Starting To Build A New Router Sled

[Crusarius]

I like the spindle idea. Definitely want to know what you think of it. I like the air-cooled idea as well. I already have to many things I am trying to house on my CNC.

[Larry]

Are you making a utube on the build?

I'm accumulating parts to build one.....someday.  Working on a design now.  Thinking about a carriage that runs on the sawmill rails.  Trying to figure out how to use a 6" Byrd jointer head for the cutter.

I built a wood sled that works ok, but found out dust collection should be a top priority.

[21incher]

I found a 2.2kw 4 bearing air cooled one on Ebay marked down to $151.00 so I decided to give one a try. Not sure how those cheap slides will hold up with  the 15 pound spindle. I see marks on the rails just from playing with  them. Invest in square rails if your  building  a table. After a couple hundred  hours the square rails on my table still have no signs of wear. Still trying  to decide  if I will go with  the same vfd as my router or try one that costs a little more with a speed control pot. If you're  building  a cnc router that will run in your  house for hours go water cooled spindle that is whisper quiet and doesn't blow dust around. VFD speed control is very accurate and easy to interface.  

[21incher]

Are you making a utube on the build?

I'm accumulating parts to build one.....someday.  Working on a design now.  Thinking about a carriage that runs on the sawmill rails.  Trying to figure out how to use a 6" Byrd jointer head for the cutter.

I built a wood sled that works ok, but found out dust collection should be a top priority.

I am but it's  going very slow. I have been fatigued and fuzzy  headed since having  covid and it takes a long time to make the videos and build items now. Yours will have to be very heavy  duty to use a jointer head. Indexing it should be fun also.  Originally I was going to use my mill as the rails but I keep it up on a pallet rack when not used so it takes 1/2 a day to get down . 
My wood sled has zero dust collection and hopefully this will have zero dust. The big question is how much air the spindle moves when I get to try it out. The water cooled spindles move zero air and make dust collection easy but the one I picked could cause some problems. 

[Crusarius]

Good point about dust collection with air cooled spindle. I never thought about that. Unfortunately for you, I am positive dust is going to be an issue. It is surprising how much is created surfacing a small board.

[21incher]

Well the carriage is done for now. Still waiting on the spindle to arrive to try it. No drive motors or belts yet, but at least I can use it manually until my budget recovers. My VFD arrived. Went with the Huanyang this time. Will use on my Bridgeport when not using the sled. Looks like a better quality VFD then the Velor I use on my cnc router. 

 

 

Using a drill for the cross slide for now. Will be adding stepping motors in the future

 

The cross rails are mounted to some old 3030 extrusions

 

Got the spindle mount squared up and the mounting holes drilled. UPS is very slow delivering the spindle from California

 

This is what happens as a result of long term covid brain fog. Went out to make 2 brackets with 8 holes each and came in 4 hours later after multiple tries to get the holes in the right place. So frustrating and exhausting. Spent the rest of the day sleeping on the couch. I never messed anything up this bad before and each part for this build has taken 5times to long to make.

 

Had a long ball screw laying around and took it apart to cut down and machine the ends. One thing I learned is expect to spend a couple hours learning how to get the 57 tiny balls back in the proper locations. There are 3 separate circuits in these screws and the sun and moon must align to get them working properly.

  
There is what those brackets were supposed to look like. Remade them and this time wrote the dimensions down so I didn't have to do any calculating in my head. Just a little update and going to start on a video soon. 

[Crusarius]

The same thing goes for square linear bearings. Do no try to do anything with them without something inside to hold the balls in place. The good news is I now know how they are built and can rebuild them very easily. It sure is a pain to first of all find all the stupid balls and secondly to put them all back in.

[21incher]

Spindle is here and had to make an offset adapter for the dust boot because of no Z clearance. Just have to go out and find some wire and a 220 15 amp plug. The spindle weighs about 20 pounds. Much heavier then my water cooled one. Got some belts and pulleys on order for the Y drive and need a new blast gate in my dust collection line. 



 

 

[Crusarius]

dust shoe 3d printed? where did you get the broom material?

[21incher]

dust shoe 3d printed? where did you get the broom material?

It's a molded nylon 100mm dust shoe with an 80mm adapter. That's the one from my cnc router that I am trying  first. With  the water cooled spindle it gets  about 95% of the chips and 100% of the dust when doing smaller slabs on my cnc table. With this air cooled  spindle not sure how the airflow will affect it so going  to try this first before  committing.  It came with  shorter broom material and I found the longer version  on Amazon that. I had to switch to for surfacing. It's  a fixed shoe so the broom length is critical. The broom is very easy to change. It fits in a slot with a couple sheet metal screws holding it in place. I have an idea for a different shoe that separates the cooling  air if this has a problem but trying to keep it simple first. 

[21incher]

Finally finished the first part video. Got the spindle fired up and looks like no problem collecting the sawdust.
Building The Ultimate Auto Slab Flattening Sled Part 1 - YouTube

[aigheadish]

That's a work of art 21incher! Very nice!

[Crusarius]

thats really nice. Good job.

[21incher]

A couple updates. It's moving but manually now. Decided not to use GRBL because of dealing with g code for different size slabs. Going to try and learn to program an arduino to use adjustable switches for slab size and then just repeat a cycle till it hits an end switch set at the slab width. You can see I added low current steppers and $10 drives to move x & y with belts tensioned on the y. Works great with pulse generators for now. 


 

 

 

 
Still have to work on a z lift to move the spindle in the mount but garden season may delay it if the weather breaks this week as predicted.
I may make another just like it to work on my mill rails in the future.

[Crusarius]

I was going to make an excel file that would write the g-code after inputting slab size and a few other variables. g-code really is not that difficult. would probably work perfect for your needs.

[21incher]

The g code is not hard but choosing the right size and loading can be cumbersome.  I have been through  many different  ideas and decided that I eventually  want a tool I can turn the power on, adjust an x and y limit switch then just push go. I started  looking at my grbl box but that requires a  PC to load the code. I then was going to use a 3018 controller with off line control with 3 amp drivers from one of the Chinese cnc machines  I scrapped  out. I found high torque low amp motors that would work with the on board drive chips and planned to store all the code on a sd card the display on the controller  could  load and run. Decided that was to complicated to have to deal with. I also thought  about a laser controller I have and again to complicated in my mind. So now I have my mind made up that it's  possible  to make a very simple to use machine that requires no g code and just some canned cycles to adjustable switches. Travel speed will be set and spindle will be controlled will just a start button.  There  will also be a emergency stop and reset button if things go bad. Biggest problem  is I have to figure out how to do the programming with brain fog. I may have help though. Just going to use pulse generators to work out the speeds and step increments at first to see how it works.  The actual  carriage can be adapted to mill rails and belts clamped in place for driving as a portable flatner in the next generation with a wider spread and no programming will be required. 

[Crusarius]

wonder if you could write a code that says goto limit switch then move over 1.5" then return to limit switch. That could work really well.

[Larry]

Going to try and learn to program an arduino to use adjustable switches for slab size and then just repeat a cycle till it hits an end switch set at the slab width.

I always thought this would be the way to build a low cost and relatively low tech sled.

I did have on thought I don't know how to resolve.  Say you have a slab with 20 square foot.  On the first couple of passes the router will only cut on the high spots, say 3 square foot.  You wouldn't want the router running the whole 20 square foot just to cut on the high spots.  I thought it might work to hit the high spots with manual control, maybe a joystick similar to the WM Slabmizer.  After the high spots are mostly gone, switch to automatic arduino control with limit switches.

[Crusarius]

could still use the limit switches just have to move them accordingly. would actually work pretty good. listen till you do not hear the cutter hitting anymore then place the magnetic limit switch on the rail.

[21incher]

You could actually  use a joy stick to start at a different home but that really gets complicated.  I was thinking fixed home switches and run the whole slab cutting  or not. After hitting  high spots hit reset to send home.That's one of the reasons  for a spindle that won't  self destruct  like a router  with  no load. Maybe making  them adjustable would  be something that would  be useful. Just playing with  a concept now and I didn't  figure  time mattered  to me if I can just walk away and let it run for simplicity. Then just drop the spindle for the next cut. I think the limit will be about 3/16 a pass (depending on cutter) so it's  not going  to be fast on twisted slabs. 
I actually  am finding going  with  the grain seems to give the best cuts then return  and step over for the next cut so it may be really slow for the best results that don't  leave marks. Still lots of playing ahead.

[rusticretreater]

It is possible to write G-code to read limit switches.  A caution however if you try this route.  You want two sets of limit switches.  The first set for controlling the cutting process you describe, the second set at max travel for when things go wrong and your machine tries to move the cutting head to the other side of your shop.    You will also need a number of pin outs on your board.  I ran out of pins on my board and had to upgrade.

There are lots of postings online about people wanting to probe surface levels to do similar things.  This will of course be driven by your controller choices and technical abilities.   I remember one article about using a touch probe to duplicate objects, though I can't find it now. 

I was thinking of some kind of roller on a probe end that is run across the surface at various intervals to find the high spots.  A simple touch probe would also work. 

You might also be interested in this turnkey solution:
https://www.autoleveller.co.uk/

Open source free software.  It does require java 8 installed on your computer.

[Crusarius]

I have looked into the auto leveler before but its designed to contour your g-code to the warped surface. Not find the highs and machine those first. I wish I was better at real programming I would love to write a program that would profile the slab then write the g-code to take off the high spots.

21incher, I found for sure that running with the grain works much better. The pattern I found works the best for me is to start with a full width pass down the edge , then move over almost a full cutter width on the return pass. Then once back at Y0 move the head towards the cut side a 1/4" then run all the way back up. This gives you a series of overlapping squares. Doing the climb cut on the reverse cleans up that last little machining marks and leaves an incredible finish. No sanding was necessary on my boards.

[21incher]

I guess  I don't  understand  the probing for flatness application.  You could  use 3d printer  firmware and a simple switch but my sled is flat and wood will be removed until  it's flat then flipped over for parallelism.  You can just eyeball from the far end to set the start height. For flattening on my CNC router I probe the top of the high spot and step down from there. Masso controllers have multiple spot probing built in if you need it.

Crusarius what cutting  bit have you had the best luck with?  My 2 inch Whitside flattening bit was destroyed when I flattened the MDF spoil board on my cnc router.  I want an Amana type insert cutter but don't want to spend $300.00. Have you tried any of the low cost insert cutters from Amazon as many  of them have excellent reviews for 1/3 the cost and can use std 14mm inserts.

[Crusarius]

I found a 2.5" cutter with 45 degree cutting edge 4 inserts for a reasonable price. I need to see if I can find it again.

The only thing I have used is a 2" cheapy router but 2 flute. I find the lower RPM made it last quite a bit longer.

I bet something like this would work very nice. reasonable price for what it is

Amana Tool - 3Fl 2" Dia Spoilboard 1/2" Shnk (RC-2255), Industrial Grade - - Amazon.com

[Crusarius]

I have been really interested in this style bit.

Amana Tool - Spoilboard 2+2 1-1/4" D 1/2 Shk (RC-2247), Industrial Grade - - Amazon.com

Wish I could justify buying one.