Men's Shed Router

**electrosteam** · 18th July 2016, 07:01 PM

We got an extra day when we got a visit from a user with a machine virtually identical to ours.

Many lessons learned:
- we have the spindle mounting plate upside down, just affects clearances,
- recommend mounting spindle lower in the gantry,
- the belts were too loose,
- the guide wheels were too loose,
- how to include a zero mark (X in circle) to enable recovery from minor incidents,
- recommend 'Corner Cuts' to enable insertion of edges into slots,
- can run the UGS Visualize function while job in motion,
- confirmation of Bug in UGS 'Return to Zero',
- comment that UGS Macro facility rarely used,
- confirmation that job pausing is difficult, just have standard procedure for recovery,
- provide extra E-Stop button on other side of machine,
- triangular tabs work good,
- visitor does not have limit switches, but recommended, and use for homing,
- demonstrated loose bit in collet to set zero height,
- having a machine on castors moved weekly cannot keep platen level,
- Comms Off/On commonly used for partial rest of Arduino/Grbl,
- sometimes have to power Arduino Off to get guaranteed reset,
- Cambam works fine, and X, Y, Z offset facility is in there somewhere,
- Cambam runs without internet connection,
- best design approach is to have logical control of layers in the CAD with templates,
- duplicate CAD lines can be identified by making polylines and moving to different CAD layer,
- vacuum is noisy, but may be necessary,
- keep belts, tracks and pulleys clean, use a moderate soft brush frequently,
- cheap kitchen chopping boards make great plaques,
- MDF varies a lot, currently Masters have good MDF (smooth surface producing good edges),
- painting MDF with a sealer reduces the dust and rough edges,
- worth looking at Easel for Shed members.

We ran a simple visitor job with a 1 mm cutter stepping about 0.5 mm through 3 mm MDF, fascinating.

Visitor showed model railway vehicles cut out of 3 mm MDF, very impressive.

John.

**electrosteam** · 27th July 2016, 07:02 PM

Just an update.
The machine is proving reliable, but frustrating with the variable surface flatness that we experience.

The non-metal parts of the machine are pine and MDF with simple screwed fixings, stored in various locations as the need arises, and moved on a pallet jack each week to its operating location on a car-park tarred surface exposed to some weather.
None of this is conducive to maintaining squareness or flatness.
We have become adept at adjusting cut depth for engraving depending on the location of the cutter on the job, slow but we get there.

However, the machine is proving of interest to the Shed members and we have done a few, very simple, jobs.

The only proposed development is the larger cubicle with Z-axis limits re-introduced, and the anticipated next release of UGS to fix the 'Return to Zero' bug.

I propose to terminate the thread at this point and thank all the contributors along the way.
Any new aspects, problems, faults, bragging etc will be raised as individual posts.
John.

**GeoffW1** · 1st September 2016, 11:27 AM

(Lazycam is a bit less than "no longer supported". To quote from the Newfangled Solutions (Lazycam) website:
Due to the availability of other, more mature, low cost CAM packages, LazyCam development has ceased and it will remain in permanent Beta status... As the software is BETA, not all features are fully functional.
Rather than "fiddle" with Lazycam and text programing, perhaps invest your time in learning one of the packages that Newfangled Solutions recommend as an alternative to Lazycam.
Personally I'd pick a package compatible with Windows running in 64 bit mode. IIRC Windows 7 (64 bit) was introduced in 2010, so starting with packages that run on Windows in 64 bit mode should offer the best return on the operator learning curve.)

Hi,

Yes, we have gone that way. We have CamBam with a free license donated by them - many thanks CamBam - and some Shedders are investigating Fusion 360. For most of our work the geometry tools in CamBam seem quite good, and it has a capable text tool.

On the CNC 3020 the X axis began to stutter and jam intermitently. I took it to bits and found the ballnut and linear bearings to be dry. Then came a lot of fun reassembling the ballnut, but fortunately there is a lot of info on that from the Net.

I think I have worked out a way of thoroughly lubricating these ballnuts without disassembly. There is also a threaded hole which might be intended to take a grease nipple. Anyone tried that?

Cheers

Geoff

**Bob Willson** · 2nd September 2016, 02:45 PM

Originally Posted by GeoffW1

I think I have worked out a way of thoroughly lubricating these ballnuts without disassembly. There is also a threaded hole which might be intended to take a grease nipple. Anyone tried that?

Cheers

Geoff

Hi Geoff
Yes, that is exactly what the threaded hole is for. Just put a couple of grease nipples in there and fill until it exudes from the ends. Don't use too heavy a grease or it can slow down the balls circulation speed.

Thread: Men's Shed Router

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Similar Threads

Attching Triton Router to an Vermont American Industrial Router Table

Posting Permissions