More Army Pics

My first FTX exercise in Germany 1972

First attempt at using t-shirt iron-on paper.

My very first working flash clock.

AVRE and Wolfgang in Saltou exercise (forged with photoshop)

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My desktop background image made using photoshop.

Some of 31 AES boys in front of Cpt. Bridges car.

FTX 1972 cleaning bridge.

Royal Engineers

Served with the Royal Engineers from 1970 - 1974, after training got posted to 31 Workshop Regiment in Longmarsten near Stratford-Upon Avon and from there to 31 Armoured Engineer Squadron in Osnabruck Germany.

The "badges" and "flags" are not the original squadron designs, they are my own designs for own use.

Hung up router for the time being.

As we are moving to another house in a few weeks I've taken my CNC to pieces and "hung up" my router for the time being. When we have settled in to our new home, space permitting, I will build a bigger and better one, hopefully. When  I do, I will do a new write up of how I build it from scratch to finish including photos. The old one did work quite good with a few modifications but eventually the screws  used to hold it all together started to loosen and the whole thing became a bit wobbly.

I learned a lot using the old one and have realized where I made design mistakes that could easily be modified and made much better. On my next one I intent to use nuts and bolts to join the woodwork together which will make it more sturdy and should last a lot longer. One of the things that really bugged me was the "wobble" in the moving X-table. I've already experimented using four sliders on the old CNC using two under the "bed" and two on the sides seems to have eliminated most of the wobble. But because I had to do it in a hurry before I took it apart, I didn't line up the sliders perfectly so the "bed" did not move as smoothly as it needed and put a lot of strain the stepper motor couplers braking two in the process. I intend to experiment more using 4 sliders as soon as we have settled in in our new home. Using more expensive sliders that don't wobble as much as the cheaper version should give me better results.

It may take a while till I build me a new CNC but I will build another one, even if it's only a small one for PCB making.

TB6560 driver board and LinuxCNC settings.

The screen shots below are the settings I use for my 3 Axis TB6560 stepper driver board (blue PCB).

Please note that there are different types of these TB6560 boards with different pinout settings so the settings below might not work with your board.

I just gave the machine a name (TB6560-mill) and changed from inches to millimetres,  I left the rest at default settings.

I have as yet not done the "Test Base Period Jitter", I probably will one day but as I have not had any problems till now I'll probably just leave it as it is. 

Parallel Port "Step" and "Direction" settings for the X, Y and Z axis.  I'm not using an "E-Stop" switch but if you are, you need to set it up here. 

Only showing the X-Axis above but Y axis is also set as above.
 

The Z-Axis "Maximum Velocity" set to "10" (slower than the X and Y axis), the rest of the setting are same as the X and Y-Axis. 
The above setting are for M12 threaded rods with a 1.75mm pitch which I used for all axis, if you use different size rods you will need enter the pitch value to match your own "lead screws".

I have the driver board setup to run at 1/2 (half) steps so the "Driver Microstepping" is set to "2" . Change this setting to match the settings on your board (ie: 8 for 1/8 or 16 for 1/16).

The "Maximum Velocity" and Maximum Acceleration" values depends on your stepper motors and power supply so change these values until your stepper run without missing steps. Start with a low value and test the motor by clicking on "Test this axis". If  the motor does not miss steps then increase the values and test again. However, if it does miss steps then you obviously need to decrease the value. 

When you finish setting up the "stepconf" a folder and one file will be saved to your desktop. The folder and file name will be whatever name you have given your machine (in my case I just used the name "TB6560" so my file is named "Launch TB6560". Next step is to edit the ""name of the machine.hal" file which you can find in the folder LinuxCNC created on your desktop.

Look for the following lines below and delete them all, they are all in one paragraph so will be easy to find.

Note: Pin numbers will be different to those given in the example below.

net xstep => parport.0.pin-02-out
setp parport.0.pin-02-out-reset 1
net xdir => parport.0.pin-03-out
net ystep => parport.0.pin-04-out
setp parport.0.pin-04-out-reset 1
net ydir => parport.0.pin-05-out
net zstep => parport.0.pin-06-out
setp parport.0.pin-06-out-reset 1
net zdir => parport.0.pin-07-out
net astep => parport.0.pin-08-out
setp parport.0.pin-08-out-reset 1
net adir => parport.0.pin-09-out
net xenable => parport.0.pin-17-out

Now copy and paste the lines below and save. I don't think it matters where you paste them in the file but I paste them at the same place where I deleted the above lines. 

# X-Axis pins
net xstep => parport.0.pin-01-out
net xdir => parport.0.pin-07-out

# Y-Axis Pins
net ydir => parport.0.pin-03-out
net ystep => parport.0.pin-08-out

# Z-Axis Pins
net zdir => parport.0.pin-04-out
net zstep => parport.0.pin-05-out

# X, Y, Z Enable pins
net xenable => parport.0.pin-14-out
net yenable => parport.0.pin-02-out
net zenable => parport.0.pin-06-out

setp parport.0.pin-01-out-reset 1
setp parport.0.pin-05-out-reset 1
setp parport.0.pin-08-out-reset 1

LinuxCNC should now be working.

If anyone has any questions please leave a comment and I'll try and help as best as I can. 

Good luck.

Woodworking.

Some of my recent woodworking projects.

Bathroom cabinet. 

Planter for the wife's garden. Notice I said the "wife's garden", I'm just a guest who is only allowed to  do the woodworking side of things and not allowed to help her weed cause I pull out the flowers instead of the weeds. Not my fault I wasn't born with green fingers. LOL

Coffee table I made for son number 1 a few weeks ago when he moved into his first flat.

Some of the things I made with the CNC.

All the pieces are engraved using a tool made out of a piece of broken 6.35mm drill bit, not perfect but shows that the cnc is working. Next step is to  make a bigger and better one, after we move to a new place.

Grandson number 1. Used oak to make this one, turned out pretty good except that the grain is a little too strong which spoils the pic a little.

Grandson number 2. My very first try, MDF not good for this.

The dragon was engraved on to a piece of plexiglass then the groves were filled with acrylic paint for dragon mad son number 2.

The wife would probably kill me if she knew I posted the "birthday card" I made for her. 

The lion above (Yogi) was the emblem for 31 Armoured Engineer Squadron I served with back in  the early - mid 70's. The top one was engraved on to a piece of pine and the bottom one on to a piece of plexiglass and hand painted using acrylic paint. I am not really happy with the plexiglass version and am looking into ways/technics of making more professional looking ones. 

My first, nearly finished CNC, actually this is the  third one. The first one was a moving gantry style but I didn't make a good job of it. It was too big for my garage workshop and didn't turn out very stable, the gantry was very shaky so I took it apart, never made a photo of that one so can't post it.

The second one was better, more robust and stable than the first one. A good clean up and a coat of paint and it would looked pretty good too. But, just as I was finishing off the Z-axis we got notice from our landlord to vacate  the premises. The idiot built a large extension to the rear of the house without planning permission and got caught just before the 4 year period before it became legal if no one had noticed it. He is in deeeeeeepppp s*&t up to his eyebrows so now he wants us out so that he can get the builders  in to reduce it down to legal size. I don't know if he has but I hope he pays a huge fine, he deserves whatever he got and is/may be coming to him.

Anyway, as we don't know if we will get another house with a garage or not I've had to change my plans again and make a smaller one, small enough to fit into a small shed maybe or even in the house somewhere. I might build a box around it to make it look like part of the furniture and use it in  the garden when I need to. Below is what I came up with.

Nearly finished, just the stepper motors and the electronics to fit after a good clean up. I might even give it a coat of paint or varnish after I tested it and done the final adjustments to make sure the router is running level with the table.

Overall measurements: 420mm (W) x 460mm (D) x 540 (H) without the stepper motors.

The working size is about 250mm x 380mm, measured from the centre of the cutting tool.

Table: 345mm x 460mm
Travel : 380mm

The drawer slides are left over from another project that never got finished,   they are temporary and will be replaced by better ones. 

Side view.


Gantry:
535mm high, 150mm bottom, 75mm top.

Z - Axis setup:
Left: 16mm stainless steel rod salvaged from a machine I took apart a few years ago and two 16mm  linear  bearings bought from EBAY sometime ago for another project that never got done.


Middle: 2mm pitch Lead screw with its own nut, pulled out of an old machine a few years ago, can't even remember what sort of a machine it was.


Right:  Stainless steel tube with it's own bushing I salvaged from an old laser printer, can't remember which one, took many apart.


I sandwiched the bearings/bushing and the nut in V grooves I cut in to two pieces of plywood. I used hot glue to keep them in place while I screwed the two pieces together and screwed another piece on top of that one. I then secured the router to a longer piece with jubilee clips and secured that on the previous one. I guess I'll find out if it'll all hold together when I start using the machine.


Measurements:
120mm (W) x 242mm (H)
Travel: 85mm

Linear bearing made out of right angle aluminium, skateboard bearings and 
20mm electrical conduit.

Bottom view.


The box is made out 70mm x16mm pine, cut from old 150mm bed slats.


Measurements:
Front and back : 70 x 420
Sides and braces : 70 x 443

Anti backslash nut.


This is how I made mine.


I used a spring to force the two M12 nuts apart and joined  the two nuts together by welding a piece of steel across them. I then welded another two pieces of steel together in a cross shape and welded that on the opposite side of the two nuts. Using two pieces of 18mm plywood as spacers I secured it to the underside of the table with two screws. 


It looks like it will do the job but will it hold? Time will tell I guess, if it falls apart then I'll have to think of something else. 

What's this blog about?

I've been thinking about setting up a website for my hobbies for a while but then I will need a domain name as well and both website and domain names cost money, blogging doesn't and if I decide to give it up I will have lost nothing.

I have a couple of hobbies, woodworking/woodturning and electronics. I'm not a master of any just a hobbyist making things that we might need in the house or I could use in my garage workshop.

About a year ago I got interested in making a CNC machine but couldn't pluck up the courage to make a start, I had no clue where to start. I did a lot of research and read a lot but still didn't know what motors to buy, what "breakout boards" were, what driver board and PSU I would need for the motors etc.

A few weeks ago, on an electronics forum I was getting help with for another project, I mentioned that I wanted to build a CNC, one guy, Pete, kindly offered his help. I'm very glad he did because without his help I probably would still not have the courage to make a start. Pete has been great and I'm very grateful for all his help and tirelessly answering my questions, thank you Pete.

I got the motors, the built is almost finished (the third one but more about that later) but have been let down by the Hong Kong company I ordered the driver board from. It's been over four weeks now and I still have not received it. I have had to open a dispute on Paypal and escalate it to a claim in the hope that I get a full refund so that I can buy another one from someone who will, hopefully, deliver. This isn't the first time I've had probems with overseas companies but definitely will be the last time, never again. From now on, I will stick to buying from local sellers. Yes, I know, most of the stuff comes from China anyway but at least it will be easier to contact them in case something goes wrong and cheaper to return the stuff.

Anyways, this is what this blog is all about, how I built my CNC, more to follow.

EricD