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3D Printed Planetary Gears
I wanted to try and print some planetary gears to try and make my 4th axis work better.
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RepRap - 3D Printer
Here's my journey of building a Reprap 3d Printer. Took about two weeks to get to the point where I was printing and I am still tweaking things to get good prints but it's working well enough to share :)
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Homemade Bandsaw Bearing Guides
Here's how I made my own bandsaw bearing guides from aluminum tuping and regular skate bearings - for like $20 :)
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Homemade Power Drive
Using a Parallax Propeller Proto board and a Pololu Stepper Driver - I've built a home made power drive for my lathe / mill / drill - Check it out!
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Timing Pulleys
I am working on a project for my Enco Mill Drill Lathe - it's a Power Feed driven by a Parallax Propeller and EasyDriver - part of the project involves making some Timing Pulleys to hook it all up! So this post is about the Timing Pulleys! Check out some pictures and videos!
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Latest 4th Axis
I just realized that I've never uploaded anything about my latest 4th Axis that I've thrown together - so here are some pictures and a video about it!
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I ordered some anti-backlash nuts from Dumpster CNC and started working on making some brackets and get them installed.
It's not much but here's what I worked on :)
I have a lot of scrap aluminum from making other brackets and such, and all I really need is to square up a few pieces for these smaller parts. plus I've been meaning to get a decent vice set up for the CNC machine too so this was a good opportunity to get that done.
First thing I did was lay out a couple of 2X4s for supports. I clamped them down and then ran the router over the middle taking of a few centimeters. I did this to make sure where I was mounting the vice would be perfectly perpendicular to the router.
Next - I'm using one of the cheap harbor freight drill vices (yes I'm cheap but we knew that) :) and those things are anything but flat on the bottom - so I turned it over, clamped it good on my (now) perpendicular flat board, and then I milled off the bottom of the vice so it would be flat... Since I'm using a router and cannot slow it down lower than 8000 rpm I took very light passes - but it worked OK and got it flat
After that I drilled a few holes in the 2X4 and bolted the vice to them - I also made sure that the vice was butted up against the edge that was made when I milled the 2X4s, so while it might not be perfect to the .00002 degree - it's close enough :)
Next I worked on squaring up some of the pieces of aluminum I have - here's a couple of pictures of the vice and squared aluminum... I need to drill and tap some holes still...
I will add to this article when I finish these up and get them installed
Update 9/10/2010 - I worked on the Y Axis parts and got them finished up and installed
I first drilled out the hole little by little with increasing bit sizes to get the hole to a .5 inch size (the biggest drill bit that I have) and then I used a 5/8" Forstner bit to give me some clearance for my 1/2" acme threaded rod - I wasn't sure if the Forstner bit would go through the aluminum so I took it nice and slow and it worked out just fine! I also had to use a few washers in between the parts because it was a little too high and was binding on the screw at the ends - works out OK though - just doesn't look all that pretty :)
Here's the pictures of the Y-Axis parts...
