Paul's DIYLILCNC

Construction Part 5

2010-04-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

More photos. Began to mount the assembly on the base. Waiting on attaching the belt until the new belt gears arrive and can be replaced.

Construction Part 4

2010-04-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

More photos. Some of the parts starting to show grime. I'll have to re-coat them with tung oil at the end of construction. Oil seems to remove the grime.

Construction Part 3

2010-04-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

More Photos

Construction Part 2

2010-04-19T11:09:00.001-07:00

Not much to say, progressing well. Lots of photos.

Belt Gear Issues

2010-04-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

I had a hell of a time getting the belt gears onto the 1/4 inch shaft. I had to sand down each end of the drive shaft to even get the gears to begin to go on. After alot of frustration I managed to get them seated but not without some damage. How this effects performance has yet to be seen. New gars have been ordered.

In order to push the gears along the drive shaft a mallet was used along with some of the 1/4 bolt nuts. Nuts were placed on top of the gear and hit with a mallet thereby pushing the gear down the drive shaft. Sorry I don't have a picture of this.

I made some mistakes in construction and the gears had to come off twice. After fighting with them for hours finally someone had the idea of using a gear puller to remove them from the drive shaft, which eventually worked.

In hindsight I should have sanded down the interior wall of the gears so that they would fit better. All the pounding damaged them and thus they will have to be replaced. The replacement gears will be sanded down.

Construction Part 1

2010-04-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

Here are a few images from the start of construction. A number of problems were encountered with the belt gears fitting correctly. Those issues will be addressed in the next post.

Laser Issues

2010-04-19T10:34:00.001-07:00

As some of you may know I had a hell of a time laser cutting parts. There's a few photos of the unsuccessful attempts attached here. These parts were attempted on an Epilog 45w laser. I found that only about 10% of the parts actually were cut through. In the end I managed to get access to a 60w Epilog which allowed me to cut all of the parts out.

1/4" Baltic Birch Plywood with interior glue was used. Eventually it was finished with a light sanding to remove the char marks followed by 6 coats of 100% pure tung oil.

Base Construction

2010-04-19T10:24:00.000-07:00

Here is the basic base construction. As I had a terrible table saw to work with (the fence was all crooked) I did not attempt interlocking joints. I'm not happy with it but I have access to a new table saw now so I'll probably redo it.

Parts were clamped, glued and screwed. Screw holes were pre drilled and countersunk.

Intro

2010-04-19T10:16:00.000-07:00

Hey Diylilcnc'ers

Just threw up this blog very quickly to post some of my construction pictures. Don't expect anything fancy. I can be contacted on the DIYLILCNC forums under the username MrPaul.