Way Covers for the VMC - Part 2 

Congrats, a lot of work and a lot of thought has gone into your set-up. My machine has 350mm of axis movement so I elected to have three slides of 200mm wide. That allows when all slides are closed up to a stack of about 220mm, with about 10mm overlap between slides and when fully extended about 580mm, again retaining the minimum overlap of 10mm. 580mm-220mm=360mm. With the outer two slides being fixed, one to the machine frame and the other to the saddle means that there is really only one 'floating' slide and I determined that I did not need scissors. I've been using them for a year. I've had one hiccup where a build up of swarf allowed one slide to separate from the slide below it, but other than that it's been working well.

That's awesome! Way covers, especially telescoping ones are such a grey spot in the DIY CNC world. Your videos, I'm sure, will become an asset to the community.

man that's going to look so cool when the covers are all done

Attention to detail is as good as it gets. Brilliant job.

That is going to be a beast when you are done! Awesome job.

Outstanding work! Well done! I feel exhausted just watching this.

AWESOME WORK MR CHRIS!!.,

Good job Chris! looks fantastic! Keep it coming. Best Matt.

Chris, awesome work!!!

Really professional looking job on the sheet metal, looks awesome!

Super. I'd have used a retractable roller blind mechanism with some different material on it and called it done, but this is much more professional and elegant. :)

I would have made a metal frame outa aluminum then attached the plexi to that, I can see some sag. Your an amazing machinist, keep the videos coming.

Impressive fabrication skills! How about using a sort of sprung loaded roller blind for the front cover instead? It would roll out and retract back as the plates move forward and back.

Chris I like it! ! ! The Y axis covers looks like it is working very nicely. I don’t think that the clear plastic looks bad either. Probably wouldn’t want to drop anything heavy on the plastic though.

Leave as is it looks fine and you can see what's going on.

Nice Job. I want to make for my robodrill news covers chip. Think in use a similar system Thanks for the sharing

Great build of the telescoping parts.

keep it up, your doing some awesome work.. gives us all more inspiration in our projects!

out of the shower in to the fish tank , love it as always nice work

Hey Chris, I have a suggestion for you/your channel. First let me say I think what you are doing is absolutely amazing, it's a goal of mine to make machine tools some day and yours is quite impressive. Now to the suggestion, I and possibly others like me would be able to get more out of these build videos if they were a bit more information dense. eg. less music over time lapse and possibly more talk Maybe the information is not the the thing you are trying to get across with the videos or you still believe this is the best way. If so, let me say that I really appreciate you putting this out there and I wish you the best of a fortunes on your journeys.

Very nice CNC! Could you not have placed the lead screws on the underside of the base?

Hey Chris! I watched this video several years ago and thought your way covers were brilliant! I attempted yo make a small version for my lathe, and I did cut a corner by using a scissor bathroom mirror for the stretch aspect. I'm now just trying once again to finish it and I'm just a but confused...where on the bottom of each plate did you mount each scissor and did you have to cut screws at different heights etc? I'd really like to see more up close if possible? I'd really appreciate it. Cheers and hope all I'd well!

chris very nice work.

What an amazing series of builds. I think I would like you mill in your garage let alone the one you built ! Great work look forward to new stuff. Tell me the linear guides so many years on how are they holding up and were they 25mm and balls crews 1605 type ?

Additional weight for this machine only ;)) Better do some additional whipers for the screws and ways ;) Building such a machine now - with Rexroth slides and Hiwin screws 700x700x600 and based on 400x400x8mm square tubbing, L shape. Seen that Fadal VMC10 has exacly the same construction that mine ;)) Hopefuly it will work till end of the year ;)

buen trabajo ! Saludos desde Argentina.

For your CNC control, are you still using Tiny G? Many thanks! Very much like watching your CNC building videos, it looks like a very capable machine, far beyond most DIY efforts.

Really impressed with the steel cover! Do you plan on making the other 3 covers slanted (like a roof) so that coolant and chips will run off more easily ?

awesome as usual! did you add a lip to keep any chips from being push against the X axis linear rails when the cover compresses towards the column? looked like that might be an issue?

Hey Chris! You do some amazing stuff! Im attempting my own way cover for my 3 in 1. Rather than make the scissors i am stealing an ikea telescoping mirror. I am curious...how did you figure out if yoir scissors would open further than the width of each cover? I can clarify if need be but im sure youll know what i mean.

Nice project you got going here :). What kind of steppers or servos are you running? Whats your max rapid? Keep on working the machine :)

Hello as always good work, I have the same spindle, 2.2 kw in water, for curiosity that parameters use as speed to mill aluminum? Sorry for my english .... i'm using a translator

it is a good tutorial to teach in the diy of overlapping type metallic shield! Q1, is there any method to prevent flood coolant that it may accompany with debris goes to leadscrew or way? Q2, Lexan(P.C) sheet is not cheaper than aluminum one, will it be better to use the latter one instead as overall looking and strength are better...

How long did it take to slot all those screw heads?

Wow. The idea of a machine that doesn't have to be cleaned every 5 seconds is a weird one.

You have totally toooooooo much effort on this machine.. İ was watching it from the beggining, i thing i want to say that, are you drilling holes with drill? :(

$600? I’m no accountant but with how long this took, didn’t you lose money by doing it yourself?

FIRST and i actually am

interesting. how hard is it to access the vise now?

I liked the music around 7 min mark great video def subscribe to your channel now