Excellent. Hoping I get out of the cube early enough tomorrow that I can potentially try it then. If not, Saturday for sure.
Will also try noodling around in MDF, which makes my other question that I redacted earlier for brevity potentially more relevant. Should I do new strut plates in:
6mm MDF
6mm ply (I guess almost certainly not, but I have so much of it…)
5mm acrylic
~6mm alu checkerplate
Personally I like the idea of the acrylic but put off by the fact it “feels” less rigid. Entirely subjective, and I don’t think I’ve tried a comparative bend in the axis that’s actually relevant. (because I’m not completely sure which that is.)
I guess we should confirm with someone that there is enough space to use a 60mm long stepper. I think it can be managed but I don’t have an LR4. I know it doesn’t work for the other axes.
My struts on my LR3 are 6mm MDF. I’d choose that over plywood but not sure about acrylic.
I’m pretty sure it’ll fit, I don’t think there’s a length limit on X with where the stepper is positioned on the LR4 core - a certain speed demon German has put a closed loop stepper on X which I think is probably about the same length.
Indeed, I may or may not have already tried to cram some into the Y motor slots in an earlier frustration
For me the speeds and feeds to not match. The calculator I use gives me for a 3.175 single flute endmill in wood:
10 mm/s @12.000 rpm, max. 6 mm DOC
Or
24 mm/s @30.000 rpm same DOC
I think you are moving faster than the bit can keep up with. Try going slower or up the rpm. If the rpm are too high, you make dust not chips which wear down the bit more quick. But you should not loose steps. And try more doc, that helps keeping the bit cool.
With those steppers, I skip at 0.8 in x. I found even small increase makes a difference. Just increase say to 0.9 and check your temperatures by touch. That is something you can do with your current hardware without disappearing down a rabbit hole of thermal imaging and bar charts. Off the top of my head 40 degrees is safe for the steppers, the drivers shutdown when they get hot.
Depends if you want to get your machine in use and cut stuff of spend ages optimising things. I appreciate both can be fun things to do.
Not discounting it, just already have the alu on hand. But the idea of feeding it to the Rat does give me the scaries. Will pick up some MDF and titebond.
Making dust and not chips and cooking the bits is exactly what I am trying to avoid, that was what was happening continuously when I had the Katsu in place of the Makita. Higher RPM floor and less good at maintaining RPM I think.
Will try out both those speed and feed settings, thank you. I would like to get more DOC for sure, though personally aiming for 1 x diameter rather than 2 x. Don’t you need to slow down feed rate when using higher DOC than bit diameter? (For chip clearance time, I imagine)
I won’t do this with the current steppers but will try it if I get the Stepperonline ones. Cheers.
Definitely the former. I’ve been brute forcing cutting stuff by just running jobs anyway and restarting every time they crash…
Dual endstop repeatability is awesome!
No idea how it got like that or how long it’s been that way. Sat pretty well like that considering it’s totally wrong! (P.S. yes I know I need to get the airline out and get the crud off the rails before I ruin them )
I’ve put the bolt in just tight enough that it won’t fall out, it shouldn’t be providing any clamping force.
So a 60mm motor fits on X with a bit of fiddling. The router cable entry gets in the way a bit - I’ve twisted it in the holder slightly and it now sits fractionally (if at all) higher than it was before. Temporary solution I think, since I’ll need to order new 48mm motors to swap into the Y axes anyway as I’m fairly confident the current ones aren’t cutting it.
Whilst doing so I also noticed that the bearings have worn away enough idiot paint that there was a tiny wobble in the core, so snugged the bolts up to get rid of that.
I was too impatient for a series of scientific tests I’m afraid, I swapped the motor and changed my feeds based on Bastian’s advice before running a cut. I’ve also downloaded that app, super handy. Cheers!
Was able to finish off the plywood cut I gave up on the last time I used the machine, and then got my new plates cut.
Used a dull-ish 6mm 1flute (got crashed quite a lot in the plywood endplate days of the machine… ) with initially 10,000rpm/1 on router - this is what the Sorotec app said but I ended up upping it to about 2. Probably compensating for the dull endmill.
I worked my way up to 30mm/s feed and 6mm DOC. No skipped steps Dimensional accuracy remains to be seen, as does performance back in plywood…
I switched to the 6mm because I decided to “make my own” 1/4" MDF by pocketing out a chunk of my piece of 8mm. Not sure if that was a terrible idea. I can always get some actual 6mm if so.
They feel very floppy! So I need Titebond III for sure but it looks like this is about four times the american price for me, internet order only Any advice how much I might need to coat my plates? I don’t think I’ll be switching to it as my regular wood glue at that price!
I had that happen the other day when turned the knob on my CYD pendant a bit too fast and knocked my end stop off. Took me a few minutes to figure out why the machine was so crooked
I may put a loose bolt in as well just because once or twice when I’ve put blocks under the carriage to keep the router from hitting the table those leadscrew nuts have continued to drop lower when I bump the table and the next time I power the machine up it homes crooked because they didn’t line back up.
So it seems the Ratrider may not ride again Just as I’d started getting somewhere with the build, too. (Don’t worry, I didn’t burn it down!)
I have just received a formal noise complaint which bars me from making “unreasonable noise” indefinitely with the threat of a Very Large Fine, and confiscating equipment if breached. Unreasonable being conveniently undefined - theoretically I can’t even mow the lawn now!
I’d been careful to restrict running the machine to between 10:00 and 17:00 and never ever on Sundays (German style, and well within what is generally accepted as ‘reasonable hours’ for DIY…) for fear of this exact thing, but I guess not careful enough.
That is a bummer. Possible options include building an enclosure to mute the sound or switching the router to a laser.
How loud is it? Usually I run my router on a slow speed and it’s not that loud at all. The vacuum is louder (although I got a new one that is quieter).
It is kinda loud and annoying largely because of the tin shed its in. Hence me trying to restrict the hours to well inside that which is normally considered acceptable. But that’s not law, just convention, and now I’ve had a request to cease that’s 24/7 as I understand it
I was already thinking about both insulating the shed walls and building an enclosure within (double insulation, in effect) but that’ll be quite tricky to do without making noise! I also doubt it’ll be enough to satisfy whichever neighbour has complained…
Ditto suspect they’d still complain about noise from a laser chiller/extract. I’d need a hell of a laser for 22mm ply, too! (And kiboshes my plans to experiment in polycarb)
With how open ended and high consequence the threat is I’m just going to pack it in, for a good while at least. I’m away for the next two weeks anyhow.
If it turns out to be the same neighbour that lets their kid practice wheelies on dirt bikes in the street I’m going to blow my top… Tis exactly the sort of doublethink I’ve come to expect of my fellow Brits
Yeah, you know it - our regs are so open ended it seems that there’s a real chance they confiscate not just the CNC but the rest of my tools to boot…
“Statutory nuisance” describes most of the rest of my street between the people running mechanics workshops in their front gardens, loud motorbikes, music, throwing dishes off their balconies (???) and whatever… Yet I’m the one getting slapped with a “warning” (has a hell of a lot of teeth for a warning!).
I was hoping to be able to move into a proper workshop if I could start turning an income to vaguely justify it but I can hardly bootstrap that now.
As a German: Fight that letter. Ask who filed the complaint. Deny that you ever made some loud noise, it is possible the neighbour does not have proof. Let them show you a log of when the noise has been recorded. Just throw some sand in the gears.
Then file complaints for everything the neighbours do that is loud. Talk to a few of them, mention someone complained and that you are now going to do that from now on, too. Make sure everyone knows and that you‘d have liked for them to talk to you before filing a complaint…
Dimensional accuracy remains to be seen, as does performance back in plywood…
Any advice how much I might need to coat my plates? I don’t think I’ll be switching to it as my regular wood glue at that price!
Just as I’d started getting somewhere with the build, too. (Don’t worry, I didn’t burn it down!)
I’m away for the next two weeks anyhow.
