Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

I started out more with manual and CNC machines (cheaper Taiwanese ones), then got into 3d printing, and now I'm into both. I think 3d printers are great for complex plastic parts that would be impossible or not economical to do on CNCs, but I don't think 3d printers will replace CNCs in the near ...

I did a lot of research over the last few days. Looks like angular contact bearings it is! A brief summary; 1) Spindles that use tapered roller bearings are the strongest and stiffest, but generate a lot of heat and are limited in RPM. Good for huge machines. 2) Angular contact bearings generate the ...

I have a feeling you're going to be contacted by fashion magazines in the near future. Get ready for a media frenzy!


Oh, and also, put some rounded corners on your heel support things, those look fragile in printed ABS!

I googled and found this; [img]http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61hDPuK%2BQ9L._SL1096_.jpg[/img] http://www.amazon.com/Angular-Contact-Bearing-45mm-O-D/dp/B002E7ZT76 The same thing is on McMaster Carr for about 15 dollars more. Looks like it's the same dimensions as the 6209 bearing I have in ...

My earlier designs used tapered roller bearings, but I realized that I could not find any for sale on the internet that are actually rated for roundness/eccentricity. Nobody gives tolerances on them, not even McMaster Carr. I know that you can special order precision sets of tapered roller bearings ...

OK so a few design changes that I need to bring up here. I know I haven't shown the full machine yet, but I will soon enough. For now, I need your advice on the headstock and spindle designs. For the next few months I will have access to a full sized CNC lathe, so I can do full sized parts with ...

I just added a new one to my machine about a week ago, direct drive with a NEMA 23 stepper. I got the stepper for like $8 from a salvage website; I think they take the steppers out of whatever machines they can get and resell them dirt cheap. Mine came with dampers already installed! So far no ...

At first I thought it would be better to use common step and DIR pins and use individual EN pins for each stepper driver, but I checked out the data sheet and it looks like EN must be on for the motor power to work. Using a common DIR should work, since the driver doesn't recognize the change in DIR ...

Is there any way to disable inputs to the stepper drivers while still making them output power to the stepper motors? I know there are enable and reset pins on stepper drivers, and it looks like those won't work for this, but... If we have ALL of the stepper motor drivers wired in parallel to common ...

On the Taig mill, the motor turns the spindle with a belt. Most of the spindle heat is generated by preload friction instead of load friction so the temperature doesn't increase much more with larger loads than it does just from spinning unloaded. Of course my facing programs only skim the surface ...

I've been thinking about the stepper expansion stuff for a long time, 3d printers need 3 steppers for the motion, then one for each cold end extruder after that. Which is why so few 3d printer control boards have more than 4 or 5 steppers. That Azteeg one can do 5 built in and 3 external drivers for ...

So the main board would more or less be communicating with a second board, where the main board uses 2 or 3 wires to send data to the secondary board and the secondary board branches signals out to extra stepper drivers? There are two communications protocols that would work best for this, one is ...

Looks awesome so far, at first I thought you were bolting 3 plates of aluminum together but then I checked out the photobucket thing and saw you made it from a single big round bar. Have you done calculations for injection pressure, clamping force, fill time, ect? Will it be hand operated or ...

I'm not sure how many steppers smoothie can support with extra pinouts. Each extra stepper needs a STEP and a DIR pin from the board to the driver; this machine would probably be using external drivers for the rotational axes. So if the regular smoothie supports 5 by itself, that's enough for all 5 ...

I haven't made a BOM yet but I'll do it now with the things I can think of off the top of my head; 3x3x0.125 3ft Aluminum square tube (machine base)-------> $30 1x3x 2ft Aluminum flat bar (2 linear doverails)--------------> $40 0.75x4 1ft Aluminum flat bar (2 linear slides)---------------> $20 0.5x4 ...

Double posting to get more pictures in. This is my design for the linear ways. The machine will have 5 linear axes in the end, only two of those are needed for basic turning operations. The other 3 add capabilities and automation. You can still do a lot with only 2. It's a 1x3x12 flat bar of 6061 ...

Yeah a couple of months ago when I started this it was more of a concept, something that I thought would be cool to do. In the last few weeks I've made some big design changes which I haven't shown here yet, but I know for certain that even meeting minimal goals will still be worth it. I knew from ...

I am planning on making my own spindle, but I know it's going to be difficult to get the tolerances close enough on the bearing fit. It will probably be the hardest part for me to make on my tiny machine, even though it's simple. I'll keep your recommendation of using the indexer spindle as a back ...

Thanks for the quick and thorough feedback guys. JFettig, I thought a lot about the workholding stuff. 5-C collets and other types like it do not have slits in both directions. To clamp them you pull them back into a tapered tube, which squeezes the front on the tool or workpiece. ER collets will ...

Three posts for today should be enough. I'll machine some more stuff later so I can show you a working sub-assembly. For now, its onto the spindle workholding! I decided long ago that this machine will be a mix of a mill turn center and swiss type lathe. Many parts are around or under and inch (~25 ...

Now onto the linear motion! Ballscrews have been the norm in precision CNC machines for a few decades. The goal is to get linear motion with excellent stiffness and repeatability to within a few ten thousandths of an inch or less. Just for reference to everyone using the metric system who's reading ...

OK so first for the machining setup. To make ultra precise parts for this mill turn center, I had to upgrade my Taig mill so it can make big enough parts. So I made two aluminum vises. They have a fixed jaw, a fixed screw thrust block, and a sliding jaw that gets bolted down after being pressed ...

Fiberglass is decent as an arm material, I used to have fiberglass arms on my rostock. They weren't that straight though, and they aren't that stiff either. Metal tubes (like thin walled brass) work great, even though they are dense. CF tubes have excellent straightness and stiffness, plus they are ...

I just got access to a camera again so I'll post some pictures soon. I didn't even know about that openbuilds website until a few minutes ago! I'm planning on using a smoothieboard to control it, either the 5 axis one or perhaps the new smoothie V2 pro when it comes out. For full automation, my ...

I have considered making kits to sell, I still want to, but the main problem is manufacturing. I prototyped all of the parts in the pictures and it took a long time because I have tiny CNC machines. If I were to sell kits, I would have to do a production run with a screw machine shop. It costs many ...