Stepper Motors

I was able to get my stepper motors turning today.  Ordering some couplings tonight, they should be on the mill soon.

I will be using Nema 23 570 oz steppers for the X and Y.  The z axis will be a Nema 34 906 oz.  All motors were purchased from automation technologies.

I also put some work into mounting the X and Y axis ballscrews.  Below are some photos of the operation.  Took quite a bit more grinding than I expected to get the X axis not to bind up.  I had to remove some casting bumps from the bottom of the deck which was unexpected.  But considering the casting was made in China.....what should I expect. Go USA!

Mill laid to Rest

Cranked the tunes and cleaned up the 'to be shop' a bit tonight.  It was a challenge moving the mill into its new home.  Below is a photo of the mill in its final resting place.  3/8" expansion anchors now hold it to the concrete pad.

Another box from Amazon came today.  The final pieces needed for the CNC conversion have arrived. Also, my Tormach Super Fly cutter also arrived by USPS.

Parallel Port

After countless minutes of researching I have decided to take a chance on downgrading my old desktop machine to run on windows XP.  Mach3 (CNC) the industry standard controller software appears to be most supported (by forum users) and stable running XP.

My original plan was to purchase a USB smooth stepper to control the MX3660 stepper motor drivers.  Budget is tight, so I'm taking a chance with this a PCI to LP1 card.  On cnczone it seems like a crap-shoot if it is going to work or not.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124004

More Boxes

USA 2 Ghana 1, O yea.

Today UPS delivered some more boxes.  What's in the boxes;

• 4" Vise from Glacern Machine Tools
• new 16mm ball screws for the X and Y axis
• new 20mm ball screw for the Z axis
• CNC mounting kit from BDtools for the G0704
• 2 - Nema 23 Stepper Motors
• 1 - Nema 34 Stepper Motor
• Digital MX3660 driver
• Power supply

I need to look into cabling and a PCI LP1 card.  Gosh can you even find a computer with a parallel port anymore....grrrrrr.

New Box

A shipment from MSC was on my step today. Woo!

Look like I got some end mills, taps and things that turn. Since I will only be milling aluminum and wood I opted for HSS type end mills.  At this moment I ordered a basic R8 collet set to get me started machining.  In the future I hope to lathe my own TTS style holders.

Coaster Cars

This morning I have begun thinking about the design of the coaster cars.  My overall vision is to produce a lifelike replica using aluminum for the frame and general structure outline.  Roller bearings will be used for the wheels.  Again aluminum will be used for the chassis.

I plan to use SolidWorks to model the cars in 3D before starting construction.  Without plans how will I know how to build them?  I've ridden plenty of coasters to understand the working mechanics of a wooden coaster car, but scaling the pieces without physically measuring each piece is going to be a challenge.  The best solution to this problem is to collect as many photos of actual coaster cars as possible.  Ideally I need a shot of a wooden car from the side, elevation view.  I've found some perfect photos randomly online, Bingo!

I will assume the gutter depth in the above photo is 5 1/2".  From this assumption I can scale relatively the dimensions of everything else to real-life measurements.

From these photos I will be able to scale off relative dimensions of the coaster car to reasonable accuracy. I'm sure my creative mind will add a bit of design beauty and originality to my model car.

Past Photos - Year 2000!

Tonight I uncovered some photos out of a dusty box.  This was my first attempt at building a working model coaster.  Go ahead. Laugh it up. Ha.

I believe I started by creating a huge sheet of paper from a shit ton of 8 1/2 x 11 sheets taped together.  I know, genius. I traced out my track design by what felt good, then the build began!

Creation of the train station.

I believe I was using HO scale model railroad brass for rails.  If I remember correctly I had challenges of bending the track to match my needed curves and dips.

Haha. Anyone remember the first K'nex roller-coaster......again Genius!

Looks like I was more interested in painting the structure than I was finishing it or having it work!

Nice bents.  Not sure why there is a drumstick on the table.

Gosh I'm glad this got torn down. It's horrid!