Mechanical Design, Machine Design
For this week we have to design, fabricate, assemble and automate a machine. This week we have to work in groups. Our group is formed by two industrial designers (Wilhem Schütze and Luis Sierra) and an architect (Lucía Lucas). We have decided to make a CNC milling machine because Luis and Wilhem have special interest in this item.
what i did:
- General design (with Luis)
- 3d modeled the machine (inventor)
- Designed the distribution board (eagle)
- Fabrication (shopbot, modela, hand tools) (with Luis and Lucia)
- Assembly (with Luis and Lucia)
- Electronic instalation
- Software Instalation (with Luis)
-Testing (with Luis and Lucia)
Fabrication
For fabrication we have used a ShopBot and MDF boards of 2,44 x 1.22 m. For all the pieces the machine has took 7 hours aproximately. We had to make 9 different toolpaths for the ShopBot because we had different ways to cut. The problem of that has been that some holes weren´t cut. Finally we fixed it ordering again the machine to cut the holes.
Assembly
The assembly between mdf pieces has been ok. We had had problems assemmbling mdf pieces with aluminum extrusions(that are not perfect). This union had to be almost perfect because the aluminium profiles are the basis for the movement in the axis. Other problem has been the insert of other mechanical pieces for the movement. Finally we solved all issues as you can see below.
608 2RS bearings bolted to the aluminum extrusion with M8 bolts
Electronics
We're using an Arduino board loaded with GRBL firmware , this is connected to 3 TB6600 drivers,controlling our 3 NEMA23 motors. We designed and fabricated a distribution board,to make an easy and clean wiring. the power supply that we are using, is a ATX switching PC power supply (12v) for the drivers, the feeding for the arduino is via USB, and for the milling tool( that is a spindel 300w) we are using (by the moment) the lab power supply (30V)
Firmware: we are using GRBL, because is free and easy to use / understand, for new people entering in this field, here is the project's site
G-Code Software We Used GRBL Universal Code sender, here is the project's site
Finally here is the video showing all the process and the machine in action :)