|
Post by trailshark on Jun 26, 2018 15:04:06 GMT
I am fairly new to the CNC world but I am an engineer with several degrees so my creativity tends to get away from me sometimes. I bought a carveking and I want to do a few things to modify it. I'm curious to see if anybody else has done anything similar. I searched the forums but didn't find anything.
A) I want to extend my z-axis. 4 inches of travel just isn't enough. I want to work bigger pieces (up to at least 12" tall). I believe what I need to do is:
1) Buy a longer lead screw, and longer v slot rails. This will allow me to rebuild the z plate to travel farther. This alone should add z-axis travel and if all I am processing is 17"x 17" pieces then I can now process taller pieces up to the height of these longer pieces.
2) Build taller front and back frame pieces. This will allow me to mount everything higher and allow for larger pieces to clear the y-rails. This is more problematic because I will need to stiffen my "posts" to maintain accuracy.
B) I want to try to rotate the spindle about the YZ plane. This will require mounting something like a cog to the Z plate with another lead screw and stepper motor to rotate the z-plate. This is more concept than anything else right now as I haven't seen anything that is worth trying out yet. Rotating about the XZ plane is more problematic with the current setup and I think well beyond my capabilities currently. Another challenge, provided I can find something to rotate the spindle reliably will be how to control it. The UNO board setup we have now and most commercially available only control 4 stepper motors. This would require at least one more motor. I don't think having two UNO boards working together is a viable option.
C) I would like to work longer pieces. I can put a long board through the x axis and work a 17" section of it. I don't think Fusion 360 will work in sections so I have to try to separate my design into sections and move the piece between operations and line it up. One solution would be to add 2 stepper motors with lead screws and v rails to move the workpiece back and forth along the x axis in and out of the work area. The same issue with controlling more motors would affect this.
D) I would also like to use a lathe with my carveking. Why not rotate my piece while using the router to create new unique designs by spinning the piece while cutting it? This would really expand the possibilities of this setup. Provided I can accomplish A) above, it wouldn't be hard to setup a lathe along the x axis. The problem would come with controlling the rotational speed (or position as in C)) of the piece along with the other motors.
I would love to hear your thoughts on these modifications and see if anybody has tried anything similar. I can purchase v slot rails and lead screws and I have an idea of making stiffer taller front and rear frames. The biggest question is how to get more motors to work well together without spending a fortune. I also need to get a second motor mount to stiffen up my Dewalt router. Currently that is where most of my variation comes from is the router itself moving in the mount. I think a second mount would help.
|
|
|
Post by Mototech on Jun 27, 2018 0:12:47 GMT
You sir are speaking my language. I'm not an engineer, but pretty well rounded in various industries. I want to make a lot of the mods you have listed below, but to me it always comes down to, I would do better designing and building my own CNC instead of the limitations and huge amount of time it would take to design and retro fit the Carve King to get it to be capable of more. Don't let me discourage you though, I'm just offering my thoughts and am excited to see what you come up with. Please see below. I am fairly new to the CNC world but I am an engineer with several degrees so my creativity tends to get away from me sometimes. I bought a carveking and I want to do a few things to modify it. I'm curious to see if anybody else has done anything similar. I searched the forums but didn't find anything. A) I want to extend my z-axis. 4 inches of travel just isn't enough. I want to work bigger pieces (up to at least 12" tall). I believe what I need to do is:
Do you wish to achieve machine travel in the Z axis greater than 4", or allow taller pieces to be mounted and still maintain the 4" of travel?
1) Buy a longer lead screw, and longer v slot rails. This will allow me to rebuild the z plate to travel farther. This alone should add z-axis travel and if all I am processing is 17"x 17" pieces then I can now process taller pieces up to the height of these longer pieces. Weight. Not sure of the exact figures, but the Y and Z axis rails/ design can only handle so much weight. So the planned additions might add up to too much weight for the Y axis rails to handle.
2) Build taller front and back frame pieces. This will allow me to mount everything higher and allow for larger pieces to clear the y-rails. This is more problematic because I will need to stiffen my "posts" to maintain accuracy. You could also cut the machine bed to allow for larger pieces to be mounted deeper than the stock bed. I once thought of an adjustable bed on a manual operated gear system that could be lowered. But I figure it would seriously compromise structural integrity and require stiffening mods to be designed. B) I want to try to rotate the spindle about the YZ plane. This will require mounting something like a cog to the Z plate with another lead screw and stepper motor to rotate the z-plate. This is more concept than anything else right now as I haven't seen anything that is worth trying out yet. Rotating about the XZ plane is more problematic with the current setup and I think well beyond my capabilities currently. Another challenge, provided I can find something to rotate the spindle reliably will be how to control it. The UNO board setup we have now and most commercially available only control 4 stepper motors. This would require at least one more motor. I don't think having two UNO boards working together is a viable option. Interesting. More degrees of freedom/ more axis' added. This is a big can of worms to open when it comes to CAM programming. AFAIK, the stock CNC shield Arduino stack cannot handle more axis'. This goes beyond my knowledge, but more vectors/ I, J, K come to mind. Would be awesome, but the amount of weight the Y and z rails can handle comes to mind again.
C) I would like to work longer pieces. I can put a long board through the x axis and work a 17" section of it. I don't think Fusion 360 will work in sections so I have to try to separate my design into sections and move the piece between operations and line it up. One solution would be to add 2 stepper motors with lead screws and v rails to move the workpiece back and forth along the x axis in and out of the work area. The same issue with controlling more motors would affect this. Alignment/ origin shift. Stepper motors moving the bed or work piece would be awesome. But creating separate CAM programs that shift your alignment or origin is an option. You basically make a program that runs within the machine travel limits. Then move the work piece and run another program that aligns/ origins off a known constant that was machined in the previous operation. The design of the Carve King does limit how you can shift your material though as your have pointed out.
I have never attempted to create or run a CAM program with an alignment shift/ a piece larger than the machine travel. But was thinking I could machine a straight edge on a fixed clamp piece that the work piece can be slid down and aligned/ rotated to. And machine holes in the 1st program that go into the spoil board. These holes can be used with a tight fitting pin to allow your origin to be shifted and aligned to for the second program.D) I would also like to use a lathe with my carveking. Why not rotate my piece while using the router to create new unique designs by spinning the piece while cutting it? This would really expand the possibilities of this setup. Provided I can accomplish A) above, it wouldn't be hard to setup a lathe along the x axis. The problem would come with controlling the rotational speed (or position as in C)) of the piece along with the other motors. I'm still amazed at the abilities of CNC lathes with live tooling. AFAIK, the majority of affordable home CNC's only use a 4th axis that will spin the work piece. But only at very low speeds, basically just rotates the piece about the x or y axis. But not at lathe speeds.I would love to hear your thoughts on these modifications and see if anybody has tried anything similar. I can purchase v slot rails and lead screws and I have an idea of making stiffer taller front and rear frames. The biggest question is how to get more motors to work well together without spending a fortune. I also need to get a second motor mount to stiffen up my Dewalt router. Currently that is where most of my variation comes from is the router itself moving in the mount. I think a second mount would help. Not sure how much it would cost, but to get the extra motors to work together would require a different control board and possibly sender software. I also want to add a second router mount to allow the nod/ tilt in the Y axis to be adjusted with shims when tramming. I have some movement in the router, but was thinking it was slop in my adjustments of the Z rails/ eccentric spacers. Was wondering if the linear rail bearing combo that the M3 uses in the Z and the Power Route uses offers less slop. Thinking of designing plates that allows two router mounts and linear bearings to be installed.
|
|
|
Post by Bruce on Jun 28, 2018 2:06:30 GMT
Sounds like you want a big 4th axis machine. Really a completely different machine!
|
|
|
Post by trailshark on Jun 28, 2018 14:22:35 GMT
You sir are speaking my language. I'm not an engineer, but pretty well rounded in various industries. I want to make a lot of the mods you have listed below, but to me it always comes down to, I would do better designing and building my own CNC instead of the limitations and huge amount of time it would take to design and retro fit the Carve King to get it to be capable of more. Don't let me discourage you though, I'm just offering my thoughts and am excited to see what you come up with. Please see below. I am fairly new to the CNC world but I am an engineer with several degrees so my creativity tends to get away from me sometimes. I bought a carveking and I want to do a few things to modify it. I'm curious to see if anybody else has done anything similar. I searched the forums but didn't find anything. A) I want to extend my z-axis. 4 inches of travel just isn't enough. I want to work bigger pieces (up to at least 12" tall). I believe what I need to do is:
Do you wish to achieve machine travel in the Z axis greater than 4", or allow taller pieces to be mounted and still maintain the 4" of travel?
1) Buy a longer lead screw, and longer v slot rails. This will allow me to rebuild the z plate to travel farther. This alone should add z-axis travel and if all I am processing is 17"x 17" pieces then I can now process taller pieces up to the height of these longer pieces. Weight. Not sure of the exact figures, but the Y and Z axis rails/ design can only handle so much weight. So the planned additions might add up to too much weight for the Y axis rails to handle.
2) Build taller front and back frame pieces. This will allow me to mount everything higher and allow for larger pieces to clear the y-rails. This is more problematic because I will need to stiffen my "posts" to maintain accuracy. You could also cut the machine bed to allow for larger pieces to be mounted deeper than the stock bed. I once thought of an adjustable bed on a manual operated gear system that could be lowered. But I figure it would seriously compromise structural integrity and require stiffening mods to be designed. B) I want to try to rotate the spindle about the YZ plane. This will require mounting something like a cog to the Z plate with another lead screw and stepper motor to rotate the z-plate. This is more concept than anything else right now as I haven't seen anything that is worth trying out yet. Rotating about the XZ plane is more problematic with the current setup and I think well beyond my capabilities currently. Another challenge, provided I can find something to rotate the spindle reliably will be how to control it. The UNO board setup we have now and most commercially available only control 4 stepper motors. This would require at least one more motor. I don't think having two UNO boards working together is a viable option. Interesting. More degrees of freedom/ more axis' added. This is a big can of worms to open when it comes to CAM programming. AFAIK, the stock CNC shield Arduino stack cannot handle more axis'. This goes beyond my knowledge, but more vectors/ I, J, K come to mind. Would be awesome, but the amount of weight the Y and z rails can handle comes to mind again.
C) I would like to work longer pieces. I can put a long board through the x axis and work a 17" section of it. I don't think Fusion 360 will work in sections so I have to try to separate my design into sections and move the piece between operations and line it up. One solution would be to add 2 stepper motors with lead screws and v rails to move the workpiece back and forth along the x axis in and out of the work area. The same issue with controlling more motors would affect this. Alignment/ origin shift. Stepper motors moving the bed or work piece would be awesome. But creating separate CAM programs that shift your alignment or origin is an option. You basically make a program that runs within the machine travel limits. Then move the work piece and run another program that aligns/ origins off a known constant that was machined in the previous operation. The design of the Carve King does limit how you can shift your material though as your have pointed out.
I have never attempted to create or run a CAM program with an alignment shift/ a piece larger than the machine travel. But was thinking I could machine a straight edge on a fixed clamp piece that the work piece can be slid down and aligned/ rotated to. And machine holes in the 1st program that go into the spoil board. These holes can be used with a tight fitting pin to allow your origin to be shifted and aligned to for the second program.D) I would also like to use a lathe with my carveking. Why not rotate my piece while using the router to create new unique designs by spinning the piece while cutting it? This would really expand the possibilities of this setup. Provided I can accomplish A) above, it wouldn't be hard to setup a lathe along the x axis. The problem would come with controlling the rotational speed (or position as in C)) of the piece along with the other motors. I'm still amazed at the abilities of CNC lathes with live tooling. AFAIK, the majority of affordable home CNC's only use a 4th axis that will spin the work piece. But only at very low speeds, basically just rotates the piece about the x or y axis. But not at lathe speeds.I would love to hear your thoughts on these modifications and see if anybody has tried anything similar. I can purchase v slot rails and lead screws and I have an idea of making stiffer taller front and rear frames. The biggest question is how to get more motors to work well together without spending a fortune. I also need to get a second motor mount to stiffen up my Dewalt router. Currently that is where most of my variation comes from is the router itself moving in the mount. I think a second mount would help. Not sure how much it would cost, but to get the extra motors to work together would require a different control board and possibly sender software. I also want to add a second router mount to allow the nod/ tilt in the Y axis to be adjusted with shims when tramming. I have some movement in the router, but was thinking it was slop in my adjustments of the Z rails/ eccentric spacers. Was wondering if the linear rail bearing combo that the M3 uses in the Z and the Power Route uses offers less slop. Thinking of designing plates that allows two router mounts and linear bearings to be installed. Yes, a 4 or 5-axis machine is what I really want but if I had an extra $35k laying around I wouldn't be messing with this stuff, I'd probably be paying somebody else to run it, HA HA. So until I win the lottery, I gotta figure out how to make this work. I do want more than 4" of travel in the z-axis. I just ordered some rails and a screw. I will pull mine apart and take some measurements of the plates. I think I need to make bigger plates and watch for the increased weight issue. I'm also thinking about stiffening up the v-slot rails. I believe the hole down the middle is 5mm. What if I stick a steel rod down the length of it? Seems like that would stiffen it. I've actually watched my router deflect and move within the mount, no matter how much I tighten it, even at slow speeds. A second mount would definitely help.
|
|
|
Post by Mototech on Jun 28, 2018 22:02:01 GMT
I'm in the same boat financially😁 I was thinking of adding 2 more rails between the end plates on the x axis or switching to 40x40 extrusions to help beef up the structure and z axis weight limits.
Interesting thought, I figured the rails would have some flex, but never thought of adding a rod inside for stiffness.
I want to measure all of the parts on my carve king and create a 3d model in fusion so I can play around with different designs and better calculate material sizes I will need, to save some money. Was also thing of a tower on the back that supported the y rails from the top. So the front side under the rails is open to allow sliding whatever size stock you want in there.
|
|
|
Post by Mototech on Jun 28, 2018 22:05:56 GMT
Another thought too, I'm currently in the process of tramming my router to make sure everything is square and things don't go from loose to tight from one end of the travel to the other. Figure that way I can eliminate the variable of poor setup/ alignment and get a better idea of where I'd like to try and beef up the design.
|
|
|
Post by Derek the Admin on Jun 29, 2018 6:57:18 GMT
FYI a rod inside the rail doesn’t do much for stiffness. Small rods are good for adding stiffness along the axis of the rod but do little to prevent deflection and torsion.
|
|
tim
New Member
Posts: 48
|
Post by tim on Aug 29, 2018 12:33:43 GMT
easy question: can't wen just cut a 12x12" square (or circle) in the middle of the bed - then just mount the whole machine higher, make the Z axis longer rails and problem solved?
|
|
|
Post by linkreincarnate on Nov 22, 2018 7:39:07 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Derek the Admin on Nov 22, 2018 22:01:33 GMT
Thanks for sharing the vid. I love This Old Tony.
|
|
mattb
New Member
Posts: 1
|
Post by mattb on Sept 10, 2021 12:16:32 GMT
I'm in the same boat financially😁 I was thinking of adding 2 more rails between the end plates on the x axis or switching to 40x40 extrusions to help beef up the structure and z axis weight limits. Interesting thought, I figured the rails would have some flex, but never thought of adding a rod inside for stiffness. I want to measure all of the parts on my carve king and create a 3d model in fusion so I can play around with different designs and better calculate material sizes I will need, to save some money. Was also thing of a tower on the back that supported the y rails from the top. So the front side under the rails is open to allow sliding whatever size stock you want in there. Did you try the 4040 upgrade for the x-rails? I was thinking about that as well. Increasing the bending stiffness in the xy plane would be a big improvement, maybe reduce deflections by an order of magnitude. About $50 for the stock, and cut to length by matching the existing rails.
|
|