X-Axis is now ready!

The thread plate is now mounted to the base with thread lock in select locations. The top can still come off easily so I can drill holes to mount the gantry to the alloy tongue that comes out the bottom middle (there is one on the other side too).

Without the 75mm by 50mm by 1/4 inch 6061 alloy angle brackets you could flex the steel in the middle. Now, well... it is not so easy for a human to apply enough force to do it. The thread plate is only supported by 4 colonnades at the left and right side. The middle is unsupported to allow the gantry to travel 950mm along. I think the next build will be more a vertical mill style than sliding gantry to avoid these rigidity challenges.

CNC Z Axis with 150mm or more of travel

Many of the hobby priced CNC machines have limited Z Axis movement. This coupled with limited clearance on the gantry force a limited number of options for work fixtures. For example, it is very unlikely that there will be clearance for a vice on the cutting bed of a cheap machine.

I started tinkering around with a Z Axis assembly which offers around 150mm of travel. The assembly also uses bearing blocks that should help overcome the tensions that drilling and cutting can offer.

The assembly is designed to be as thin as possible. The spindle mount is a little wider which allows easy bolting onto the spindle mount plate which attaches to these bearings and drive nut. The width of the assembly is important because it will limit the travel in the Y axis if it can interact with the gantry in any way.

Construction is mainly done in 1/4 and 1/2 inch 6061 alloy. The black bracket at the bottom is steel. This seemed like a reasonable choice since that bracket was going to be key to holding the weight and attachment to the gantry.

The Z axis shown above needs to be combined with a gantry height extension when attaching to a hobby CNC to be really effective. Using a longer travel Z axis like this would allow higher gantries which combined allow for easier fixturing and also pave the way for a 4/5th axis to fit under the cutter.

Through hole PCB Making -- Same Day

I initially thought that removing the multiple week wait for a board would be the true joy of making PCBs locally. It turns out that quick iteration is the best part. Version 2 and 3 of a board flows quickly and you end up with something unexpected after only a few days of tinkering.

I'm still at the level of making through hole stuff. Hopefully I can refine the process to allow some of the larger SMT stuff too. Throwing some caps, leds, resistors, dc jacks, and regulators on for a first cook round will cut down on the soldering phase.

My hello world PCB was an ESP8266 carrier with an mcp23017 muxer and a bunch of buttons. This is an MQTT emission device which I will be using to assist in the controlling of a 3d printer. While web interfaces are flexible, some tend to put buttons too close and you can fairly easily crash the bed by clicking down instead of up in some cases.

Today's iteration is an esp8266 breadboarder. This allows 3v3 intake, has a TTL serial header (on the left) and a resistor + led combo on pin 14 for blink testing. The button at top right toggles into flashing mode and the bottom of the board breaks out 7 gpios onto the breadboard. The 3v3 and ground also have a header under the hot glue to the power rails on the breadboard. Very handy for testing a breadboard layout before designing the next PCB to have an ESP8266 pressed into it.

The breadboard side needs a little trimming back. Turns out the older breadboard I used to measure was wider than this one :o