CNC-2116 - Up and running, sort of (2015-03-21)

[Yvan256]

I just ordered twelve pushbuttons, 12mm, with the proper Neo-Geo MVS colors. I got mine from a different seller, but it's the same buttons as shown in the photo below.

I should be getting 2 red, 2 yellow, 2 green, 2 blue, 3 white and 1 black buttons, if the seller reads the instructions attached to the eBay auction and/or the eBay message I sent to him directly after buying an auction for 12 black buttons.

I'll have to cut a new, slightly bigger controller for my CNC since the one I cut earlier was made for 10mm buttons , so if anyone is interested in the one I made a few posts ago, send me a PM and we'll discuss dimensions (precise Sketchup model available), price/trade and shipping.

If these buttons are good enough, I'll be using them in a future nano-MVS project.

edit 1: my special order of mixed colours was confirmed via email by the seller

edit 2: I bought and cut another 4x8', 3/8" thick MDF sheet today. Luckily the place where I bought it let me use their wall saw to cut all my stupid little 7x5 panels, see photo below. The floor at the bottom of that saw probably had a kilogram of MDF dust in the end.   

I now have (more than) enough panels to continue working on my belt drive modifications for CNC64 and for CNC256.

edit 3: the remote only needs to be 10% bigger to accommodate for the size of the new buttons.

edit 4: Digi-Key just increased the price of the 04A-B01 Grayhill joystick from around 16$ to 26$CAD, anyone know other sources for Canadian buyers? 

[PL1]

edit 4: Digi-Key just increased the price of the 04A-B01 Grayhill joystick from around 16$ to 26$CAD, anyone know other sources for Canadian buyers? 

Allied Electronics has the Grayhill 04A-B01 joystick here -- two thumbs up for this company and their outstanding customer service.   

According to their shipping page you can select CANCON (Canadian Direct Ship) or USPS shipping.
EDIT: Shipping page info outdated.    Sorry, Yvan56.


Scott

[Yvan256]

Allied Electronics has the Grayhill 04A-B01 joystick here -- two thumbs up for this company and their outstanding customer service.   

According to their shipping page you can select CANCON (Canadian Direct Ship) or USPS shipping.

Scott

Their website is not up-to-date, here's the reply I got from Allied Electronics:

As indicated on our website, UPS WW Saver is the most cost-effective shipping method. It is $19 and includes overnight shipping as well as all customs and brokerage fees. It is the equivalent of our old Cancon method.
 
DHL and USPS have been removed as shipping options for Canada.

So either I save 10$ on the joystick but pay 19$ for the shipping and hope there really isn't going to be any fees from UPS (I wouldn't count on it, last time I used UPS there was 30$+ in brokerage fees) or I pay 10$ more on the joystick and only pay 8$ for shipping, knowing I'd get it this week with no extra shipping fees. In either case, it's way too expensive considering the item. I could get a Seimitsu or a Sanwa joystick for that price less than that.

So instead of paying insane prices for what amounts to a cheap version of a joystick, I'm looking into continuing my own micro-joystick project, which would look like a smaller version of a Seimitsu LS-32. I still have enough 2.8mm thick, expanded PVC panels for such a small project and I already have the small microswitches. The expanded PVC should be strong enough at this size. It will make a nice side project and if enough people are interested I could start selling parts for them, including tiny custom-cut, 3/8" thick MDF control panels.

[Yvan256]

Today I received the S2M belt I ordered from eBay on august 26th. It only took two weeks to get something from Hong Kong. And no shipping fees, no duties, no problems.

I'm a dumbass, however, since one meter will only be enough for either the X or Y axis. I'll order two more meters as soon as I got one axis working with it.

The top of the Z-axis is ready for the belt drive, as you can see in the second photo. I'm using S2M belts because it would be pointless to remove the perfectly good metal pulleys from my three 103H5208 stepper motors.

[Yvan256]

Those LM8UU linear ball bearings are of really low quality. 

That is all.

edit: turns out the LM8UUs are fine, it's the rods I'm finding in printers and scanners which are a problem. Some are 7.99mm, others are 8.02mm, etc. I found that out while trying to fit the bronze bushings over some rods and measured them again with my digital calipers. 

[Yvan256]

Yesterday I ordered self-aligning bronze bushings from TechPaladin Printing.

I also have two CNC-related surprises in progress, I'll post about it once I have more than random painted panels to show. 

[Typefighter01]

  Can't wait 

[Yvan256]

Alright then, here's a teaser. A new pile of panels and my low-cost thien dust separator.

[Typefighter01]

The scale of that dust separator should work great with the size of CNC you are running. Looking good.

[Locke141]

Looks good.

I am loving all the DYI CNC builds on here.

I just got a small CNC to work at my job. They are a lot of fun.

[Yvan256]

Today I finally received the buttons. I'm not complaining about the shipping time since shipping was free.

The problem is, somebody made a mistake when I asked about getting coloured buttons instead of black buttons as stated in the eBay auction.

Here are the 12 buttons. Find the mistake.

 

[Slippyblade]

Did they seriously send you 12 colored AND 12 black?  For the same price?  Niiiiice.

[Rick]

Did they seriously send you 12 colored AND 12 black?  For the same price?  Niiiiice.

Look closer! Obviously, they included a free keyboard! SCORE!

[Nephasth]

Did they seriously send you 12 colored AND 12 black?  For the same price?  Niiiiice.

Happens a lot with Chinese vendors. I ordered around 20 momentary buttons like these, but they sent me 20 locking buttons instead. So I emailed them about it, and they sent me 20 momentary buttons for no additional charge and I didn't have to ship the others back. I've had this happen with other various electrical parts, like LEDs, too. It's a pain to wait sometimes, but it's always cheap, and they almost always make things right. YMMV.

[Rick]

Happens a lot with Chinese vendors.

E-Bay, Alibaba or other?

[PL1]

Did they seriously send you 12 colored AND 12 black?  For the same price?  Niiiiice.

Happens a lot with Chinese vendors. I ordered around 20 momentary buttons like these, but they sent me 20 locking buttons instead. So I emailed them about it, and they sent me 20 momentary buttons for no additional charge and I didn't have to ship the others back. I've had this happen with other various electrical parts, like LEDs, too. It's a pain to wait sometimes, but it's always cheap, and they almost always make things right. YMMV.

Same thing happened during the KADESTICK build.

Ordered 2 position DPDT On-On rocker switches but uxcell (the Hong Kong vendor) accidently shipped 3 position DPDT On-Off-On switches.
 
Once notified of the error, their top notch customer service team quickly sent replacement switches that got here several days before the delivery estimate on the original shipment.    


Scott

[Yvan256]

Bronze bushings

The bronze bushings from TechPaladin.com arrived yesterday. I now understand the "self-aligning" feature of those parts. They glide so smoothly on the printer/scanner rods that the LM8UU linear ball bearings seem really inferior by comparison.





New assembly plates

I was really tired of having bolts and nuts sticking out everywhere inside and outside the machine that I'm replacing the assembly plates with new ones that feature custom-cut countersunk holes for the bolt heads and the nuts. Yes, hexagonal holes. 









Threaded rod drive

Previously I talked about threaded rod drive versus belt drive, I tried making CNC64 bigger to be able to at least cut the control panel for MVS-99-6, etc. The problem is, the base of CNC64 is too low-profile to convert it into a belt drive CNC but I also didn't want it to go to waste. So I tested with a #6-32 threaded rod and nylon nuts and the result is nothing short of amazing. Using a nut on both sides of the moving platform, I can't feel any play and it turns extremely smooth (plastic on metal). I had to make tiny plates to hold the nylon nuts, using the same countersunk hole method as the new assembly plates.

So the goal is to complete CNC64 using this new method, along with its first copy. Oh, didn't I mention this already? There's another CNC64 machine that's nearly complete. It's not a clone since it was cut by the MDX-3, but it's a trade between me and my friend for the stepper driver board I mentioned in an earlier post.







A surprise

If the second CNC64 machine is not a surprise, then what is it, you ask? The surprise is what I currently call CNC86: a bigger CNC machine similar in design but with a belt drive instead of threaded rod. It's also bigger, big enough to cut all but five of the MVS-99-6 panels (sides, bottom, back, top). And those will be able to be cut in two passes, with the side panels being cut in bottom/top parts, assembled later. The cutting area is a bit bigger than 8x6 inches but I had to round down since "CNC 8.74016 6.37795" doesn't sound as catchy. I'm using inches for the names since otherwise it would be called "CNC222162" which is just plain bad (222x162mm cutting area, for those wondering).

Edit: how about CNC2016? (20x16 cm) But then I would need to rename CNC64 and call it CNC1510 instead...





There's one thing that I need to mention again: I hate painting. 

For those who wanted an update on the little MVS-style remote, don't worry. I'm just stuck at finding bolts locally to complete the custom mini-joystick that will be used inside it.

[Rick]

It all looks amazing! You should be extremely proud!

Now, onto the critical question. Because it looks like you're using MDF, and you've painted it to the point of expansion, do you think this is going to cause any issues regarding precision? I don't think it would cause an issue, but as a guy who's waffling between cutting up MDF and spending buttloads more on baltic or russian birch plywood, I figured I'd "ask the source".

Again - LOOKING GOOD!

[Yvan256]

It all looks amazing! You should be extremely proud!

Thank you, but the credit only goes for the design, my old Roland MDX-3 did the rest of the work. 

Now, onto the critical question. Because it looks like you're using MDF, and you've painted it to the point of expansion, do you think this is going to cause any issues regarding precision? I don't think it would cause an issue, but as a guy who's waffling between cutting up MDF and spending buttloads more on baltic or russian birch plywood, I figured I'd "ask the source".

Again - LOOKING GOOD!

I only applied 2-3 coats of acrylic paint on the panels, they haven't expanded one bit. If you're asking my opinion between MDF and baltic/russian birch plywood, let me tell you that once I have used all the little panels from the second MDF sheet that I bought, I will never buy MDF ever again. High-grade plywood is the way to go if you can afford it.

One thing you should check out is MDO plywood. I can't find that stuff locally but people who tried it seem to like it a lot. You can go on http://buildyourcnc.com to see what MDO plywood looks like.

[Yvan256]

Okay, so those bronze bushings really are precise. More precise than my MDX-3 is at aligning two holes, apparently.  The LM8UU didn't seem to complain about my rods alignment but the bronze bushings always seem to jam near the end points near the plates supporting them. I have checked my measurements three times and made a series of four test plates. Nothing seems to help. 

So I'm modifying my approach to have bronze bushings on one rod and Lucite plates with elongated holes on the other rod. After re-checking my old Roland MDX-3, it seems all its axes are build this way, bronze bushings on one rod and a simple two-pins plastic "fork" riding on the other rod. To avoid bending/torsion, the force is applied on the side with the bronze bushings. Most printers and scanners are also built this way, two bronze bushings on the belt side and the other side just rides directly on a little wheel or on plastic.

Since Lucite is an extremely hard plastic, it takes around 4 hours and 45 minutes for the MDX-3 to cut a single plate. It's going to take six of those plate. One down, five to go...

The edge is not clean at the bottom because my CAD program still lacks tabs.

Edit: I have now added "ramping cuts" for some functions of my CAD program, the MDX-3 can now cut one of those little Lucite plate in 30 minutes and one of those 2x2 holes MDF assembly plate in only 16 minutes.

Edit 2: ramping cuts are nice but cutting too much material puts stress on the structure of the MDX-3 and the cuts end up all wrong. Back to the old cutting speeds. 

[Yvan256]

Small update to my CNC64/CNC1510 project.

I made new Lucite plates with rectangular holes:



Going with rectangular holes seem to result in better precision (too much play in all axes of the MDX-3), I probably have about a quarter of the thickness of a paper sheet of lateral play with my new Lucite plates and the X-axis assembly slides very smoothly. The other axes are next but I want to complete the X-axis before continuing, so...


I also made motor/threaded rod couplers from expanded PVC:



The new couplers are great for three reasons, compared to my previous fuel hose and clamps couplers:
- they're more compact
- they're cheaper to make
- they look better

Since there is almost zero force needed to move with the bronze bushings + lucite plates combo driven by dual nylon nuts, I'll try to use the low-cost unipolar motors on CNC64/CNC1510 with my home-made IRZ14 stepper drivers.

I'll keep the fancy 3-axis micro-stepping board for my bigger, belt-driven CNC86/CNC2016.

[Yvan256]

Some panels still needs a coat of paint, otherwise the Z-axis is completed and 100% working. It's also using four 8mm bronze bushings. The MDX-3 isn't precise enough but it's always the same lack of precision, so after doing a few tests plus/minus 0.1mm of what I need, I can get usable parts that are aligned for the rods and bushings.

The new Z-axis is also a lot more compact and lighter than my previous one. The old surplus 4.00$CAD Japan Servo KP4M2-008 motor has no problem whatsoever moving the Black & Decker RTX up and down, so the other two motors won't have any problem with the X and Y axis either.

The green panels are discarded cuts of Sonopan sheets, given to me by a cousin. I've calculated that I have just enough to make a soundproof box for my belt-driven CNC. I'm still debating on how to do the actual box. I have enough hardboard but I don't think it would be strong enough for a box that size.

Now that the smaller and most problematic axis is done, I'll continue with the other two. I'll do the X-axis next since that's what the Z-axis is connected to. I already had the Y-axis working with lucite plates on one side to prevent binding/sticking though. I'm going to try switching to four bronze bushings there too.

Hopefully, at the current rate, I should have the first CNC64 up and ready before Christmas. If all goes well I would like to have the second one ready too, since my friend has been waiting since this summer.

[Yvan256]

I'm building a soundproof box for the Roland MDX-3 / CNC64. The local sign shop keeps giving me their plastic sheets offcuts and the last lot had relatively big pieces. Big enough that I was able to cut panels to make a small soundproof box for CNC64. What you see in the third image is the panels just sitting in place, held up by gravity. It took me about half a dozen attempts before it stayed up so I could take a photo. The problem is, I had enough PVC but only by having the bottom and back panels made from two panels. The fact that the top and the front are also cut in two for the opening door makes the whole thing look like a jigsaw puzzle.

The Roland MDX-3 will also fit if I cut about 40mm of the front legs and re-wire the parallel port to the top/back of the machine. I've wanted to re-wire the control panel at the top and bring it to the front for a while anyway so I might as well do everything in one step. But I'm not doing anything to the MDX-3 before CNC64 is up and running, just in case.

The soundproof box will open at the top+front, I'm just not sure if I'm going with an L-shaped door or two separate panels yet. I want to put a handle at the top but it would get in the way of an L-shaped door when opening it. It might be better to go with handles on the side, I'm still exploring options.

I still need to cut the sonopan and masonite panels but I did make a test cut on the sonopan yesterday while I was cutting the PVC panels. I was afraid it would just rip to shreds but as you can see in the fourth image, the cut is extremely clean.

There's still little "details" like letting wires in and hot air out, but I'm not at that point yet. I have enough sonopan that a soundproof air vent at the back/top is an option but I still need to design it. Hopefully I have enough PVC left to make it.

The current design, from the inside-out, is a sandwich of 3mm masonite, 19mm sonopan, 10mm expanded PVC (except the back and the bottom which are 13mm expanded PVC). I'm hoping the air bubbles in the expanded PVC will provide an additional layer of soundproofing. I have about 1cm of clearance inside the box versus the dimensions of CNC64, so if I need to add more layers to increase the soundproofing I should be able to add 3mm cork sheets and/or corrugated cardboard between the hardboard and the sonopan.

[Typefighter01]

Just curious, have you ever used Dynamat, and if so, how does it compare to Sonopan for sound proofing or deadening (price, ease of use, etc..)?

Your Z axis turned out pretty slick BTW.

[Yvan256]

Just curious, have you ever used Dynamat, and if so, how does it compare to Sonopan for sound proofing or deadening (price, ease of use, etc..)?

Your Z axis turned out pretty slick BTW.

No sorry, in fact you can say I never used sonopan either since I won't really know the "results" until the box is done. I'm using sonopan because it was free offcuts. What I can say about sonopan is that it feels like a thick hard foam panel made with paper fibers. It cuts real nice on a table saw so I'm giving it 10/10 for ease of use.

Thank you for the comment about the Z-axis, I'm really happy with the result too. But... I think I can shave 1~2 millimetres on each side, which would increase the X-travel by 2~4mm. It's not much so I'll probably only make those modifications for the second CNC64 though.

[Yvan256]

I've bolted all the PVC panels together and installed three right angle brackets in the cover, all I'm missing is the hinges.

After that I need to finish cutting the sonopan panels which I couldn't do because the sides weren't at 90 degres, I plan on cutting them manually from this point, test-fitting them one by one in the PVC box to be sure everything is alright before cutting the next one, etc.

The noise reduction from the PVC box alone is already quite good with the MDX-3, so I don't anticipate any problems once the sonopan is in place with the masonite to cover it all in the inside. I guess all those air bubbles in the expanded PVC do help a bit after all.

At this point I'm getting used to designing and assembling projects made from smaller panels, I've been thinking about a first revision of MVS-99-6 made from 150x90mm panels. 

[Yvan256]

Well, it had to happen. The MDX-3 is no longer fully functional. The spindle still works but one of the Z-axis assembly part is made of plastic and it's too loose to make precise cuts anymore. I'll have to design a completely new Z-axis assembly to make the MDX-3 work again. 

On a positive note, the parts required to finish CNC64 were already cut and I finished (temporarily) assembling the whole thing so that it could make its first cut, which was simply a 13x13mm square, about 5mm deep. It was supposed to be a 10x10mm square but I messed up my calculations. 

So, how did it go? I can summarize the result with two words: huge success! 

The horizontal cuts on the right were the actual first tests with only the Y-axis and Z-axis wired up, but they doesn't really count since this CNC has three axis and the square is the first cut to use all three. 

[Yvan256]

Since I haven't been able to move forward on my mini-joystick project (stupid small bolts), I had to find another way to control CNC64 manually.



The wires used by Nintendo were some kind of twisted foil around a thin rope and it's almost impossible to solder these things and finding a female socket is near impossible unless you take apart an old NES, so I rewired the gamepad with an old DB9 cable.

The NES gamepad is very easy to read, it's just a 4021 shift register and only require 3 pins on the ATmega328P!

Pressing left/right moves the RTX left/right, pressing up/down makes the bed move to the back/front and pressing B/A moves the RTX up/down.

Just to make things interesting I'll program it so that every press I do makes it move 2.54mm. That will allow me to manually drill a blank PCB with a fine drill bit and see if it matches up with a protoboard.

After a few manual tests, I will program the ATmega328P to make it cut the 3rd stepper driver board because the components are currently installed on the larger protoboard you see in the photo.

The keyboard is not part of the project.

[Typefighter01]

Cool idea 

Can you use the "select" and "start" buttons for other often used functions (pause, e/stop, zero all axis)?

[Yvan256]

After wasting a few hours with the pinout and wiring of the NES gamepad, trying to check which pins of the 4021 were connected to which colour of wires and mixing up the clock and data lines and not completely understanding how to "shift left" variables in GCC-AVR, I used another NES gamepad I had lying around.

It took what seems forever but I now have manual control of all 3-axis of CNC64. Well, I will have control, once everything is wired up. The wires of those surplus KP4M2 motors are rather short and I'm still missing my 3rd stepper driver board, but all the parts work. I have a tiny hope of completing the machine before 2014, except maybe painting the remaining panels which are already installed. I'm afraid that if I disassemble the panels to paint them, the machine won't work properly again once re-assembled. I'll wait until I can either finish the second CNC64 or repair the MDX-3.

Cool idea 

Can you use the "select" and "start" buttons for other often used functions (pause, e/stop, zero all axis)?

They could be used for that later, however I still need to add limit switches to all axis. But I'm thinking [Select] to go "home" so that I can install material / remove cut parts the same way "Home" works on my MDX-3, and [Start] could be wired to a relay to start/stop the RTX. 

[Yvan256]

There's a tiny backlash problem with regular threaded rods and my friend and I are afraid the nylon nuts will wear out too fast. The machines would also be way too slow for relief carving, which is something my friend will probably be interesting in.

I'm now cutting new parts for both CNC64 machines so that they will be belt-driven. I solved the problem of the low-profile base by mounting the Y-axis motor upside-down. Simple enough but I didn't think about that solution the first time around. I lose the ability of letting the panels to cut go beyond the back of the unit, but it's a small trade-off so that I can keep using the currently cut, painted and assembled bases.

edit: the MDX-3 keeps failing, I'm now cutting trying to cut parts to replace both the Z-axis assembly and the spindle. I'm making the mounting holes compatible with the Black & Decker RTX mount, so I'm only three parts away from an upgrade (the parts in blue in the image below), I already received the 6mm bushings from China. About half of them were bad, so the seller is sending me another full lot of bushings as a replacement.

edit 2: I've attached the Black & Decker RTX mount to the MDX-3 Z-axis with a single screw. There is a small plastic nub on the Z-axis that sort-of prevents the mount from rotating, and so far all cuts seem to be clean. It's making a lot less noise than the old MDX-3 spindle used to. I'll take a photo of this Frankenstein of a contraption once it's done cutting the current part.

edit3: Photo of what I call the "Roland RTX-3". 

[Yvan256]

The new Z-axis assembly is in place and working, the MDX-3 now uses my Black & Decker RTX rotary tool instead of the original, badly-designed spindle! 

The part being cut is a plate for a NEMA23 stepper motor mount. In all the NEMA 17 stepper motors I currently have, none has a 5mm shaft and can be wired as bipolar, so my only option is to use my NEMA 23 steppers. I wanted to keep them for CNC86 or even my bigger machine that's going to use my Hitachi M12VC, but that can be changed later.

I already received my GT2 belts and 6.35mm ID pulleys, which were needed because those NEMA 23 steppers were made in the USA and the shafts are 0.25 inch.

The other good news is that the NEMA 23 steppers have almost exactly the same height as my NEMA 17 steppers with the S2M metal pulley, so I'll be able to use them on CNC86 if I ever decide to buy NEMA 17 steppers for CNC64.

Driver board: check
Stepper motors: check
Belt and pulleys: check

Progress!   

[Yvan256]

I made a serious mistake with the new Z-axis assembly. I guess I was tired when I did the mistake, because it's really dumb.


Here's how I designed the assembly in Sketchup:




But since I wanted to have flush bolt heads:




I had to countersink the bolt holes:




However, since the design required a slot for a part on the back:




I had to do the countersink on the other side:




But I had to do that countersink, manually, with a drill bit on the other side:




And what had to happen, happened. The thin wall of expanded PVC broke, the bolt could no longer hold the part on the other side, the RTX mount wasn't tied to the Z-axis assembly anymore, the RTX became randomly offset with the programmed pattern and the end mill bit just continued cutting anyway:




Ouch.

I learned two things from this mistake:

• the RTX is powerful enough to cut at least 1/4 of the thickness of the MDF at a time, so I'll program deeper cuts next time, maybe 1/16" just to be on the safe side. With 3/8" thick MDF, this means only 6 passes to cut through, compared to my usual... 70 or so.
• The RTX is powerful enough to actually burn the end mill bit, that means I don't have to worry about the power of my spindle anymore, which is a good thing for future cuts with my modified "Roland RTX-3", for CNC64 and for CNC86.

I'll patch the broken part with a big washer, offset the bolt head thickness with washers, cut new Z-axis assembly parts again (maybe in double, to have a backup), order more Dremel #650 end mill bits (with a few spares as backup this time) and continue forward. 

[Yvan256]

I had problems with the new Z-axis assembly, I think there was too much friction on the Z-axis rods because the cutting depth wasn't as constant as it should have been from hole to hole. So, I had install the original spindle back on. Again. 

I've made the motor pivot stronger, so it should last for quite a while now.

In the meantime, my friend ordered two more Dremel #650 end mills this week and received them two days later. Considering how remote our small town is, it's amazingly fast. Kudos to Amazon.ca for the delivery speed.

The MDX-3 is cutting a NEMA23 mounting plate for CNC64/CNC86.

Edit: plate is cut, perfect fit with the motor. I have two GT2 pulleys for the NEMA23 motors of the X and Y axis.

[Typefighter01]

Looks like you won the race Yvan    .

1st-I have a crush on amazon.ca.
2nd-Mounting plate looks perfect.

[Yvan256]

Looks like you won the race Yvan    .

1st-I have a crush on amazon.ca.
2nd-Mounting plate looks perfect.

The race is still on, CNC64/CNC86 are far from finished. By the time your machine is up and running, you'll be able to cut all the panels for dozens of my machines before my MDX-3 would have the time to cut a single large panel. 

[Yvan256]

All the parts for the NEMA 23 stepper motor assembly are ready, except for two coats of paint. All that's needed to upgrade the Y axis to belt drive is the plate for the other side where the idler pulley will be installed.

2014-05-13, update 1: I just ordered F686ZZ flanged bearings to make the belt idlers. That's another delay of two three weeks. 

2014-05-13, update 2: angelinvestment2010 has already shipped my flanged bearings. This guy is fast! 

2014-05-16, update 3: the tracking number for the package still hasn't shown up in China's postal service database. 

2014-05-19, update 4: "International item has left originating country and is en route to Canada"

[Yvan256]

If I'm going to wait for the F686ZZ flanged bearings to get here, I might as well cut panels in advance so that I'm ready when they arrive. I might even find something else to use temporarily in the meantime.

[Yvan256]

Since I need to cut new plates for the Y-axis for the belt drive, I've decided to try to fix the bushings alignment problem.

Lucky me, the new design for the part "Y1" fits four times on one plate.



The new Y-axis assembly design has seven distinct parts, with four plates having one bushing each. Two top plates will then join the front and back plates+bushings and the left and right side will be joined together with a plate with slotted holes. The end result is something that can be easily aligned after assembly.

Here's an exaggeration of the "sliding" design that should allow perfect alignment with the Y-axis rods. We're talking about plus or minus a fraction of a millimetre here. Alignment has to be perfect, as I learned the first time around. Those bushings are extremely precise.



And here's the four Y1 plates with their bronze bushings.



Belt attachment design and three more plates to go.

[Yvan256]

If I had started cutting panels this morning instead of this afternoon, I'd be almost done with this... 

Oh well, here's the almost-first-half of the new Y-axis assembly.

Half-enjoy!

P.S.: the next post should bump this thread to page 6, I'm probably not the only one who's tired of downloading all those old photos from months ago. ;-)