Still alive.

Things have been hectic in the real world day job and have not had time to add any real information. Here are the things that I have been thinking about for my machine in the meantime.

Structure:

Ok, I have the metal for my rails, but I am not cutting wood yet until I have a firm plan with all the details. I also need to make a sub-fence for my router table to fit around the bit that I will be using to cut the support rail profiles. Shouldn't take that long but I have not been that panicked to just build without thinking things through. If any of the readers here are that anxious to just "get something made", I really suggest going with one of the proven designs. This one may actually suck. I am fully prepared to accept that outcome. If I was just wanting to get something made myself, I would have just gotten one too. I am designing this to test out my own ideas.

At present, the two design components I am deciding on are the Z-Axis and routing and idlers for my chain. I have a few ideas for the idlers but I need to sit down and test some parts to see how well it works. The main part is to hold the outer race of a 608 bearing. Maybe a press fit, maybe a plate to hold it into a recess. I have to clear off my drill press area to make some test pieces and see what I like best. The Z-Axis will have to fit around the idler so it will have to be the decision on the idler first. I also have to figure out the routing for the chain for the X-Axis as well. I am most concerned about getting it out of the way from swarf or sawdust. I might just have to make the box for the base taller to give me some room.

Controller:

I ordered a different motor driver board for my machine. I have been really thinking about the idea of making mine Arduino controlled. Yes, everyone uses CAM software to move the machine around.with parallel port control with Mach or EMC2. Well, you know what? How do you explain the fact that there are people running CNC stuff quite effectively with USB connection to an embedded controller. RepRap, Makerbot,  and a newer one named Dank that I found through an article on Make Magazine. There are others as well. Planet-CNC has a really nice little USB based PIC controller that  handles the motion control. Also, there is a whole market built up from doing motion control over USB. Just about all printers and many engraving machines use USB control. No, they don't do really sophisticated G-Code with subroutines and such. That's fine. I am not looking at doing a lot of high end G-Code. I am going to use other design software that generates it like Inkscape and SketchUp and run computer generated code.

Enough for tonight. More soon.