Thread: Am I on the right track?

Originally Posted by ericks2

Cal, have you now bought a machine?

Still waiting for stock to arrive, around 6 weeks away still :/

I'd be careful about extending the Z very much higher. It's quite a low gantry, so as it is you'd get some degree of flex when machining, extending the Z will increase it as the spindle will have increased leverage to tilt the Z axis.

Ideally you'd want to increase the gantry height by doubling up on extrusion, or beefing it up with bracing of some sort.

It looks pretty easy to beef this model up anyway.

cheers, Ian

Originally Posted by Cal

Still waiting for stock to arrive, around 6 weeks away still :/

Could you use a 6040 size machine?

I think it’s a bit small for what I want to do

okay

Well I ended up getting a Workbee as the Lead machine was nowhere in sight.
It arrived yesterday, I have some ukuleles to finish before I get to this, then the fun begins!
I opted for the water cooled 1.5kw spindle too.

Congrats on the new baby!

You will LOVE the water cooled spindle, they absolutely rock!

I hope I’m worthy
It’s going to be a steep learning curve!

It's pretty much just avoid crashing the gantry at the ends of the travel, and make sure the VFD parameters are set correctly, which they usually are out of the box.

Originally Posted by aarggh

It's pretty much just avoid crashing the gantry at the ends of the travel, and make sure the VFD parameters are set correctly, which they usually are out of the box.

It come with cheap limit switches, will see how they go. If not there is always the emergency stop button

You'll love using the machine, it will open up possibilities you haven't even thought of yet!

For the spindle, pick up a reasonably decent (something like this: Nulon Green Premium Long Life Coolant Premix 6 Litre | Supercheap Auto) bottle of radiator coolant instead of using water, don't dilute it though, use it straight. Keep it and the pump sealed in a non-see through tub away from sun and heat, and you'll never have to worry about rust in the system or cleaning the lines. But you need to ensure no dust/debris makes it's way into the tub to contaminate the coolant. Dust and exposure to heat/light are what will cause it to go funny.

I've been running my big machine that way the last 10 or so years, in a lidded tub with the tubes coming out the side, and a towel covering it to stop any dust/contamination as it's in a pretty hostile environment, and once a year or so I check the coolant, and it's like new and perfectly clean, I've never needed to top it up or change it yet since it I first set it up.

cheers, Ian

Congrats. What size machine did you buy? I know you were looking at a larger unit.

Thanks for the tip Ian, great info! I have a new bottle of coolant in the shed too!

Lappa, thanks it’s a 1x1mtr kit. I figured it is going to be used for more than instruments and didn’t want to limit myself with a smaller footprint. I just have to work out where the heck to put it in my small shed!


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Excellent...enjoy!