X Rails and Ganty assembly

Its days like this that make me proud to be a DIYer. Drilling the holes for the rails was much simpler than I had anticipated! I also noticed that CNCRouterParts just put out a jig to help people do the drilling. My dad owns a lower end drill press from Harbor freight. It works pretty well but you can tell it has a noticeable amount of play in the chuck so every hole has a small amount of variation in it.

In order to avoid compounding the variability I took extra precautions to ensure each hole was as close as possible. It worked out really well this time and I saved a good amount of cash by drilling the holes myself rather than buying the rails pre-drilled from FLA (not to mention the time I would have spent waiting for them to be shipped and get here )

For those of you willing to take the venture into making your own rails heres what I did.

Set up a guide to make sure your at least the same distance from the edge each time. I used a small piece of aluminum angle I picked up from Lowes  Use a center bit or a counter bore bit to start a small pilot  hole. Use some cutting fluid with every hole you drill. It makes things go so much better...like butter. lol not really but it did make a big difference. After you have each of the holes started, move up to a drill bit about half the size of the final 3/8 bit your going to use. Any thing will do, just make sure you use the cutting oil. With this bit you can either go all the way through or only partially. Both are good but we found that not going all the way through helped to hold the cutting fluid when you move up to the final 3/8 bit.

Here's a couple pictures of the setup I had going on the drill press. It worked really well.

Once all the holes are cut it all goes together like seen in the drawings. An interesting side note is that the assembly forum post that I mentioned

http://www.overclock.net/case-mod-work-logs/755828-complete-2-x-3-custom-cnc.html

Yeah that one. It shows him placing the carriage bolts on the 8020 and then tring to get the rail to go on it. That seems really difficult so I just put a bolt and nut in each of the holes and slid the rail into place. It only took a couple minutes. One of the legs was a wee-bit (sp?) close but in the end it all worked out.

That's all I had planned on doing today but I finished pretty early in the day so I got to throw the gantry together. That was much more complicated. The 3030 extrusion is extremely hard to drill through in a straight line. Even when using a jig made from another piece of 8020 I was typically not perpendicular to the piece.

Getting to this point never loses its appeal. Being able to push the gantry along that x-rail is the first pay off you get in a CNC build like this. This time I plan on cutting something. The original machine I tried to construct out of MDF never made it past the gantry push stage.

This machine is without a doubt the most sturdy machine I've attempted to construct so far. I feel confident that it will withstand the abuse were going to put it through.

Ok so whats next? Next I need to drill the holes for the Y rail. Mount that and the associated bearings. Drill the Z axis rail and mount that plate.. Then comes the hard part.... Finishing. Ive got some power train parts I need to order but that going to wait until I get the table assembled.

One step closer - Base Assembled

Here is a couple pictures of one of the more beautiful things I have made. Alright alright. I didn't really make that. I assembled it. A lot of work went into it to get it from the raw t-slot to its current state. Its incredible how many times you have to take that thing apart in order to fit everything and then you realize that something else needed to go on there so you have to take it all apart again

Extruded Aluminum CNC frame

Extruded Aluminum CNC frame

Next task is to drill the hole in the x-axis rails. That's going to be a long hard task to do in a steel rail.

Whew...

 Alright! As stated at CNCzone, the goods did finally arrive. Albeit a tad beat up. UPS bears one part of that blame but FLA bears the other part for shipping it in such a flimsy box in the first place. Non the less its here!













I literally felt like I just got a box of legos. All I wanted to do was sit down and put everything together. Unfortunately I didn't have time so I put it back in the box.












Last bit of news is that Nate, from FLA, finally contacted me. Here's what he had to say.

"Sorry for the delay.  The past 2 weeks we have been dealing with the damage from Hurricane Irene and then major flooding last week.  The shop as well as individual homes were flooded and we are finally done with the cleanup effort.  I had to replace a computer and haven't had access to email all week.

Regards,

Nate"

Its better late than never as far as I'm concerned. Once he shipped the parts they got here pretty quick but getting to that point was a pain. My advise for you Nate is to get a good friend that you can call and tell to post a message on your website letting everyone know if your having problems and can't get to the emails or UPS store...or hop on over to the library for a couple minutes and set up an auto reply on your email telling people who email you whats up. I'm not faulting you for taking care of you and yours. I would have done the same but give the world a heads up if your going to be gone for an extended period of time so people like me, who don't know your situation, don't freak out.

One small step for my CNC....Apparently one giant leap for FLA

Its not much but the little status on my order changed from "to ship" on over to "Shipped". Its only took 7 business days (11 normal days due to the holiday, geeze feels like forever ago), 2 separate unreplied emails, a unreplied PM, and a post on CNCzone warning others of the time frame its taken so far for the fine staff over at FLA to casually place this order in the mail.

I'm giving this guy a hard time but all I care about is the parts showing up. I really wouldn't have minded it taking so long if I would have been kept in the loop. I once waited 2 months for a set of compressors to ship from California. The guy emailed me pretty soon after I placed the order to let me know the warehouse was out and there was a wait but that he would keep me informed.

With that said I don't know Nate (presumably the owner and operator of FLA). I've never talked to him so I don't know whats "on his plate" as someone on CNCzone put it. My only suggestion is put some warning on your site to let people know its going to take a couple weeks for it to ship. Maybe a little note by the price.

Something like this.

Price 370.00
Qty. 1
***Note: Due to high demand. Products may take up to 7 business days to ship***

This performs two tasks. First, it informs the customer that there is a wait and second it makes people want to go ahead and place the order if they're thinking about it since it sounds like the product in high demand. In reality its your time that's in high demand but that's the sales side of me coming out.

;-)

Free advice.

Respond to emails. It takes 2 minutes of your day and everyone has a phone that's capable of getting email these days. (If you don't, odds are you shouldn't be selling stuff online)