4x4 Gantry kit - cable carrier install

Creepy

So the grunt running the bandsaw at my local metal supply didn't see fit to give me the extra 6" is asked for on the 10' stick I was gonna cut in half to make the linear rail mounts with all the tapped holes. Don't bother reading the order form buddy, its almost quitting time! :(: I went home without checking....damn Friday afternoon at 4pm, everyone is in a rush to get home and makes mistakes. I can't return a cut piece either. 4x4 table drawing callout is 62"....if I use this material I will only have 60". What is the length of the linear rail, can I use 60" and not get into reducing the work zone? I don't mind if I have to have the hard stops hanging off the ends of the 60". i read the drive rack is short so if you rapid the gantry off the end of the table it runs out of rack and coasts into the stops. Can this work with 60", or do i gotta go back and buy more steel? I could be tapping those holes today......otherwise I'm twiddling my thumbs wasting the day.

jeepsr4ever

Length of the rail is 62". It is possible to add a support "L" bracket later after it is all together.

Creepy

hhmm. ok thx. i think i'll get new stuff then.

I guess this is my build thread, so here's some pics.

Picked up the steel friday, cut it up that night. 2-8', 3-10', and 1-10'-6" would have done it with some trim left over. as above, i got shorted on the 10'-6" one i was gonna use for the rail mounts. Its 3/16" wall.

whizzed together is thing to help out the bandsaw. old CJ rollbar material, XJ control arm bolt.

cut to length, minus the rail mounts @ 62"

My shop lacks a large flat surface for making a table.
Tough to keep 'er square. 111!!!

Some casters. 2 swivel, it moves around great like this, will have to see how it is with more weight on it. as you can see, my shop is small. 20x24. The table has to be mobile.

I put the bottom support bars down to the casters to maximize the storage under the table. Going to have sheetmetal storage there, laying flat.

Looks like a rig will still fit in! haha, that would have sucked.

jeepsr4ever

Great work so far! Cant wait to see the gantry up and running!

Creepy

Just sold my FSJ!

Looks like i can afford the Hypertherm Powermax45 and machine torch. Sweet. i was going to be using the Hypertherm 380 I already own with a hand torch, which would have been less than ideal as i need it out around the yard too frequently to be dis-assembling it from the table.

The 45 has a computer interface too. I was leery of frigging with internal wiring of the 380 to get voltage signals.

jeepsr4ever

If that is the case you will need a different torch head bracket for the machine torch. Wiring up the DTHC sender card is a snap in the hypertherm models. ..actually in any model. Your kit ships friday.

Creepy

Is that bracket something i will have to whip up myself? got a drawing? Trade ya for a new, never used hand torch holder? :wink: I went and got the correct length 62" top rails, but downsized the wall thickness to 1/8". I figured save some labor with all the drilling/tapping, don't need to support the weight of 1/4" plate on the cutting surface, just the gantry mass. It kind of works out good for setting up the squareness of the machine by leaving the top rails off until getting the kit's linear rails here first to set up with. The top rails can be welded in exactly where they need to be regardless of slight variations in the table. Shipping Friday huh? Great! I've been trying to hold off getting too excited till it shipped.

jeepsr4ever

Looks like we will have to start stocking that item for sure! It isnt something we sell with the kit and is easily made. The Z axis has 4 tapped holes for bolts that hold the torch bracket. You can easily make a bracket to hold a machine torch that uses these 4 bolt holes. It will be pretty obvious when you see the Z axis

Creepy

ah man! finally on here. my home pc got a bug from this site, i think the domain name was unregistered for a bit, now i'm blocked from home, it re-directs to ads. anyone got a specific cure? i tried tons of stuff. anyway - got lots more done on the table. will be posting pics once i get fixed up on the site block bug. Just at my buddies place here now. I have a question tho - I have a powermax45, do I get the interface cable from hypertherm, and use that to connect to the bladerunner port...or use the board that came with the kit, do internal wiring to the powermax, and run the cable from that port? or something else?

jeepsr4ever

Yes you will need to install that card in your plasma. The Hypertherm 45 has a machine interface plug with a pinout for a card however it does not have a card in it. You may need to delete your cookies in Internet Explorer.

Creepy

Xmas. :razz: Slows a fella down.

Back at 'er.

Making a heavy duty hinge for a desktop on the table.

swing-out workdesk with stainless top i got from somewhere for free. Had it kicking around, looks like it would work good, and it does.

I got pretty far into the build without the kit across the border. This is how it arrived.

power supply.

BladeRunner

rear showing outputs to stepper motors.

unpacked kit.

linear rails. extruded aluminum with hardened and ground steel inserts for the wheels. Easy to keep clean and maintain.

You can see the steel guideway here.

packing damage. one of the racks has broken away from the rail. had to weld it back together. Bulltear was notified, as the box was unscathed.

board to install in plasma. Yikes! :o

Z axis with sliding head for Z limit switch.

rear of Z axis

Creepy

rack repair and mounting the Y axis rails.

broken TIG welds from supplier.

the welds were less than adequate, and looks like no filler was used.

aligning to weld.

getting this flat and square is pretty important. had to cover everything with nozzle dip so there would be no splatter on the rack.

my knocked down tack welds vs. the broken TIG welds. (these are hidden, and are low enough not to interfere with anything.

installing the linear rails on the table involved drilling and tapping a bunch of holes. I used 2 taps, one got dull by the end of it. the rails can wallow around for alignment.

Creepy

Pinion relaxing on the new table. Just like the vet, only better.

really hard limit. :shock: I think i will install limit switches down the road. there are tons of inputs on one of the boards for this. looks easy.

Y motor drive plate. the gantry is dual-driven on Y to prevent "racking" of the gantry. ie - so it doesn't go crooked.

rear of X axis on gantry.

overhead view of X axis motor mount on gantry.

Z axis motor mount

floating head on Z-axis

Creepy

delete this post, i can't, only edit.

Creepy

stepper motor mount hardware did not fit thru. jeez.

this made me nervous.

ah, its not too bad once clamped in the little mill. very easy to drill.

Had to do all 16 holes. (4 in each motor)

I don't understand why these motors have a beautiful micro-finish on the mount surface, yet the mount holes were chewed out by a rat. There were 3 different diameters in each stock hole.

before and after

mounting stepper motors

spring for preload.

There's that repaired rack. It's fine.

installing Z work height switch.

small stuff.

made switch.

attached switch leads to a board in the power supply.

the brown/yellow ones. I didn't need that trailer harness anyway. 😉

lots of expensive things to drill holes in.

computer system. Clean system by a computer buddy for free, for some parts once running.

the scary side lol

had flakey communication between pc and bladerunner. The LPT1 port screws would not engage. What to do?

Head back to 1939 and cut 'em down to size.

I got a real kick out of this, it was 3am, sorta drunk and really tired.

Take that, computer.

communication is now perfect. 8-)

Creepy

lots more to post......just zooming the motors around.

It runs mint on jog keys and rapid, but leaps from the track with G-code moves. accellerates to fast.

There must be messed up accelleration/speed value somewhere, assuming shift+axis on keyboard has the same rapid speed values as G-moves.

Any comments on that? It is my major current problem.

the absolute worst thing yet was the Bladerunner DC "off" button sticks, (see last pic posted) and unless you pull it out with your fingernails, it will never turn on. I spent days and days loading software and chasing drivers because of that fawking button. its just a bad micro-switch, but wow, did it ever give me a hard time.

This bladerunner package i got seems to be the "newest of the new" or something, as the manuals fail to identify replacement of a DB9 cable for the interface from power commander to bladerunner with a phone-style cord that has different locations on the boxes, yet the old DB9 ports are still there.
Certainly caused some confusion as the upgrade isn't yet in the manuals from C&Cnc. "WTF is this extra wire?" #-o

The best thing is the overload of web based knowledge on these systems. Cnczone.com, holy frig, its gigantic. New Hypertherm forum in there too, I've got a thread going on wiring the 45.

jeepsr4ever

Did you set your acceleration like posted in the forum here?

Now lets go to config and motor tuning. Bulltear tables use a very smooth gear on all axis but not the same size gear or pitch on all axis. For X,Y,A axis the following is used.

1019.1 Steps
1000 Velocity (V can be 1-1000)
30 Accel (accel can be 1-50)

Z axis (torch up and down)

1273.9 Steps
150 Velocity
50 Accel

Some interesting info on the small issues and the motor through holes! 3 different hole sizes isnt right we will talk to our electronics guy.

Creepy

The motor holes were chamfered at the motor mount surface, a slightly tapered, rough-finish hole, and was not fully thru. All 4 motors. I would guess the cause as a really dull drill that didn't go deep enough. or the motors were meant for smaller hardware and tapped holes in the brackets. The motor tuning loaded with the MP3000-DTHC-UB02 profile. It was the first thing i checked. It is all as listed. The C&CNC manuals say the step and direction pulse on that page are usually set both to 1, the MP3000 profile loaded 2 and 2. It does not operate smoothly on either setting. the problem manifests on all 3 axis, less on Z, when using G0. Works fine at 100% manual rapid. The driver test works fine, "excellent" it says.

jeepsr4ever

Try bringing your acceleration down to 30 and your rapid to 700ipm. It could also be a spring issue. Rapiding using the shift arrow wont give you 100% rapids.

Creepy

ok, got it to take Gcode. It was the kernel speed! It can be viewed in Mach diagnostics screen, changed in config/ports and pins I had to go down to 35000Hz to operate smoothly. I was at 60000, very jerky, the jumping i described. then tried 45000 and it was better, but also found a loose set screw on the Y. Dropped it to 35000Hz and it runs nice and smooth, at 100% feed in G-code. original motor settings. :lo1l: the driver test worked on all 3 settings.