Frames assembled

Please remember I have moved - www.raynerd.co.uk

But here is a bit more on the clock with the frames assembled with the pillars and washers - camera phone so not the best quality.





Regards
Chris

www.raynerd.co.uk

I have moved! I have treated myself to a new website, well actually I have had it for the past year but just not got around to sorting it out! I`ve taken some time out during this holiday and I have finally got it all up to date.

Although my ambition has always been a clock build, I have many other projects going on around it. My new site www.raynerd.co.uk gives me a chance to show all my work and also a few more custom options with regards to the site maintenance.

I have used wordpress on my new site and therefore I have had the flexibility of simply importing all the posts and comments from this site, over to my new one so nothing has been lost!

Please come over and follow me there:

http://www.raynerd.co.uk


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Intermediate Wheel - Second Attempt

I`m really pleased. Here is what has changed since my last attempt:

1. Clockmakers CZ120 engravers brass, I would never bother trying with soft brass again!!
2. A new sharp hardened cutter
3. My new CNC rotary table which worked a treat!

I`m really pleased. I`m going to re-do it as I still feel the teeth are a touch spiral which indicated my cutter was not centre. I spent a good 10 minutes eyeballing the centre with a dead centre held in the rotary table and locking the Z-axis to position. I`m certain it was centre so I need to work out what was wrong, perhaps the cutter is not sitting parallel?

The wheel could possibly run OK as it is only a fraction out and barely noticeable but I think I`ll go for a re-make. Just need to figure how to get this bob on centre height.

These pictures are still on the rotary table with the teeth just cut. They have since been dressed and cleaned up. The difference is the flakes that are still on the photos just flick off and rub off with fine paper where as with the soft brass in my last attempt at cutting, the brass flakes left behind were smudged and could not be cleaned.









Chris

Vertex CNC Rotary Table - finished

Well this is it for now - it is almost finishd, infact I`ve got a bit further than the pictures go because I have now stuck the keypad on the front and made a cheap bezel to hide the screws and frame the display. Still needs a few finishing touches but they are for asthetics, it is fully working now and in position.

The keypad is a standard 4 x 4 matrix which comes with standard number inserts. It took ages getting the alignment right in MS Word and I`m sure there were far far better ways but I eventually got somewhere close and that I am happy with:


And then the box - Maplins Electronics Housing, was a pain to cut, it wanted to split. You can see the two connectors at the bottom, left is a 2.1mm power jack to connect to my old spare laptop charger (which powers both the driver and the indexer) and on the right is a 4 pin DIN connector which I`m using to couple the stepper motor to the box. Since the indexer has 5 profiles for different devices I wanted to be able to change the motor quickly and easily.


This is posed, but I wanted to see what it will look like mounted on the wall next to the mill and well it will look something like this (since the picture was taken, it has now been fitted on the wall). I have printed a mount or bezel that fits around the display, covers the screws and neatens the edge.


I`m really pleased I`ve gone down this route and it has worked really well!

Chris

CNC Vertex Rotary table - part 3 - nearly finished.

I picked up the electronics tonight and will post more details about the source shortly. The electronics to make the indexing divice came to short of £30. I already had a Nema23 stepper motor and Routout Driver 2.5A which were also used. The Driver is shown below:


This is the indexer:


Apparently the electronics is quite straight forward since the "brains" in programmed in the chip. If I`m being honest, it means nothing to me...





However, its functionallity does and it is TRUELY EXCELLENT!!
These are the functions:



I will discuss the rest in time as and when I have played with it more and taken pictures but basically you can step by 0.01 of a degree, 0.1, 1.0 and 10 deg with quick single steps. You can jog in any steps. You can divide 360 in to 0-999 divisions. Continually rotate the table in either direction and even programme in command steps! It is brilliant! Backlash compensation is also included!

To divide which I need for my clock building, you select it from the start menu and enter the number of divisions:


You then press the direction button to move directly to the next division!! No fuss, just a button!!



I just need to encase the hole lot and make some labels for the buttons (which I now know off by heart after using it for the past couple of hours without any markings)!

Rotary Table CNC - part 2 - Complete Motor Mount

Following on from my last post, I drilled and tapped the larger circular motor bracket disk to accept the M5 bolts that would ultimately hold on the motor. I then bored a hole in the centre:





The Oldham couplings arrived - 12mm one side to lock onto the Rotab shaft and 1/4" on the other side for the motor shaft. The the spacer/link in the centre.



All the parts ready to fit together:





And then the motor mount complete:



I have hooked it up to Mach3 and my driver and it is working. I just need to sort out the electronics for division steps.... more to come with a video.

Chris

Rotary Table CNC Conversion

I purchased a Vertex Rotary table (rotab/RT) a few months ago and it has seen some good use but I will hopefully use it even more for dividing in cutting my clock wheels. I have purchased the dividing set as an add-on to the rotary table which comes with three plates for easy dividing. I have studied how to use the dividing plates and after a trial with them, there is no way I can keep concentration for long enough to use them on a 60 - 120 tooth wheel! If it was 1 to 1 then maybe, but I know I`ll mess up eventually and then there are counts which can`t be done with the plates.

I know, I know .... I should be able to use them and people have used them for years and years in the past but I fancy dabbling again in CNC. When I say again, I mean after my horrific failure at converting my X3 mill to a CNC X axis! A failure maybe, but at least I know now the basics of CNC, the software and the basic setup. So here goes, this is Part 1 but I hope the complete setup to be finished within a week of this post:

This is what I am aiming for -



these are £380 for the CNC kit only (i.e not including the table), I`m hoping to build similar with some help on the electronics but more on that in the next post when it has arrived. For now, I just need to remove the handle and make a bracket to fit the motor spindle to the rotab spindle. Basically, it should look like the one above but without the electronics gizmo... for now!

Here goes:

Vertex 4" Rotab with handle removed:



I`m going to need to couple the shafts together and for that I`m buying a 12mm (shaft axis diamter of rotab) to a 1/4" (shaft dia of motor) oldham coupling. This will also compensate small amounts of miss alignment. So basically we just need to bridge the gap and make a support for the motor. I`m using a tube of ally that was in the scrap bin:


It was bored out to leave a little lip on the inside of the bottom end:


A disk was cut and bored with three holes drilled matching the rotary table threaded holes:


The disk drops down the tube and against the lip, when bolted against the rotab is locks the tube onto the table:


When mounted:


Now the motor needs to be mounted on its 4 holes in the position below but I`ll have to space it out another 25mm to fit the oldham couplings that will be inside.



So that is the idea but I need another spacer (ideally a longer tube would have done!) but I also need more width for the motor mounting points. I`m going to use this and once bored out it should work a treat!



Just need the oldham couplings to arrive and then pickup the electronics. More details next episode!

Chris