, and it has 6 0.25" round key slots to keep it in place and transmit torque. The round keys can be adjusted and preloaded in place with set screws at an angle t...

It bugs me that they don't give good specifications for RC parts, I know they overrate all of the numbers a bit too. The VFD and AC motor I linked to are supposed to be constant torque across the RPM range, which means that the power would be linear with the RPM. The ESC's used on RC helicopters typ...

A lot of it is size, weight, power density, and price. The Turnigy SK3 motor I linked to in the last post is about the size of a soda can and weighs a kilogram, it claims to be able to output about 3 horsepower (2.3 kW). It costs 70 dollars, a suitable speed controller costs 30 dollars and a power s...

Right now there are 4 main assemblies on the machine; Headstock, Tailstock, Turret, and Milling Column. The turret can be switched out for a tooling block (gang tools) for small parts. The milling column moves in both the X and Y axis, and has a dual worm drive swiveling head that is the spindle fro...

I think most of the motors that come with sensors have the magnets on the shaft and the hall circuit board on the stationary part of the motor. I've been researching a lot on this subject and I came across an open source BLDC motor controller than works with or without sensors, it looks like the bes...

I have a Taig CNC mill running off of a smoothieboard with steppers, and a 4 axis rotary table on it. Small machines like these work great with steppers; I'd actually rather have steppers than servos to avoid brush wear and or burnouts. The rigidity of this PocketNC machine isn't that great because ...

I was planning on keeping the RPM to a max of 4,000 RPM. A motor with ~168 KV like what I linked to would get up to over 6,000 RPM on a 36V battery, and then I'll reduce that RPM with a belt and pulley. I can change the pulley size to change the speed reduction, so I have quite a bit of range to wor...

Mo' double posts, mo' pictures. spindle comparison scale.jpg spindle comparison 1.jpg spindle front comparison scale.jpg spindel backend closeup 1.jpg The main spindle is a 4x5 inch aluminum tube, the rotating steel tube has a 45mm bearing fit with a 1.125" through bore. The orange and blue cir...

I'll probably end up rounding to the nearest metric fastener and making the entire thing metric dimensions, but for now it's just a prototype machine so I can mix and match. I can only buy metal cheaply in certain rounded inch sizes, so I try to machine them undersized to the nearest millimeter if p...

First main spindle tube almost done. I still have to ball-mill some round key slots in the threaded part so the pulley/gear can transmit torque to the spindle. spindle tube faded.jpg spindle tube full.jpg spindle tube comparison.jpg This thing is 4140 pre-hard steel, yield strength at least 100,000 ...

Do you think it would be worth it to switch to 400/rev steppers since you're limited in speed and acceleration now? It looks like that entire effector plate (looks great by the way) will twist when accelerating because the motor is hanging off of one side. I built a big delta with leadscrews recentl...

I'll probably post on both cnczone and openbuilds once I get it to the point where I can turn parts. I already started a question thread on practical machinist about the spindle design, but it seems like most of the people there are used to $500,000 machines and anything that can't rotate within a m...

Pre-made linear rails are the backup plan, they are proven to work and would reduce the part count (unless you count individual balls). But they're a lot more expensive, and they don't damp vibration at all. I'm trying unconventional approaches on just about everything in this machine build. It coul...

I redesigned the machine linear ways a few times. The main thing was switching from a 3 inch dovetail to a 4 inch boxway system. My reason is that in theory, boxways can be more rigid than doveways when loads or moments are applied from certain directions. First, the old doveway design from a few we...

I think we should be looking at health outcomes for people who work[ed] in injection molding factories or extrusion factories around these types of plastics. If it turns out that everyone who worked near a big injection molding machine making ABS electronic enclosures all day got cancer, we should b...

Perfect, that's exactly the kind of thing I have been looking for! Otherwise I'd have to make my own, and it wouldn't be hardened. Only catch is that the one on ebay says it's an ER40 collet nose, but in the picture, the collet nut clearly says ER 32. I hope there is a return policy just in case! Th...

I think one of the common themes for the people on these types of forums is that we like making stuff, and are fascinated with the ability to make new things. Making new things has always been at the heart of technology and progression. I don't mean to derail the topic, but I think people in my age ...