I know, you machine things... you are not a "Head-Doctor"... but if I ever need my mood lifted, I come back to your channel for a boost. It's really good for the soul! Thanks again. 👍
Glad you like it 😉 about the head doctor... well.. kinda feel like one 😉 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hIELa4PwkdY.html something I'm cooking
i looking first 2 minute video you have very small nema stepper motors, normal all cnc uses minmum nema 23 475OZ motors, not smallest have good, but looking mre video now can see what this small motors shoq
Hi Fox, inspired by your CNC adventures, I started to build a new machine, which in essence will be quite similar to yours, but with 5 axis. The only thing I have been missing from your videos is the electronics part, and more specifically what CNC controller you are using. I will have LinuxCNC controlling my machine, and probably mess around with some other solutions as well, just because it is fun to try different things, but I am curious what your picked to drive your machine, and why you chose that. Would you mind sharing some thoughts on that?
Cool 😉 I can't remember which exactly controller I went with.it was quite a while ago. But I have it in one of the videos epic cnc upgrade episode 1 or 2. Ethernet version and it comes with some Linux equivalent of mach3. But im running it under windows. Didn't have to change it since it was working.
@@PiotrFoxWysocki Hi Fox, thank you for your super fast reply. I am always pleasantly surprised by how fast you respond to comments 🥰 I feel a bit stupid now.... how I could have missed that first part of your Epic CNC upgrades episode 1? I watched all of your epic videos at least a dozen times, but somehow this part never got stored in my memory. 🤣 Anyway, thanks. So in summary you are using a CNCdrive UC300 breakout board, and you are running it under Windows. Which means you are either using their UNCCNC motion controller software or Mach3. I guess the first one since you are a smart guy. Personally I would never go with any Windows based solution, partially because I get skin rashes when I touch Windows, and because Mach 3 has often given me real-time performance issues. It may explain why that part of your episode 1 never got stored in my memory. Also, I am a big supporter of Linux and open source projects, so for now I will stick with LinuxCNC, which I truly think is an amazing piece of highly configurable and reliable software. Or one day I may move on to an embedded solution, as I love real-time kernels and embedded stuff, but that's a different topic. Yes, I realize this may be all a matter of personal preferences, so if your Windows based solution works for you, then kudos! Don't change a winning team, and it clearly works for you ! As a learning point for myself, how satisfied are you with your controller software? Is there anything that you would like to see differently, or functionality that you are missing? Perhaps I am just looking for the Linux based Holy Grail while a Windows cup may be more than enough 😁
@@ericr.5477 not sure what to say, controller works, its fast no hiccups. ont thing i would recommend would be closed loop steppers and do not mix ball screw pitch cause its messing up with resolution and speed. and servos are almost impossible to tune if you have 2 on one axis.
@@PiotrFoxWysocki So do I understand you correctly that you switched from steppers on the Y axis to servos and back to steppers again? I have both closed loop stepper and servo motors available, but my preference would be the 750W servo motors that I have laying around here. I have done a lot of servo tuning in the past, and agree that the tuning part will be more tricky when using two servos working in parallel, but I have some ideas on how to tackle that problem and I don't easily give up on finding solutions, so yeah.... But I will keep the steppers as my backup plan, just in case....
Piotr, thank you for making this video. My curiosity was piqued throughout. Such a beautiful design! How did I come to find your video? Four words, "nodal head camera mount". I was reading John Glen's 'Forewords' in The Art of Film: Working on James Bond, Aliens, Batman and More (2022), by Terry Ackland-Snow (with Wendy Laybourn). 8-years later, but I am grateful for the education.
Hi, We connected the huyang vfd and set all the parameters that we think they are correct (pd settings on vfd). We encountered srtrange problem while testing the spindle. Everything works correctly while ccw is enabled but when we try cw the spindle has some problems. Cannon maintain the 120hz we set as minimum on vfd setting slows down and speeds up and in general it behaves srtange (it only happens when the spindle is working in cw direction). Also the vfd never achives the set 400 Hz (the 355 is upper limit) Sometimes (more often then not the spindle speed fluctuates). Any ideas? btw: jest szansa, że jesteś z Polski? 🙂
I'm not an expert on vfd settings. I just found settings which work for mine spindle and it should work for most people. From this what you are saying it looks like 2 possible issues. Number of poles are not right. Or your cable to spindle is bad quality. Try changing pole number and if this doesn't help try shortening the cable to something like 50cm. Just to test if it behaves differently if so then you need better cable
In Germany, people know not to buy this brand. 🙃The Optimum Brand is owned by Stürmer Maschinen. They have their own plant in China. Not everything they sell is junk. Stürmer is the owner of Rehm Schweißtechnik, a German welding equipment manufacturer, and sells re-labeled SCM machines made in Italy as Holzkraft.
I just bought one of these lathes for my son and myself to do some work together and have some dad /son time, everyone please listen what a nightmare within 3 days the lead screw stopped working it took 2 weeks for the mechanic to come out to have a look somebody Believe it or not had forgotten to put a pin inside where the gears come together on a main shaft it was just turning on the shaft without the pin ,also where the drive pulley fits onto the electric motor the Woodruff key was hanging out I had to tap it all the way back in , 1-week later the 2 HP electric motor overheated and stopped working so a mechanic had to put a brand new Electric Motor in under warranty, I kid you not less than 5 days later the second electric motor burned out these machines are very poorly made there is not enough airflow around the electric motor to keep it cool if you are working it continuously, my son was only turning aluminium 0.5 mm cut very poorly designed the amount of swarf and rubbish that got in behind the gears was shocking I finally took it back and receive a refund, so now we are deciding what brand to purchase next but it won't be opti they are not German they are absolute rubbish, d from Australia
What a horror story 😉 bummer you haven't seen this video before you bought it. I could add some more stories to it, but it would be like kicking lying down roadkill.. I'm sure it had enough 😅
Hello Piotr, outstanding work on your machine! I've been inspired to change my design from fixed to moving gantry, using your approach with granite! I'm desiging the machine but I'm not sure how did you setup the control part: I see you're using now AC servos, but how do you drive them? Do you have a servo drive for each motor? does the servo drives communicate with the motion control box? Could you provide more details about your controller box? Thank you very much in advance and keep up the good work!
Thanks. I am just starting out learning about CNC vacuum clamping. I’ve made a vacuum plate out of HDPE (a plastic commonly found in cutting boards. I do not recommend this material, it doesn’t stay flat after machining.) and could not see how to avoid damaging it while cutting a part. Couldn’t figure out how to make a profile cut without cutting into the vacuum plate. I now understand there is a difference between a vacuum “plate” and vacuum “fixture” and that I need both. The HDPE might be better suited for the “fixture” as It is an “air tight” material able to transfer the vacuum through a hole to the part and I could use an adhesive backed foam weatherstripping for a gasket.
@@PiotrFoxWysocki that's way harder than mechanical engineering, do you validate/simulate your circuits in an ecad? I tried many times to get into E&E but with breadboards/arduino and the biggest disadvantage to rapid testing was soldering. Wish I could simulate circuits the way I use FEM to simulate mechanical structures.
@@jonjon3829 I don't do any simulations, I have rough idea what I need in my head. Then I design pcb and send to print. Then I put parts on and it works. Sometimes like one trace is off or I need something. But it's much much better than prototyping board. Considering when you use prototyping board you have to spend more time debugging why it doesn't work.
I am studying various DIY CNC designs. I have definitely settled on the bridge design and I know It is going to be concrete filled or epoxy granite. It's interesting I priced large grade B granite surface plates and the cost to buy those and cut them, vs the cost for casting epoxy granite is similar.
Hi, question: that crazy cut you did, was a 3 flute endmill with a feed per tooth of .014mm isn't that way too low? I always thought you shouldn't go below 0.03mm in aluminium or it rubs. Anyway this video was amazing!
Hey Fox, fine tuning to be within 5 microns for a hand built cnc is a piece of mastery a.k.a Art. I am inspired and I am sure hundreds out their who follow your channel will be too. I had a question for you. I see most x-axis of artisian cnc designs and even on fixed gantry types. Does it really matter if the ball screw is placed somewhat exactly between the upper and lower boundries of the linear rails. I could be wrong but I think it is purely for "looks nice" reasons and if I was to place it say closer the lower rail. Does it make any difference to the overall performance in terms of any harmonic disturbance etc ?
Hey Fox you are a true "tinkerer" with a curious mind. You constantly strive for excellence in short a Masterclass. I have a question, when sourcing granite for cnc for flatness what type should one search for - would off cuts/ discarded kitchentops granite tops be any good?
I went with particular dotted pattern, I suspected that veiny granite might not be as strong. And 50mm granite top should be fine. Note. Counter tops are not as flat as granite surface plates
@@PiotrFoxWysocki I did not realize that the pieces you aquired were surface plates. and not the run of the mill granite blocks. Everyday is a school day for people like us :) Finding secondhand surface plates here in the UK would be challenging but I will begin my search and see where it leads me. Take care my friend down under in NZ.
Hey Piotr! Greetings from the UK. Thank you so much for sharing about your journey of building a Granite CNC machine in 7 Parts. You are a Masterclass. I learned a great deal about how to measure the flatness of the mounting surfaces and how to check for distortion in the linear rails etc. I have been meaning to build a small milling CNC for making aluminium prototypes parts. One question that came to my mind - is it necessary to have the granite base and the sides so thick. Or did you just use them because it was easy to find those sizes in your neck of the woods? Also the flood cooling method you have employed, doesn't it have a negative effect on the oiling and greasing of the linear bearings and the ball screws etc? Altogether including the enclosure build that also handles the chip extraction/filtering in such a simple and easy way. Please keep doing what you are doing and never stop.
You have to watch epic upgrade series. You should like it 😉 Granite base was a surface plate and its a standard proportions. Sides had to be 50mm so it won't Crack or bend. After many years I can say that this is a good and tested size. Water cooling has some anti rust additives. So as long you keep good proportions no rust, at list on rails. My vises are bit different story. But it's not bad either considering my parallels which are outside of the machine. They look much worse. In the matter of fact everything metal what I have is much more rusted. Those vises look new in comparison.
@@PiotrFoxWysocki Thank you for your reply. Points noted about why it is important to have the thicker base plate and water cooling. Yesterday, I finished viewing all the 7-8 parts of your Granite build and will go over the Epic series. What I had in mind is a simpler 3 mother fixed gantry design with say about 350 x 350 mm workarea. But the problem I see is. I then have get cut another granite square piece for the moving bed and drill the holes for mounting the linear bearing blocks and ball screw holder mounts. That is quite tricky to say the least. Maybe that would be too labour intensive. What are your thoughts?
Your videos and work are incredible. I went back and looked at some of your earlier videos again. I love when you were wondering why you're making it better because I totally get it :). Your video with the close ups on surface finish was particularly interesting to me, it would be amazing to see the results of your monocrystline tools in the same way. Anyway, thanks so much for taking the time to put these videos together, I'm sure it's a ton of work.
Hi Mr Fox, I ve been wondering why some industrial (or not) CNC machines (for wood or metal) use 9 - 10kw spindle while 2.5kw or 4kw seems to be very good for any jobs? Could you share your insight
I guess mostly because people have 220v at home and I guess it got more popular. I think everything above 3kw it's 380v. Other thing is that for wood they might use much bigger tools where for metal you use rather small bits. I'm speculating. In big pro machines they use higher kw spindles and it doesn't matter if its for wood or metal.
poprawka, milo widziec znowucos od Ciebie, to znaczy ze jestes w porzadku (ostatnio odeszlo kilku) ostatnio tez experyntowalem ze scanowaniem ale nie moge nazwac tego kompletnym zwyciestwem, bende musial wrocic do tego i mam nadzieje na rozwuj w programach do scanowania, pozdrowienia @@PiotrFoxWysocki
This is increadibly impressive! Been a fan of your work since your cnc video series and have been also spending a lot of time on building photometric stereo scanners as a side project, so it's awesome to see you doing stuff in the same niche! Developing all of that must have taken a huge amount of time.
glad you like it, considering you building rigs as well. the motion control rig was the project i was doing over few years. build something use it , make it more user friendly. and so on. photometric part was a year long project. and i made one for macro stuff. few micron resolution, but this is getting very tricky
@@PiotrFoxWysocki Really nice, I hope you'll be posting more! :) A macro scanner sounds very interesting too and I would love to build one when I'm done with my current photometric stereo scanner. (In case you're interested I'm doing a build log in the projects-forum of the 3D scanning discord which you seem to be a member of. Although I've still got a long way to go and it's probably not gonna end up as cool as yours.)
I knew it was looking familiar when made the shot where it's going up with lights pointing down. It does look like the scene from matrix when neo is being picked up by the grabber thingy in the sewers 😉
