Show must go on

Hi, I am thinking if there will be some interest in reading posts on that blog. But recently I started looking back at my workshop and making some small jobs in it. One of the tasks is to end all started machines. Like that CNC which has some elements from epoxy granite. So let's start! One of the things I made is a table for that machine. I used recycled aluminum profiles and plywood. I used some casters to make it movable. There is some place for electronics for CNC in it.

Another thing I made is to fill the bottom of the machine with more epoxy. Its purpose is to make it heavier and less vibrating. In future there will be aluminum table on it. Added also some PE boards to avoid chips and cooling flying around.

Some work on drives is also made

And the electronic board almost connected, some small corrections needed and it will be tested.

I am old school and it still will be driven by Mach3 over the LPT connector. I bought all the elements so long ago and there is no point to scrap them and buy new stuff.

Reuse

Hi,

Do you remember frame that I made from profiles and epoxy granite Lathe body - epoxy&profiles.
I thought to use it as lathe body, but it have dimensions ideal for my X axis. And I will use it.

All free spaces in this machine was planed to fill with epoxy granite. So I can use it as is. Less work for me ;)

Lucas

Workshop update

Hi,

Last time when I have visitors in workshop, they said that it is totally different from what they seen on blog. So small update of current layout (before some other things will be presented). Forgive me for the mess.

New/old CNC after some upgrade. Lot of epoxy granite used to reinforce construction. Wider X axis, ball screws installed on all axis, new enclosure. Still waiting for new spindle to rebuild Z axis.

 Drilling spot, rack with materials.

Assembly table with PC to draw all elements. Plan is to made it from 8020 profiles, but have no time ;)

Bigger CNC. It have dissembled Z axis, as cheap ball nut from China has lost all balls from nut. New one is waiting for installation during weekend. Some new "project" stuff is also visible, but I will write more about it in another post.

Manual lathe and rack with screw.

I hope I will stay in this place till next winter, but who knows.

Lucas

Epoxy granite CNC part

Hello,

I like to share some epoxy granite element that I made to my CNC. I decide to made small modernization of my smaller mill. But like always modernization goes to total rebuild of machine.
One of step was to add stiffness and weight to old frame made from aluminium profiles.
Easiest way was to pour out some epoxy granite. When Y and Z axis was easy, because frame was already done, than X axis I have to  build from scratch.
Here I will describe how I made it.

Lathe body - epoxy + profiles

Hi,

I had to sell my lathe some time ago. I had no choice but I think that it was big mistake. This is one of most important tool in workshop, when you like to build something more complicated.
So I have to get one in my shop back. I can not afford to buy new one. I am afraid to buy used one, not to get junk. So why not to try build one.

I have some spare 45 x 90 mm profiles, 1000 mm length. And a lot of smaller parts.
From my friend Jarek I have 4 kg of epoxy resin and hardener. It is a little bit old and I have to use more hardener that was in original recipe. Sand is no problem.

I decided to use mix 20% of epoxy and rest of sand. I would like to have profiles filled up very precise.

 top

and bottom of profile after filling up with mix. 

Epoxy optical table

Hi all,

I decided to create some bigger sample made with epoxy resin. I chose some optical table. I have some 20W laser in my workshop (that is still waiting to run it), so table will be helpful to end and show laser on blog. I checked in net how they are made and what will be needed to do it.
So first was mold. I decided to made rather small table 160 x 240 mm and 30 mm high. Mold was made from plywood 10 mm thick. As was tested before release agent was silicon in spray.

Next was inserts with thread. So I have a problem here, because there is difficult to get dedicated inserts. I used my lathe to create some sample inserts. They were ok, but it take over 15 min to create one. So I would spend few hours to create inserts only for this small form. That why I decided to search something else. And I found a thing: Ericson's nut. They are used in furniture creation, but it can be easily used as inserts in epoxy casting.

Vibrating table

Hi,

I work in new workshop almost for 2 weeks, but there was nothing to show. Until today :)
I made a vibrating table - to vibrate future epoxy resin CNC. Below some pictures how it was made.
BOM:
 - grinding machine
 - used tire
 - piece of plywood
 - some screws and nuts ( M8 and M4)
 - material for 2 wheels

 I bought this:

Epoxy

Hi all,

For couple of month I was reading different literature, science papers and forums about epoxy granite. I found very interesting topics in www.cnczone.com and www.cnc.info.pl about using it to build CNC frame. And I start to dig deeper. I check availability of epoxy resin in Poland. I found one, parameters of it are very promising: EPOLAM 2002. It is mainly used to laminating, but It can be used to create epoxy granite.
So I found aggregate to fill it. I used two type of aquarium sand:
- 0 to 2 mm diameter,
- 1 to 5 mm  diameter.
After I collect all elements I decide to create MDF mold, It was 150 x 50 mm and 60 mm high. I used wax as separator. I have create 4 samples.

  

1. I used 50/50 of sands and use resin 14,5% of volume, It was not vibrated.