I spent some time in the shop today, getting the cables run on the CNC machine. It’s been another one of those long hiatuses, and I needed to get out there and make the thing cut.
I needed to crimp up some motor cables, and I spent some time making sure that they wouldn’t bind up as the various gantries move back and forth. I ended up using some screw-in cable ties to keep them running in the correct directions. I had an intermittent problem with the Y axis motor, and couldn’t figure out what it was until I opened the connector, and found that one of the 4 poles had a broken solder joint. oops. I soldered that back together, and the Y motor seemed much happier.
I also ran the vacuum hose and router power cable. It turns out that with a small extension, I can make both of these work pretty easily. The vacuum hose needed a special fitting that I haven’t been able to find in the store, so I just cut up a piece of vacuum fitting that I had on-hand to work. I’m pretty impressed at how well it fits together now, and I just need one more piece to go from the Dust Deputy to the Shop Vac and I’ll be golden. The router power cable is running along the vacuum hose, which keeps it away from the DC cables. It also needs a simple extension cord to get working properly. A trip to Home Depot is in the near future.
I Sugru’d the home switches in place, but ran out of Sugru before I could get all the magnets installed. I don’t know if the installation will work as-set, but I have hope. I still need to get the switches cabled. But for now, I can run like it is.
I spent some time after hours looking online for cabling, and decided on using RC servo wire to drive the home switches. It should be perfect. HobbyKing had 60m of cable plus 100 pairs of ends for under $50. I also found articulating cable carrier track on eBay and ordered 10′ of it. That should make the machine look really professional, and will have the additional benefit of keeping the cables from catching everywhere.
So, the machine works at this point, all 3 axes move. I could use some work in the area of vacuum and router power, but essentially, I’m ready to cut.
With a trip to Home Depot, I’ll be at the same level of hardware that the old CNC had, and with the stuff that’s coming in the mail, I’ll be able to add some seriously professional looking (and performing) features.
Let’s get this thing running soon. I’m getting sick of this being a “work in progress”.