Author Topic: A fix for the shakes.  (Read 24911 times)

Offline Admiral_dk

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #60 on: October 18, 2018, 09:37:20 PM »
Quote
I managed to  lose my 3D CAD work for the "Y" and "Z" axis fine adjustment that I did over the weekend.

Oh man I bet you felt like  :Mad:  :cussing: or even  :killcomputer:

This is absolutely not a nice feature of that software pack  :Doh:

Glad to hear that you have progress none the less  :ThumbsUp:

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #61 on: October 19, 2018, 09:57:37 PM »
Admiral_dk:

Pretty much all of the above.

However on a brighter note, the last time that I fired up DesignSpark I got a notice that the BETA version of 4.0 is available for download.  There must have been a couple of upgrades that I didn't pay any attention to since I'm running version 2.1.

I was reading through the release notes for ver. 4.0 and found out that one of the Core changes that was made was the generation of a recovery file.  Guess what I downloaded, all 1.1+ gigabytes of it.  I haven't extracted it yet since I haven't found out if version 2.1 and version 4.0 can exist at the same time.  I'd like to check out ver. 4.0 without overwriting or uninstalling ver. 2.1.  I'd REALLY rather not start burning the bridge behind me while I'm still on it, you know what I mean?

Don

Offline Admiral_dk

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #62 on: October 21, 2018, 08:14:22 PM »
You could try WMware vSphere Hypervisor (Christ, last time I used WMware was 5 years ago - one product - now it's galore), a free virtual computer running on your existing computer => whatever catastrophes you have there, will not influence the "real hardware / software"  ;)
That way you can run a test of the new version without actually installing it on the real computer and you will still have access to the real files - though you can't delete them (or as long as they are in protected mode).

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #63 on: March 22, 2019, 06:15:10 PM »
OK, 5 months is enough of a vacation, it's time for me to pull my head out of my a** and actually do something.  I have this life-long habit of not working on something until I actually need it.  I've had over 60 years of practice, so I'm pretty good at it too. (Procrastinating that is.)

When last we talked, sort of, I had made the fine adjustment screws for all the axis - they even worked!  At least they mostly worked.  I did get the fine adjustment required, things just flopped around too much.  I've been thinking on this for a while, I haven't done anything constructive yet, but I've been thinking on it.

It's my own fault,  I tried to get sneaky and make the rack do double duty.  I was trying to use it as both the rack half of the rack and pinion, AND - I was  trying to use it as the guide/support bar.

It mostly worked as the rack, but not so much as the guide/support bar.  I had to open up the tolerance between the parts so that I could get relatively easy movement.  However when I do this I've also got enough tolerance that things have a tendency to flop around.  I'm trying to build a "Fix for the shakes", not just add another layer to the shakes I've already got.

It's time for a major re-design.  Or maybe it's another major re-design - I've lost track.  I'm not scrapping everything, this idea is too close to actually working for me to do that.   I am however going to scrap the rack and pinion idea.  I'm thinking 8mm rods.  It's what most 3D printers run on, and as our cousins across the pond say - "they're cheap as chips".  I've even got LM8UU linear bearings as spare parts for my printer that I can use while I get some more on order.

My current thinking is to manually move the axis  to a rough position, clamp it down and use the screw for fine adjustment.  There's only one axis that will require movement with every crimp, to load the wire and then to remove the crimped wire/terminal.  I might keep the rack and pinion for this action.  But, it would have a fixed stop at the crimper end of the travel, and I would still keep the screw for fine adjustment.

I can foresee a lot of 3D CAD work in my near future. Future updates WILL NOT take another 5 months, maybe Monday-ish??

Don
« Last Edit: March 22, 2019, 08:08:39 PM by ddmckee54 »

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #64 on: March 25, 2019, 06:45:07 PM »
Well CRAP!!!

Another weekend gone and nothing to SHOW for it.  Mind you, I got a lot done, I just haven't got anything I can show you because some silly bugger left home this morning without those files in hand.  I've got some printed parts, but no matter how close I hold the parts to the monitor, this stupid PC can't see them.

I took the idea of using 8mm rails for 3D printers and ran with it.  I mostly scrapped the original design, I think I was able to re-use 5 parts without modification, the fixed and movable wire clamp jaws, the pinion and its' adjusting knob, and the holding bracket for the terminal crimper.  I started the re-design Friday night and finished it late Saturday afternoon.

In the process I came up with a method for making this thing multi-task, I made the Z-axis/wire holder bolt on to the X-Y assembly.  That way I can use the X-Y assembly with my soldering rig, which is what started this whole thread in the first place. (Kind of a circle of life thing?)  The unit that I wound up with, has 300mm long X-axis rails giving me a useful X travel of about 150mm, 130mm Y-axis rails with a useful Y travel of about 70-80mm, and about 100mm Z-axis rails with a useful Z travel of about 50mm-ish.  The base that this thing will be bolted to will be about 200mm x 400mm, that's about 8" x 16" for us non-metrificated red-necks.  To para-phrase the bus driver from "High Spirits", - It's genius, pure genius - just you wait and see.

I fired up the printer Saturday night, and it's been running pretty much non-stop since then printing batches of parts.  The Y-axis and Z-axis parts are completely printed.  I printed the X-axis bearing holder last night, that was about a 9 hour print.  The X-axis rail holder and rail clamp will be done printing when I get home, either that or I'll have a HELLUVA mess to clean up when I get home.  That just leaves the misc. X-axis parts to print, which should take another 2-3 hours, and then the printing should be complete.

I ordered a pair of chromed 8mm hardened rails 600mm long with assorted bearings and brackets, they're supposed to arrive by Friday.  Those 2 rails will give me enough 8mm rail stock for all the rails this thing will need with enough left over to use for the soldering iron holder.

Tomorrow I WILL remember the 3D PDF file.  And, I'll get a family shot of the parts that I've got printed.

Don

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #65 on: March 26, 2019, 07:02:00 PM »
Last night I finished printing the parts required for this X-Y table thingamabob. At least I think this is all of them.

The first attachment is the 3D PDF of what this monstrosity will look like.  The second attachment is a screen-print of that PDF.  The last attachment is a family photo of the printed parts to date.  Until the rails get here about all I can do is finish installing the brass threaded inserts and get everything bolted together.  The rails have shipped, and FedEx is claiming that they'll be delivered by Friday.

Don

Offline Admiral_dk

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #66 on: March 26, 2019, 07:40:57 PM »
Glad to hear that you are moving again and hope that you get more success this time around.
Think of it this way - you are more less the trailblazer, so you will also encounter ALL the bumps on the road.

Best wishes

Per

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #67 on: March 26, 2019, 09:45:42 PM »
I'm reasonably confident that this version will work as advertised.  I'm using the same guide rails and linear bearings as used on a 3D printer.  So I've got no concerns about getting smooth and stable movement out of any of the three axis.  The biggest concern that I see now will be the 2 part clamp that supports the Z-axis rails.  If that doesn't work the way I want it to, it will be a simple matter to print a new 1 piece part and just press the Z-axis rails into it.  I may just do that anyway to avoid the issue.

Slightly off topic, but does anybody know what the accepted plural of axis would be?
Don

Offline MJM460

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #68 on: March 27, 2019, 01:25:58 AM »
Hi Don, good to see more progress.

I am going to stick my neck out and guess one axis, three or five might still be axis, as in a five axis milling machine.  I was going to say three axes, but when I write it, it looks more murderous of the language.  I will be interested to see what others say.  Sorting out some of those irregular forms is nearly as bad as dealing with the shakes, but at the risk of scorn from the English majors, I will say less essential to resolve.

MJM460

The more I learn, the more I find that I still have to learn!

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #69 on: March 27, 2019, 03:01:43 PM »
Well, Google is your friend.  The plural of axis as far as math is concerned, and probably CNC, is axes - but it's pronounced ax-eez.

Live and learn I guess.

Back to the subject at hand.  Last night the more I thought about it, the less confident I became in the Z-axis clamp being able to handle its' mission.  I think that tonight I will reprint the Z-axis rail holder/clamp as a one piece part with press in rails.  I can even thicken up that area of the part to give the rails a little more support, it's currently only 6mm thick.   I've found that with my printer when making parts with an interference fit, a tolerance of +0.0 to +0.2mm gives me a nice solid press in fit.

Don

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #70 on: April 02, 2019, 04:43:17 PM »
I am becoming less than impressed with FedEx, at least FedEx "SMARTPOST".  The tracking information for my shipment of a quantity of 2 rails, 4 bearings, and 4 brackets is like reading the instructions for a Chinese Fire Drill.

See for yourself, this is listed from the most recent to the earliest entry:

Apr 1, 2019
20:37pm PDT
Shipment information sent to U.S. Postal Service
50395

Apr 1, 2019
20:06pm PDT
Departed FedEx location
FEDEX SMARTPOST OLATHE, KS 66062

Mar 29, 2019
20:29pm PDT
Arrived at FedEx location
FEDEX SMARTPOST OLATHE, KS 66062

Mar 28, 2019
18:52pm PDT
In transit
BRAMAN, OK 74632

Mar 28, 2019
06:39am PDT
In transit
MORIARTY, NM 87035

Mar 27, 2019
18:13pm PDT
In transit
BARSTOW, CA 92311

Mar 26, 2019
22:25pm PDT
Departed FedEx location
FEDEX SMARTPOST LOS ANGELES, CA 90022

Mar 26, 2019
14:26pm PDT
Arrived at FedEx location
FEDEX SMARTPOST LOS ANGELES, CA 90022

Mar 22, 2019
17:21pm PDT
Shipment information sent to FedEx
91710

Mar 22, 2019
18:40pm PDT
Tracking number provided


This package was "shipped" on March 22nd, took a week to get from California to Kansas, sat in Olathe for a few days, and now it looks like the U.S. Postal Service has it?  How is that a FedEx delivery?  Oh, I just know caught that it's FEDEX SMARTPOST.  I think the Pony Express could have delivered it by now.

Don


















 
 
 

 
« Last Edit: April 02, 2019, 04:50:29 PM by ddmckee54 »

Offline crueby

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #71 on: April 02, 2019, 06:20:55 PM »
Yeah, they send it partway by fedex and rest by post office - UPS has the same thing too. I love it when they bring it all the way to the local depot, then over to my post office, who brings it two days later, when they brought another package to my house the same day they gave the other one to the post office, a block away...

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #72 on: April 03, 2019, 04:15:04 PM »
Well, when last I checked, this morning as of 5:14AM the package has arrived at my post office.  It doesn't say it's out for delivery yet, so either the tracking hasn't been updated or I won't see the package until tomorrow.

Meanwhile the new printer, that I ordered a week AFTER I ordered these rails, was waiting for me on my doorstep last night when I got home from work.

Don

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #73 on: April 04, 2019, 06:49:40 PM »
Color me surprised, the 8mm rails DID show up yesterday.

It'll be a few days before I get back to this project though, too busy playing with setting up the new printer.  My 20mm cube isn't exactly cubic right now, and I'm also playing with feed rates and temperatures.

Just for grins and giggles one of the first things I printed was a 20mm cube using the g-code optimized to my old machine and started playing with the feed-rate and temperature.  I need to print at 230° C on my old machine for it to be happy, this one is happy printing at 205° C.  I was able to crank the feed rate up to 200%.  I wasn't happy with the surface detail, but from the reading I've done that might be more of a cooling issue than a speed issue.

Until I figure out what I'm going to do about the cooling, I'll just run smaller parts at a slower speed to give things a chance to cool off a little more before the next layer is added.

Don

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: A fix for the shakes.
« Reply #74 on: January 07, 2020, 08:36:39 PM »
I thought that I updated this thread yesterday, I know I typed it and previewed it, I must have forgotten to actually post it before I closed everything out.  It's been 8-9 months since I last updated this thread, in that time there's been no physical progress on this project beyond what was previously posted.  I've got this bad habit of starting a project, getting it completed enough to use it - sort of, and then going on to something else.  Time for that to change, I need this thing working - all of it.

The new printer mentioned in my April 4, 2019 post has become my work-horse printer, it's SOOOO much faster and quieter than my Prusa I3 clone.

I've currently got an RC conversion project that I'm working on which will require a number of cables made up using both Dupont and JST style connectors, so I need the crimper.  How many cables you ask?  Don't know, more than a few, but slightly less than a boat-load.  I've got 4 sets of head-lights/tail-lights/turn-signals that will need connectors.  Then there's the 8 out-rigger motors and the 4 drive-wheel motors.  And let's not forget the 4 motors on the rotating turret, those have to go through the slip-ring which will probably also need a connector or four.

This project will also require some a bunch of soldering.  I've got a couple of printed circuit boards to make, mainly cable interface boards, and the interface board to the Arduino Nano.  Even if they are just perf-boards with parts added to them, they still need to be soldered.  There's several (4 to be exact) 6 position 2 pole rotary switches that will need to be made up, 2 for the transmitter and 2 for the receiver.

I've discovered that I can sometimes successfully decode the gobbledy-gook in the product descriptions used by a lot of the Chinese 3D printer lead-screw manufacturers.  I have even ordered lead-screws from one manufacturer, and lead-screw nuts from a different manufacturer - and they WORKED when put together.  In their defense, if I were to try translating some of the stuff that I work on into Chinese using the available translators, they would probably be scratching their collective heads wondering what idiot wrote this garbage?  It was because of these lead-screw adventures that I realized I could scrap the rack and pinion positioning and replace it with a lead-screw.  On the plus side this will probably give me another 20mm-40mm, or more, of usable space in the X and Y axis.

I've got one important project in the queue before this one.  My oldest brother is a bit of a gun-totin' red-neck, so I got him a "Red-neck Plunger" as a gag gift.  I'm making a presentation case for it, every fine weapon deserves a presentation case right?  He'll love it, his sense of humor is almost as warped as mine is.

Updates to follow, won't be 8-9 months this time - I hope.
Don
« Last Edit: January 07, 2020, 08:43:34 PM by ddmckee54 »

 

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