If you “officially” picked a router in europe and made a mount for it, you might save a lot of people a lot of trouble. I like my makita stuff and that seems pretty popular. Another fork in the setups though.
I’m not surprised the mount is weak. I am surprised the motor itself is. If you just look at the mount with the scale of the rest of that parts, it looks like a clear bottleneck. I hope it’s as easy as building a stronger mount.
Not much of a router choice in Germany so far. We have some cheap clone makitas like the katsu handheld router for ~50€ on amazon. Other than that most start at 200€ + for makita/bosch/kress. Even dewalt is expensive here.
I started with a brushed import spindle as well and had exactly the same issues as Tom. Changed to a really old AEG trim router that we found in my grandpa’s cellar and all my chatter problems were gone.
When he attached it, I remember it was mounted on the “tube”, and I wondered if wouldn’t be better if he attached it to the “caps” on both ends : better lever, and the rotational axis is mounted on the caps, not on the tube…
Also the clamps were close one to the other… Too close for my taste.
In europe pretty the only cheap option is the Katsu, which is a makita clone.
It’s also pretty hard to find collet adapters for it and such, which means it makes it much harder to use 1/8" bits. Which is why he didn’t go for the makita he did have, it simply limits tool choice too much. Same reason why I’m using the same kind of spindle, weak as it is. Mostly the shaft isn’t rigid enough, it has enough torque.
At this point I wonder if a 800W spindle would work, a bit more expensive, but at least you get ER collets. The weight is a big issue though.
I really think it’s just the stick out at the bottom of these spindles. I’ve done aluminum with mine. I did the ladder tags for my work truck with it. Took a couple hours dialing in the speeds and feeds though. After yesterday’s test, I think I’m going to keep the dewalt on. I also discovered I need to reprint a couple of the center section parts in pla. The petg is too flexy.
I wonder if using a makita, and chucking in a er11 with a 8mm shaft will work. I think these BLDC ones use a 5mm one? It will still have some stickout, probably really similar to the ones on the chinese motors, but at least with a stronger shaft.
Maybe even a 10 or 12mm shaft with an er16 on the end. That should counteract the stickout of the shaft nicely. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Generic-Collet-Holder-Straight-Milling/dp/B00M0H0V5A/ref=sr_1_9?keywords=er16&qid=1567347235&s=gateway&sr=8-9
Another confirmation from Jan. So if it has to do with these spindles, can I make a mount to fix it?
I am not sure another mount would fix the issues. I think it comes down to the fact that these spindles usually have a very small rod connecting the motor and the chuck. Iirc mine was about 5mm diameter. They just are prone to that and due to the low rpm, and the fact that the mpcnc has some give, it might amplify that vibration quite a bit. If you can trust the manufacturers included mount, than they are supposed to be mounted across the whole black tube. Just as a starting point for a printed one.
I was so surprised at the end of the build series and hope to see some an upcoming video where he resolves it all. Like Ryan said it’s unlike anything I’ve seen over my months of lurking. After it all yesterday scrubbed though the video and also noted how close the two tool mounts were to each other. I’ve been working on printing the parts for my MPCNC over the last few months and bought a majority of hardware from Ryan. I can’t wait to get started.
Ryan have you had any contact with Thomas after yesterday’s build? Has he brought you into the process at all besides being a chat mod?
Ryan I’d love to see you publish more YouTube content. I think it would be so good for the community and help really show off the machines capabilities. Yesterday was a big day for the MPCNC and I believe Thomas will dial everything in eventually.
Nope, only contact was the interviews he posted, and a few minutes chat before them.
Thanks, I feel the same way…I do kinda feel like my content doesn’t count as much since my stuff should be “perfect”. Some peoples builds work better than mine, or they are just more courageous, and some are worse. You are right though, Tom did tell me in that chat before the interview to grab some nice lights and it really helps the videos, so I have nice lights, just need to use them.
Glad to to see you have not been swayed negatively at all, and it seems the comments in those videos feel the same way. I love you all for being so supportive. I do take this more personally than I probably should but seeing all the comments and points of view makes me feel great. Sales are still strong and have actually picked up a bit so, I guess it isn’t a big deal. I do strive to fix or know what the issue is.
He is running parallel and at less than one amp if I am not mistaken. What happens to steppers at that low power, springs? We are running at about 1.4A/stepper, not 1A split between two.
IIRC his description of the spindle mentioned that darker area in the center, where his mounts are, is a plastic sheath covering the internals. The two ends look to be aluminum. I think that putting the mounts on the aluminum portion would be a huge improvement. He did build awfully tall for aluminum, though another inch or two of spoil board before the workpiece would have helped a bunch with that.
Ryan, when you get the spindle in look closely to see if there’s a possibility for mounting using the end caps instead of that center section.
I did really like the Duet setup web page… That would make things so much simpler.
I was hoping there was some holes in the end cap to screw into it something, at least on the collet side. Heck on the dewalt mount I even extended the top to get extra leverage.
The only other time I have seen a setup page like that was reptier firmware, not sure what the duet uses. Embarrassingly I have not looked into it at all. I am not a big board nerd. I did love the unplugged errors though, how freaking cool was that!
I sure hope he plans a follow up video and addresses the issues. I have to admire the juggling act he pulled off this past week. Not easy to do and he managed to balance it all very well. Just that jump into milling without ensuring stability. I don’t have that at all with mine and mine is 750mm x 750mm.
Very helpful to the cause in the build out. But troubleshooting is always a good video anyway.
No, they wouldn’t be springs. They might have a bit more jitter but as soon as they get pushed more than one wgole step, they will skip to the other step. So up to 0.16mm and then they will skip steps.
DAng…although that is a good thing.
The esp32 boards by Bart habve a very similar looking page. It will save you a good chunk of change too over the duets.
Okay, but why does he need to get 1/8" bits? Wouldn’t 6mm and 3mm bits bits be easier since they’re metric? They have 6mm to 3mm collet adapter sleeves on Ali. If the rest of the world uses metric then there should be enough tool choices, save for the really exotic type of bits.
(I hope this doesn’t end up as a double post, I edited my previous one and it just completely disappeared)
1/8" are cheap, and easy to find in all variations. 3mm bits are pretty much non existant, outside of metal specific ones from big vendors, and they are expensive.
6mm are also expensive, if you need them in less than two months, since the only ones you can usually find are decent router bits. The smallest 6mm shaft bit I can find is a 4mm one, it costs around 20€, and it is a 2 flutes straight flutes. For plastics, that would be quite hard to use.
So the only option is collet adapters, but, at least for my application, I fear that they will introduce too much runout. Since I often use small engraving bits, that would be quite bad.
Also, I would need all kinds of adapters, I use bits with a 4mm and 5mm shaft too, which an er11 easily covers, but an adapter may be hard to find (it was last time I checked).
I use a collet adapter from 1/4" to 1/8". I made these with a 30 degree but, and the text is about 5mm tall. Winston Moy also did a test on a collet adapter and run-out was something like 0.0012".[attachment file=111738]
Also, he was already using 1/8" bits with a collet adapter in the Makita for cutting pcb’s.
