MicRo was a little too small for me but the full sized RoGr was just too large for my workshop and it still a little ways off and I have a few projects that I would like to get started so I have started making a full size desktop heavy duty all Aluminum CNC mill. I have all the metal, rails, steppers, drivers and leadscrew.

One problem I always seem to have is having the tools not be quite up to the job. I plan on cutting metal and plastic with the mill so I'm making it a little extra strong so I should be able to cut most any material.

In the long run I may add cooling and a vacume and perhaps a drill atachment.

The basic specks are this

The outside size is.

35" L x 24" W x 23" H

The leadscrews are Acme precision 1/2" two start 5 TPI with the anti backlash nuts from DumpsterCNC.com

The linear rails are three different sizes all using single carts per rail.

The bottom two rails are 30mm HIWIN
The Y is two 25mm rails
The Z is two 20mm rails.

3 Nema 34 265oz steppers
1 Nema 24 200oz stepper for the Z

The stepper controller is a Ebay 3 channel bipolar driver that can give 2.5A per channel.
the forth channel I might make and is on order.

This will be a two leadscrew setup for the long axes. (X)



And the two boys are helping.

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This is where I'm at so far but i'm going to blog from the start which is the two long rails.

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I'm about halfway done so far but it will take a little time to post all the details.

This is the 30mm H series HIWIN rails.

I do have a good buddy with a Bridgeport mill and I'm almost ready to go over for night to have all the edges squared.

This is most of the stock for the project. The main two long rails are about 34" x 4" x 2" solid Aluminum bar stock.


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The gantery sides are 1/2" x 6" plate.

The Y axes is a box aluminum box section of 2" x4" with a 1/4 wall thickness.


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Just for fun I put most of the metal on a scale to see if this is something that I can move myself.

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It looks like about 110 lbs without leadscrews and hardware.

I like to start out talking about the tools needed to build this thing and the plan to hold it all together.

There is a lot of holes to be drilled and I have a China drill press.


The quill was loose from day one and only got looser with time. I puled the quill out and had it chrome plated to make it larger and honed the housing to accept the larger quill. It would have cost $200 to have the quill ground at the real chrome shop so I used the cheep auto type chrome for $20.

This took forever to get the quill to fit and when it was all said and done it still had some play. All this China Crud just barely gets the job done.

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Sounds like this is going to be a real beast! Those rails are suppose to be the sh... really nice (I'll keep my language clean since there are kids present).

Have you thought about what you're going to use for a spindle? Are you going the router route or maybe something with a little more kick?


What's that block with the 8.2 holes fer?

That is a test block for drilling the 18 7/8 counterbore holes I needed to do for the main rails. I also need a vary good 7/8" pocket for the leadscrew ball bearings. I have a fairly long story about that I hope to get to soon.

I have a old 1 1/2HP Crafstman 1/4" 25,000 RPM router that was made in the USA that will get me started for now. If it has low runout it will be fine for smaller bits in metal. With metal HP is not a problem most of the time it's runout with small bits or a lack of power at lower RPM's needed for harder metals.

I do plan on adding a DYI MT2 spindle with a 3 to 1 reduction drive driven by either a router or perhaps something else. For their size a router is a vary powerful motor. It really breaks down too do you use a smaller lighter motor with forced air cooling or a much larger motor that needs no cooling?

Some more glamor shots of the adjustable gantry. There is 4 -1/2" holes that allow one to move the y axes in three settings. The lower mounting gives a Z clearance of 4.5" which will allow for a vice to be used on smaller parts. The top mounting gives about 11" of Z clearance. The Z axes will have about 6" of travel.

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I needed to cut all the stock to size and most of that will be done with my old trusty Mikita chop saw with a metal cutting blade.

Many people say it is just fine to use a wood blade on Aluminum but I have done this many times in the past and it is a bad idea on anything thick at all. I have killed blades and had the carbide tips fly off from over heating.

I got a great 10" Aluminum cutting blade from Bam carbide for about $32.00 shipped. The blade is much thicker to take the extra loads and remove the heat better and it has two different cutting tips with one cutting a smaller path so it only has half the work load. This keeps the tip much cooler so the metal won't melt. The teeth also have a lesser cutting relief angle to prevent over feeding for a much smother cut over most wood blades.

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The blade is rated for 1,700 RPM but my chop saw goes around 36,000 so I needed to slow it down. For any AC motor with brushes you can use a "chopper" circuit which is what a common home light dimer is. I used a 500 watt one I have around for video lights. This worked fine and it also works for a router motor speed control which I plan on using later.

The first cuts were to the two 2x4 solid rails. To make sure that they came out the same size I clamped them both together. This is a big hunk of metal to cut at once but the Bam blade just cut it like butter. With this blade you can cut any amount of material that can fit under the blade.

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After cutting to 35" I drew the marks for the rail holes. I just used a tape measure and a ultra fine marker for the marks.

To help stop the drill bit from wandering there is a few tricks. You can center punch all the marks but I have found for a lot of holes I miss at least one and it is hard to correct if you do.

The other thing is to use a center drill bit like this one.

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In this picture I have the 1/4" center drill chucked up in the 7/8 counterbore cutter but to start the holes in the rails I set up a block on the drill press table and removed the stock 5/8 chuck and the chuck spindle shaft which is a MT2 (Morris taper) taper.

This makes the distance from the quill to work piece a lot less and give less drill bit wounder. The collet spins more true than a large 5/8 chuck and has almost no flex.

I had bought a set of collets to fit the drill press MT2 spindle so I chucked up the 1/4 bit and made all 18 starter holes.

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This worked well and I finished the drill through with a 3/8 drill bit.

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You can see the 3/8 bit in a collet with no three jaw chuck here.

Next I wanted to countersink the nuts (which is called counterbore) so the inside of the rails would be free for mounting things on. I bought a 1/2 bore x 7/8 bit on eBay and it is the one in the picture only with a larger pilot bit.

Following along with much interest, especially on your choice of tools and the info you have on the 10" saw blade for example.

Well thanks Dave.

I like being able to cut all the stock down my self but I knew that my chop was not cutting perfectly square.

You can square up for a cut by using a 2' or 3' piece of wood and mark the top and chop two board at the same time and then flip one of them. Placing them on edge on a flat plate they will have a gap. This is the amount of drift. Make a vary slight adjustment to the angle adjustment and do it again. After some time you can get them really close to perfect perhaps good enough to live with but I had about a 1/16" of runout over 2' which is more than I wanted.

I was always planing to stop by my friends house with the Bridgeport and the lathe. He called today and needed me to do some work so I grabbed the mill and leadscrews and got some nice mill time in.

I had left the Y 2x4 box section about 1/8 too long so I was using a spacer on the lower gantry to let be do the mock up.

A little time on the Bridgeport and the ends of the rails and the 2x4 box section were now really square.

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I had two of the ends of my 1/2" thread rod turned down to 3/8" for the couplers I need to make.

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I just love the 10' long 24" cut lathe.

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I wanted to finish up the drilling of the long rails.

For the rail holes I needed 9 holes per rail and I wanted to counterbore all of them to allow for mounting things on the inside of the mill. I had the 7/8 counterbore from the earlier picture but it dose not like to cut deep. anything past about 3/8" and it would just stop cutting. It had no side relief to let the chips out. You would think you could just raise it out of the hole and brush out the chips but it would just stop cutting and make noise.

So I brought out the cheep 7/8 paddle bit that I have used before on Aluminum. It cuts fine and can be re sharpened real fast but it wonders all over the place even with a right sized pilot hole. I had already shortened the shank a long time ago.

The answer was to use the 7/8 counterbore for the first 1/8" or so and then bore down to 1" with the 7/8 paddle bit which cuts really fine once in the hole, faster than most bits.

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Then to flatten the bottom of the hole I used the 7/8 counterbore.

This took a long time but all the bores look great.

If you could grind the paddle bit flat on the cutting edge it might be OK if you could find something to stick to the tip as a pilot.

This is a shot of the first round of cutting with the counterbore. Your going to make a lot of shavings.

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I like Aluminum because the shavings are not really sharp so you do less bleeding that with stainless steel which always is sharp and often burning hot too.

But Aluminum is always dirty and will make everything black with oxide.

I needed to drill the ends of the rails to mount to the front and back plates but they are too long for the drill press stand. The support shaft is retained with a set screw so I loosened it and swung the head over the stand and tilted the table 90deg. I spent some extra time making sure the table was square to the spindle by mounting a 5' 1/2" tool steel precision shaft in the chuck and using a feeler gauge squared up the table to the shaft.

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I then mounted up a new POS China drill vice that I had moded to have the jay stay flat.

The plan for the 8 mounting holes is to drill a pilot hole with the starter bit and then a 3/8 and then a 1/2" and then use the counterbore to recess the hole slightly.

The counterboring of the ends helps to make the joint squarer by allowing you tighten to bolts to a much higher torque and not have the aluminum flex in the middle and make the rails bow out or in. I have had but joints do everything but be square because the metal flexes where the bolt is and the outside edges have low pressure on them.

I adjusted the drill press table and did test trills until the Micrometer said the hole was centered. This took a long time to get really close but once it was done all I had to do was drill and then flip each part.

All was going well until the last two holes. I was tighting up the vice with just a little bar on it and it cracked! I had only had it for one day. I have a 5" X/Y slide vice which is nice and strong but it has so much backlash is almost unusable.

Some quick clamping and I got through the last hole and counterbore.

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Using the counterbore.

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Next was tap the 8 end holes with a 1/2 x13tpi tap. I used a drill bit that was just on the smaller size so the tap fit real tight. The bore size range for a 1/2 tap was .4219" to .4688" The drill I used was .435" and the holes were 1 3/4" deep.

I started the tap by hand using the drill press to get the tap started nice and square. This process took over two hours perhaps three.

Many people prefer fine pitch threads like 20 tpi or 28 tpi. I understand that you will get more holding force with a finer thread but with soft Aluminum I always use a longer course thread if I can. With a 1 1/2" threaded body I have plenty of turns and the threads are thick enough that they wont turn to powder over time. In truth many applications that have you removing the bolts often should use a Heli coil but no one does that anymore.

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The non vice China POS.

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Of course the cracked vice let the rail lift up and the last two holes were about 30 thousands off and the rest were around 5.

I was going to drill and tap for a 7/16 bolt but the button head cap screws were $17 each and the 1/2" were less than $2.00. I had both taps so i went to 1/2".

The problem with using a 1/2 bolt is I wanted some hole clearance and the next larger drill I had was 3/4". I just got a nice USA 9/16" bit from eBay and now I have room for adjusting the rails.

Most of the taps I have are USA made and work well but I do have a cheep import set perhaps from China that has the wrong pitch on most of the taps!! Tap a thread and the bolt will never fit correctly.

Don't trust cheep taps.

All done with the long X rails.

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Next is the Y rail 2 x 4 box section rail mounts.


The Y rail mounts is truly simple it is just a 2x4 beam with 16 holes drilled in it. I have chosen to put the rails on the top and underside of the 2x4. This means the the rails need to be almost perfectly parallel or they will bind. I would have chosen a 2x6 with a 1/4 wall thickness but I could not find any at a normal price.

By not mounting the rails on the face this lets me mount the Z axes about 1 3/4" closer to the Y center point which makes thing stronger. It also spaces out the mounting points for the Z plate so it is now 7".

The lower rail does cost you some clearance so you do loose some clearance under the y axes but you have to do something.

I cut the beam to 20 1/6" to allow it to be milled to size later. (which is done now) I used the same starter drill bit for the 16 holes and then finished with a larger bit.


For mounting the Y will be trapped between the gantry by 2 1/2" thread rods.

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All the holes are drilled and slightly counter sunk.

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Next is the gantry sides.

I started with a piece of 6" x 51" 6061 Al plate and wanted to make two sides out of it. I was a little short so the cutaway part from one had was used for the other. What this meant was I needed to cut about 5" right up the middle of the stock and then rip to the cuts to give two pieces.

Out with the jigsaw. I drilled two holes that were to be in the wast area and cut up the middle.

The pillars of the gantry were to be 2 3/4 " so I had 1/4" of wiggle room to clean up the cut later.

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After the bad jigsaw cutting I needed to do some long rips to clean up the cuts. I changed over the Bam blade to the table saw to get ready for some 1/2 plate fun.

I had reduced the speed a few weeks earlier by flipping the pulleys to give me a blade speed of around 2,800 RPM.

The table saw with new blade.


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I clamped the gantry together and drilled all the hole at once. I spaced the holes for the Y axes at 2.9" and then made a 72mm 76mm bolt pattern for the 30mm carts.

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I forgot to take any pictures of the gantry sides on the table saw but I can tell about it. I was expecting it to be a little rough but it was not. I used a little WD40 on the metal and it cut smooth and clean with no AL melting to the blade. I was so happy with the cutting I used the miter bar to make 45deg angle cuts on the gantry sides. I think it is harder to cut 1 1/2 MDF than 1/2 AL plate. I could do 8' rips if I had to.

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I de-bured the edges and it is done.

I needed to make 2 spacers for the 30mm carts to allow the gantry sides to sit further out to give more travel and I wanted to be able to drill and tap 1/4 bolts into the blocks for the cross brace that the drive nuts will be attached to. This should have been easy but I got in a hurry and blew one hole so had to re drill it larger.

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I drilled and taped 3 holes in the bottom of each spacer for 1/4 bolts. There is a 1/4" x 6" cross plate running across the bottom of the machine connecting the two 30mm cars together. This leaves me room to use a single or double leadscrew setup.

I tested the racking effect with a off center load and I found too much play if you use a single leadscrew for the X rails so I decided to go with two leadscrews mounted just on the inside of the rails.

You're having fun.

So we are just about cough up to where I'm at. In this picture you can see the 17" x 6" plate that runs across the lower gantry that will hold the leadscrew anti backlash nuts.

I made the stepper mounts tonight and some temp connectors so I will have a moving Y axes vary soon!

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I forgot to add a picture of the lower cross brace that will have the lead nuts attached to. It is a piece of 1/4 x 6 AL plate attached to the two spacer plates that mount to the lower 30mm rails. I tap 6 1/4" holes by just clamping and drilling to mark the holes then finishing on the drill press. If you do the easy way like this then you will have a piece that will only fit one way.

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Oooohhhh man that thing is looking SWEET!

I'm having fun just reading along.

Good work AV!

I'm having fun making the thing too. Thanks Dave. Some of the stuff I have not tried before like the cutting of 1/2 plate on the table saw. If I can do a 6x51 slice I could also do a 4'x 8' as well. The blade will do thicker material as well so ruff cutting down some larger stock is easy now.

I forgot to show the lower cross brace with the spacer blocks attached. This is a simple piece with just a 18"x6" AL plate mounted to the spacer blocks with 6 1/4 bolts taped into the spacer blocks.

Whenever I have a self made bolt pater and I can clamp the work I just drill through to mark my hole and then finish drilling on the drill press and then tap the holes.


Well that picture missed the upload so I want to go on to the lower Y axes stepper motor mounts.

I decided to place the NEMA 34 stepper motors inside the frame rails. I have just enough room to do this because I made the main frame rails about 3" extra long to gain some extra Y travel from not loosing the tool offset from mounting the router forward.

For a mounting bracket I cut two 4" sections off of the 2x4 thick wall AL beam to drill holes in to mount the stepper.

I needed to cut at least two 73mm hole in the 1'4 wall 2x4 tube and this is my best tool for the job.

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It is a USA made 6" hole saw. I used it for the triplet hole in the PJ and a few other holes over the years in wood and it has alway worked like crap. In the 1 1/2 face plate of the PJ it was burning the wood filling the whole shop up with smoke before I was done! It was time to look closer at the tool.

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This is the cutting tips on the fly cutter. I have no idea how they expect this profile to cut anything! where is the cutting face? It looks like it just scrapes the wood out of the way.

Well I do have a grinder and if I remember way way way back to metals 101 one of the first things we made was a cutting bit for the lathe. Using my razor sharp 20 year old recall I staeted to reground the tips. Not letting them get too hot

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A long time ago I replaced the right hand stone on my grinder with a ultra fine tool grade stone for sharping bits. It is the best $12 one can spend. I still need a stone dresser though.

I wanted to make the cutter bits shorter to take the load better so I ground all the strange diamond tapper away. This left about 1" of usable metal left which is fine for me.

I bolted the two bits together for the ruff sizing the for the vary finish I did each one by itself.

The final profile looks like this.

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A little finish honing with a fine stone.

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I did a test cut on a 2x4 thin wall tube. It cut like butter.

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For flycutting the drill press has to go super slow. My drill press will go 220 RPM and that what I used. If you get a drill press it is better to get on that will go slow than fast. If it had three pulley it will go slower than a two pulley setup. I use the 220 RMP or 330 RPM all the time with metal and any large drill.

The test went way better than I had expected with the cutter cutting fast and making perfect chips.

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Time for something thicker.

To use a fly cutter you need to clamp everything extra well. Everything will bend slightly, the table, cutter, drill press head and support shaft. I used 4 clamps and one still got loose.

My effort was reworded with a nice round hole and a perfect little thin sliver of a ring.

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I mounted up the thick 2x4 stock and cut two holes of about 73mm.

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I love it when a plan comes together.

The cutouts of the 2x4 1/4 wall tube.

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I used a standard 2 1/4 hole saw for the other side.

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Not shown is me cutting two access holes with a 1 1/2" hole saw one side.



I wanted to make the mount adjustable so I drilled 5 holes with a 1/4" drill and then got out the 1/4" mill bit.

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To setup the drill press I removed the chuck and inserted a 1/4 collet and set the speed to 3600 RPM.
The last time I used this bit with the chuck it was a vary bad. In thiner AL it hopped and jumped all over.

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I have a POS China 5" cross side vise with so much backlash it is funny.

With the bit in close, one pass each side.


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It went fairly well. I have readjusted the vise ways to be tight in the middle so it hops around a little less.

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I drilled the 8 stepper mounting holes and all was done for this part.

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Her is the two mounts mounted to the main rails. I used two 1/4 bolts taped into the rails.

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I needed to make some couplers for the steppers. I had already had the 1/2" leadscrews turned down to 3/8 and the steppers have a 3/8 shaft so all I have to do is drill through and tap two setscrews.

One piece of the 1 1/4 round stock cough the chop saw and went 1 million MPH around the bench!

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I drilled 3/4 the way through then re clamped with a piece of wood under for the punch through.

I'm still trying to catch up with the plog. The Y axes is up and running right now and I'm starting on the X.

I mounted the stepper motors and the lead screws and the antiback lash nuts and I now have a movinng X axes .

I don't love the final setup because I do have some flex because I had to remove some material from the mounts to allow for clearance for the drive nut holders. I have two replacement systems thought up but for now I want to get to the next step.

I have two big holes left one for the Y stepper mount and the last one will be a 4" one for the router motor mount.

The Y stepper mount mounts to the same two screws that hold the 2x4 box in place. The stock for the mount is a piece of 5x10 x1/2 AL 6061 plate. I set the drill press to 220 RPM and gave the cutter tips a light hone to sharpen them up.

All ready to go.

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I had to flip the work to go all the way through.

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My cutter is taking quite a beating so far it is now slightly bent at the end of it's arms but is still working. I justed looked for a better one with a 1/2 shank but all look to be the same light duty style.

I used the chop say at a 32deg angle to cut the plate at an angle and drilled the 2 holes for mounting.

The finished NEMA 34 mount.

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The puck is really nice and clean cut. good scrap.

I forgot to show the making of the antibacklash nut holders. I cut the 2x4 1/4 tube in half to form two L brackets like this.

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I wanted to have adjustment to allow the nuts to adjust to the rod so I used the cutouts fron the 72mm hole cutting to use as clamps.

I used a 1" Forstner bit to cut the hole in the mount. This is a wood cutting bit made in China out of some cheep metal but the bit still cut clean.

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I then counterbored the round pucks to form a pocket for the backlash nut. I used a 1 1/2" Forstner bit for this too.

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This was dont with a 1 1/2" Forstner bit which worked well.

I did have a mess up. For the leadscrew mounts I measured from the top of the from not the cross plate so ithe hole was way off about 1/2". I could make new pieces or move the hole some. For this part I would try to move the hole lower.

I needed to cut the hole wider so I grabbed a nice solid 7/8" carbide router bit and chucked it in a 1/2" collet and put in the drill press.

This was going to be loud!

Using my cross slide vice I cut a longer slot in the mounting flanges. The bit came loose a few times but it worked OK lots of noise but the hop was not too bad.

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A shot of the final mount with the NEMA 34 installed.

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If you look close you can see I had to remove a lot of one side of the box to make room for the leadscrew mount. This weakened the mount and it now has some flex under load.

Well were are cought up to where the build is right now. I do have the X up and running using Mach3. I built a power supply and a old PC to run things. At some point I will spend some time talking about steppers and drivers.

One of the guys was asking about how fast could you cut Aluminum with the Bam blade on the table saw. I'm working an a project that needed a large heatsink for the transistors so I cut down a old car stereo amp to fit.
This one was fairly thick at almost 1/2" in the thick spots. Without pushing the work it took about 20 seconds to make the cut. I sliced it two times and the finish was nice too.

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The PC has been done for a while it is a 1ghz AMD with a el-cheepo MB.

I have tried a few stepper drivers so far. The first was a unipolar board that looked fine but I had a few problems. It would drive the steppers at full amps which was nice. I may go back to the unipolar board but I need to try some other stuff first.

The current board is a three channel bipolar "chip" board" with micro stepping and a 35V max at 2.5A.

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My first power supply I made from a really nice 20A transformer I had from a UPC. The problem was I only got 20V. My speeds were too slow so I just made a new one with a higher voltage transformer. The old one was so nice.

I chose to put the supply in the PC.

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My G201 Geckodrive arrived the other day too 70v at 7A bipolar microstep.

Long time between updates.

I met another Machine......

I had to use a makeshift lift to get the heavy bugger on the DIY table made from 4x6 redwood beams and two layer 3/4" chip wood top. It turned out vary strong with almost no flex or wobble. See the T joints.

I still am loyal to the "OLD" one but I needed some instant gratification! I hope the old lady will understand I was doing it for her.


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It is a Mill Drill made by K&F it is sold under many names and made in Taiwan. There is a China copy and I don't know if it is still made in Taiwan.

Grizzly sell it as a G3358 and Enco calls it a D30 other call it a RONG FU 30.

Either way it is a 3" quill 620lb machine. The last owner had no idea how to use it or care for it so I have had to spend a little time cleaning it up.

I pulled the dovetail ways off and cleaned everything and did a slight adjustment on the brass leadscrews which still need work.

The machine cane with a nice pile of end mills but no collets so I got some from Enco which was faster and cheaper than Grizzly.

I also ordered a clamping kit from Grizzly which came in today so I now have T-nuts and clamps so I can do my first cut.



The first cut went well with a 600 RPM using a 3/8 end mill.

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I did a few pases and one deep one of about 1/4" x 1/4" into the 6061 aluminum.



The end of the tool cut fine but the sides made a ruff cut.

The deep cut shoes the side of the end mill not cutting cleanly.

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The end cut looks a lot better.

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I bought the mill to do some small metal projects that I needed to get done soon. I ran into a problem with the AL mill with the three chip driver just not getting the job done and not running the Gecko drive.

I plan on doing a slight remake to the AL mill to correct a few problems.

I'm moving the lead screws to the outside of the rails. This will make a much more direct connection with less flex and free up the table for water cooling or plasma cutting or even a cutting torch.

I ordered three new drivers so I can run my steppers at full speed and current with the new driver I can run the steppers at 4A and perhaps 5A. The chip drivers would only give 2.5A at 30V.

I'm going to a 60V or 70V power supply for some much needed speed. The chip driver made me wire the 8 lead steppers in series thus making the inductance twice and loosing at least 50% of my speed. With the new 5A 70V drivers I will get better than a 100% speed increase and more power too.

The drivers are from kelinginc model #KL-8056. They say the part is from China so I hope it performs well.

I have a lot going on right now but should be back to the AL mill by next week.

Glad to see some updates! Question about your PC though. Is it wise to have that transformer in there right under the hard drive? What about heat/electrical interference?

I have about $10.00 in the PC if you count the handle. It is a lot harder than you would think to corrupt a hard drive.
I will be replacing the transformer with a higher voltage one so that might be a good time do add a little space between the driver and transformer just in case. I could also move the drive up a bit.

I'm almost ready to start back on the mill.

The Z axes mounting plate needed little work and the 3/4" mounting blocks needed truing.

I got my 6" vise in and it looks to OK for holding AL just fine. I tried a different end 5/8" slightly dull end mill that came with the mill and ran a pas over the Z axes mount blocks.

It looks a little ruff but is is flat and feels fairly smooth. I do need to buy a few new end mills.

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I tried to cut a 1/2" x 6" 6061 AL plate with a 1/2" two flute end mill that was new and sharp. It tapered to 3/8" for the cutting shank and had a nice twist like a giant roto zip bit.

It was working fine but about 3/4 of the way through it clogged up and I gave the handles one too many twist and it broke. I really was starting to like that one...

I will be getting back to the AL mill soon.

WOW, this is really cool. I'll be tuning in for updates as well.

Question regarding the hole saw you used awhile back -- did you need a special attachment to put it up in the mill/drill or did the arbor just fit in a regular collet?

thanks

All the holes have been done on a 16 speed drill press. It is not a real heavy one and it was less than $200.
The hole saw had a three sided 1/2 shank and the chuck on the drill press will take a 5/8" shaft.

The biggest problem so far has not been the drill press but the chop saw not cutting perfectly square.

Now that I have a real mill I will be doing most of the parts on it. The drill press is still faster sometimes and works fine for most holes.

The hole saw has taken quite a beating and I need it to do one last hole for the router mount. I'm not sure if I will need two clamps or if one will be OK.

I can use a real fly cutter now that I have a mill but I forgot to order one last week.

Well I'm back to the mill this week and I hope to get a lot done.

I spent some time making the leadscrew mount for they axes and this is what I came up with.

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It is a simple clamping setup that does not require drilling into the leadscrew flange and like the rest of the leadscrews mounts allows for easy adjustment to get the nut to be perfectly centered.

I needed to make some room to clear the gantry pillar to the mounting plate which is the same plate that the Z axes and the Y Linear Rail cart bolts to. When the cart is all the way to one side the plate hits the gantry pillar so I cut a plate out of the 5" x 6" x3/4" mounting plate. This allows for the clamp and bearing block.

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I dulled my blade the other day cutting up a rather large piece of scrap AL from the scrap yard and even after a light sharpening the blade now makes crappy chips and leaves a much rougher finish on all the cuts. I heat one harden bolt and that was it. This blade has been so good I will replace it soon, it also works well for wood and MDF not supper fast but vary clean. I wanted to see how it would do on steel on the chop saw slowed way down and now that it is dull I may try it.

I do wich I had metal cutting band say but with a slight spray of WD40 the table saw has performed well with the BAM AL blade.

The second cut.

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Even with the mill up and running it is far faster to ruff cut first and then finish the edges with the mill.

I did want to do this whole thing with a drill press and chop saw but with the chop saw not being true some of the time and the mill being just so much more square I am going to have to finish most of the rest of the parts on the mill.

Except this one

I needed to cut a 1" hole in the plate I cut from 1/2 stock that I cut on the table saw and squared up on the mill.

I used the drill press because the chuck was in it and it is still fine for this kind of hole I needed. I used a cut down flat drill or spade drill, these have cut AL fine so far and the holes are much nicer than a hole cutter.

They do leave an almost flat bottom if you grind off the points on the ends to use as a counter bore in a pinch. Start the hole with a normal bit first then use the spade to flatten it.

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After some time I got this.

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You do need to drill a pilot hole for the spade bit but they cut fine and are cheep.

I also made three bearing holders for the leadscrew's. The reason I went with NEMA 34 motors was to let me have the stepper motor take the thrust thus the bearing will only have to hold the leadscrew and provide the slightest positive preload.

I clamped all three pieces in my new 6" Craftsman vice and drilled all the holes. I cut the pieces from a piece of 2" x 3" bar stock on the table saw. It's hard to pick out the AL shavings from my hair with all that gray stuff in there....

I forgot to take a lot of pictures of the making of the blocks. I did surfaces the two faces and they were square. One thing to note is the using of a 7/8" router bit to counterboar the holes. I picked it some time ago because I knew I would be using a 3/8" x 7/8" support bearing for the leadscrews.

It is a solid carbite bit made by Whiteside in the USA

http://www.whitesiderouterbits.com/

This is a great tool making company with prices that are not too bad. Take a look at them if you want.

I tried to use the 7/8 bit with the drill press lots of times but it just has too much flex and runout to not make the hole too large. With the miss it only took a few seconds and the holes are .8755

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I want to try the router bit as a mill too some to see how it compares. For AL it should perform good if not better than a higher flute count end mill. It clears chips better and cuts super clean so only some testing will tell.

For the clamp I used a piece of 1/2" plate with a fork cut into it and a recess to allow for the leadscrew flange. You can see my 6" vise in this picture.This is a drill press vise not a true machines vice. I wanted to be able to hold 6" stock but there is no way I would want to put a true 6" Kirt clone on my machine. They are almost 24" long and weight in at 110lbs! I would also loose more travel from the extra mass.

Clamping AL has been fine so far and the vice is flat on the jaws to .0005 but there is some run in flatness of .015 I need to shim it or mill it flat. I may puck up a 3" or 4" vise for smaller work soon. It will lift up slightly when clamping hard which makes making a flat surface harder.

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A few lat shots of the finished clamp.


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OK I did a quick test with the 7/8 router straight bit to see how it cut on its face.

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I forgot that I torched the bit trying to bore into steel so it is not as sharp as you would like. It still did a nice job. I would like to see the end cuts and perhaps raise the speed which was about 1000 RPM.

Thanks for the pics AV! Your equipment (except for the mill) is close to mine and it helps to see your "work arounds". I have used the metal cutting blade you have and it really is surprising for a woodworker like me to see my machines handling metal. I plan to use your cut down spade bit idea as well when I can figure out how to "tram" my drill press. It's 30 year old Taiwan benchtop machine and as far as I can tell, it has NEVER drilled a vertical hole in its life. The table is perpendicular to the pole but the spindle is not and I cannot see a way to adjust it, shims or otherwise. I am going to dissassemble it further probably this week. Maybe something will show itself.

Az, I run my 1/2" 4 flute @3k, and the 3/4" @2k. You might get cleaner cuts...

Max speed is 2,500 RPM for this mill. Your not showing off are you

I have not changed speed yet because it is a PIA for this thing. I need to jump up on the table and loosen 3 10mm bolts and the motor lock to make most speed changes. Right now I'm doing both steel and some AL so I have left it set slow for the steel. I have not done any high end cuts yet unil I get my clamping kit back because of a defect (they forgot some steps on one part, the one you use all the time)

As soon as a can clamp I want to flatten the vise. The table is OK at .0005

I may build a A/C speed controller. I have most of the parts laying around just need some time....

The China motor is not that smooth so I don't know how fast it will go but many say you can run them up to 90HZ. Going slower is a problem with the starter engaging at low speed. I could bypass it or change the springs or just pick up a 3 phase because I have 3 phase in my house .

It was a hard call not to buy a big old 3 phase Bridgeport the resales is a lot lower on them because the non pro market does not have 3 phase.

I don't really need a wide range of speed but going from 1500 RPM to 2500 for a finish pass with out stopping would be nice. But first the AL mill..

Perhaps a change is due.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/tls/852642112.html


http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/tls/852512212.html

The KF might be good.

My new controllers are from kelinginc model #8056

They will take 80V at 5.6A so they should be able to be just as fast as the Gecko drive and they come with micro stepping.



The first plan was to put the controller under the Mill table but there was just not enough room for that with the lead screws under there and the much larger controller.

They are a lot larger than the Gecko so the heat sink will need to be larger too.

I might have gone a little over board with the one I found.

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This is the piece of scrap that I cut up that killed my last 10" AL blade. I have a new one now but I'm afraid to use it on this again.

The heatsink is about 9" x 14" made of 1/2" plate outside and 1'8" fins. I plan on putting it inside the computer box. The transformer is also going to be changed to one with a higher voltage so I need to leave a bit of extra room.

I will need to cut it down and also remove a piece of sheet metal to get it to fit but I think it will work. I need to find 4 x 4 pin plugs that will take 4A or 5A, If anyone knows a good low cost plug let me know.

On a sadder note working time will be less this week because of the need to help the family arrange for my Dads memorial service.

He passed away last Saturday night from hart failure. This has been well known, his hart has been working at about 15% for the last two years and we all knew the end was coming soon.

He was living about 100 miles away and his wife was doing a great job of taking care of him. I had talked to him just two days before.



May god bless and comfort him in his passing.

Sorry for your loss AV.
Your little-guy looks like he's growing like a weed in that last pic:)

Condolences...

Sorry for your loss AV.


Regards,
Traynor