Julian, those speeds are amazing considering the steppers your using! It just shows how much friction most of us must be fighting against with our stock machines.

Really looking forward to seeing how you mount your spindle and dust extraction system

Awsome work so far!

Si.

 

Well, you know how I said that the X axis roller was running at stupid speeds and I thought it was running at over 300 IPM well it is........ I've just calibrated it properly for the first time..... It's even shocked me.... How does 1980 IPM without missing any steps sound yes you did read that correctly.

Now obviously that's not a usable speed for anything at all but it does as you say show how much friction is present when there are no ball or roller races involved.

and Hi Mark... Glad you enjoy reading my posts... I do my best in life to entertain people, it's the legacy of that damned bear

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

 

Well... I thought I'd better give a quick update on the progress.... It's been a thoruoghly frustrating few days.

I was expecting to be cutting things by Sunday! it just didn't happen............. Everything conspired against me this weekend. First of all my other half decided that we were going out on Saturday. Then on Sunday the in-laws descended on us and time for Phlatprintering went straight out of the window.

On top of all this I ran into a brick wall today, with a clearance problem on one of the mounting bolts for the tool holder. Cured that one by drilling a new backing plate and using a couple of counter sunk machine screws. But it took all morning, head scratching and wondering how to resolve it and all afternoon making the replacement. So right now I'm three days behind schedule.

Ahhh well! such is life!!

If everything goes to plan (some hope, because it never does) then I should be making the first cuts on Wednesday :roll:

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

 

Good luck fozzy! She'll be running in no time.

 

Hey Fozzy, chin up old boy! It sounds like you've had a 'typical Monday'. Sorry to hear things haven't been going to plan, but there's no point rushing it now you've got this far. At least you've resolved the issues, you'll be getting foam dust in your fur before you know it

 

Hey! thanks for the support guys! Still working away at it... It'll be there soon!

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

 

Welcome Back To Dr Frankenbear's Lab.... Egor, it's time to unleash my monster on the world... Unfasten his chains!! MMMMWAHHHH!! HHAA HHAAA HAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Build Continued.... With Video....

Well... after the frustration of last weekend, I thought I'd slow down and take a couple of days away from the construction. It's actually paid dividends doing that. Thanks to Mark for the suggestion.

Lots to tell you about... The rollers are now in place with their spring mod!

The pressure rollers run in 1/4" ball races embedded into Nylon blocks... you can't see them in that photograph, because the brass collets that lock out any side play in the rollers cover them... But they are there. I've yet to fit the tension adjusters... They're set right now so that they provide next to no pressure on thin materials and increasing pressure as the material get thicker.


The rotary tool sits in foam pads inside an alloy cradle on the back of the machine... This runs the full width of the machine and is bolted through to the 5/8" thick MDF backing plates that fill the original access holes. I didn't need the access holes and fitting this material makes the back of the printer very solid!!

Completed the table today! routed the tool slot to make it slightly wider so that it passes the head end of the flexible shaft drive. and also lengthened the slot to account for the fact that we now have a full 26" available cut travel.

In the video, you'll see the head in operation... I grabbed the video while I had the main drive roller out, because it's much easier to see what's going on.

Watch out for the on screen cut speeds!! having run everything in and re-lubricated everything using a high grade silicone grease and having tweaked all of the backlash settings, believe it or not the cut speeds have taken another upward leap. Remember that these are the stock steppers, running at the stock 1.2V Vref... The steppers run cold!! Enjoy the video and prepare to pick your jaws up off the floor when you see the speeds!! Oh yeah!! and those speeds you're seeing are cracked back 20% from what it can do!!

One last thing.... Make sure you have your sound turned up!!



Yes.... That was near to 100IPM you were seeing towards the end of that.... Just some explanatory notes: The copper pipe you can see on the head is for the vacuum. The bottom end of that will connect to a vacuum hose and that should then pull all the dust right away from the cut. Powerful enough to pull the fillings out of your teeth or as somebody who shall remain nameless said the other day, powerful enough to suck a golf ball through a garden hose and he once knew a girl who....ermmm never mind.. I'll leave that one there...

P.S. Sorry about the poor video quality. I had to shoot this on the stills camera, because I didn't have time to set up the pro video cameras... they take forever to set up especially when I have to set up the lighting as well for them... I'll do some better high def videos later on.

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

 

WOW Julian , that thing is SICK !!!!! Well done my Friend, those mods are killer and one of a kind, I may need to steal your vacuum tube mod LOL

Great Job!!!
John

 

Fozzy, that's a great-looking set of modifications you've done, and that machine screams! Fantastic job!

 

Thanks for the comments guys!! Much appreciated....... There's more to come yet!!

Hey! feel free to do that... that's exactly why I post stuff .

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

 

LOL WAYYYYYY Too busy playing with the new toy and tweaking stuff.... I promise Video And Photographs tomorrow evening !! as soon as I organise them and edit down the video clips.

It's like being a 5 year old at Christmas right now WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!! That Bear is messing with my mind again It almost feels like it's 1980 again. :?

You'll understand what I'm talking about Mark.... The rest of you will just think I'm Barking Mad.... Mwaaahhhh Ha Ha Haaaaaa!!

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

 

ROFLMAO

You have no idea how close to the truth you just got.......

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

 

That is too funny Mark, I had this same vision going through my head !! LOL

 

Build Continued.......

Egor, The villagers are revolting!!!!.... Mind you, that village never has smelled good.... My monster is devastating their houses! Tearing them apart in search of INSULATION FOAM!! Mwahhhhh Haaaaaa Haaaaa Haaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Here we go...... More Mods to look at.The first are these rather snazzy Brass Port Hole Locks I found at one of the local boat chandlers (Mc Salvors.. yes that really is their name, sort of Mc Donalds but for fast boat salvage instead of fast food poisoning ) They were perfect as lid locks on the machine so I snagged a couple for an absolute bargain price.


I Covered the table with sign cutting vinyl.... This stuff is self adhesive, weatherproof and tough as a pair of old boots. I know that quite a few of you guys have access to sign vinyl so I thought you might also like to know that it produces a near friction free surface. The foam simply slides over it and what's more if it gets damaged it's really cheap and easy to replace. Couldn't be better. I snagged a big roll of this stuff for free at a local place called "The Scrap Store" where you can pick up all sorts of useful free craft stuff, that local companies don't want and donate rather than throw it out.
I need to get the plexi in place and screw on those nice alloy angle pieces I showed you earlier. In fact there's a ton of bits and bobs like that still to do.

OK so you guys asked for it.... Here's the pic from the very first cut out of the machine... Far from perfect but it is getting better now I tweaked things. It's some of the parts for Shaun, 3DMon's fantastic F22 Park Jet. I still need some more foam to complete that. Not because it didn't cut out right but because I broke three pieces when I sat on them this afternoon DOH!! :roll:


Video of the first cut is being edited now and I'll post it in a few hours time along with details of another really useful mod that I forgot to mention before...

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)

 

Video Build Continued....

Sorry for the delay on this chaps!! for some reason Youtube kept throwing a wobbly!! Took forever to get it to upload.

So here it is the video of the first cut..... To be honest there's a lot wrong with this cut. Wrong Bit, too high a spindle speed, vacuum not connected up when I did this, so it's also flinging foam everywhere. Badly optimised cut file, after I re-arranged the parts on the sheets to pack them onto narrower foam sheets.

It's also running at about 30 IPM in this video, which is about 1/3 of the maximum. I slowed it right down for this first cut to make sure it did it.

BUT!! IT WORKS!!


MMWAHHHHHHH HAAAAA HAAAAAAA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Two Modifications that I haven't mentioned before!.
1): The tool light.... I have a high intensity LED light, mounted on the tool head. You can always see what the tool is doing and it lights the foam up from underneath to tell you where it is.

2): An alloy angle bolted to the underside of the table in the section between the cutter and the main drive roller. Makes the table here straight and solid! right where the front pressure roller sits.


It's also cutting alot better on subsequent stuff, with all that lot put right!!
THIS MUCH FUN SHOULD BE MADE ILLEGAL

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)