Hi Everyone,
After many months being offline the wood cnc is back to an operational state.
Upgrades include:
- New stepper motors on X,Y & Z axis.
- Rewired everything including limit switches.
- Fixed water cooling pump issues
- New bed installed and surfaced
I will try to put some checklist together for the operation but not much has changed from a usage standpoint but hopefully just a more accurate and reliable machine. With the water cooled spindle just remember to check that the pump is working and the water is flowing before use (as seen below).
Things that could be improved:
- Add spindle control from cnc controller to VFD
- Change water reservoir to home depot bucket and lid and add flow meter. Should be easier to maintain and seal that way.
- Rebuild Z-axis motor mount out of aluminum as its currently 3d printed plastic and is likely to fail.
- Flip the z-axis 180 degrees and redo mounting so the the whole aluminum plate slides to give us more z-axis height, is currently limited to fix bottom support height.
- Change from belt drive to rack and pinion system on the Y axis and ball screw drive on the Y. Requires redesign and rebuild, https://www.makerstore.com.au/blog/gear-rack-designed-for-v-slot/.
Feel free to reach out in the Slack CNC channel for training requests (training information) and if you need a refresher just let myself or @Reuben know.
Thanks,
Lukeo