Ok so, If you’re awaiting the arrival of your MaslowCNC and still haven’t had the time/patience/skill or a combination of to put together a nice frame for mounting the kit to, why not consider if a steel fabricated frame is appropriate for your requirements?
If you’re interested I have the design draft plans drawn up and am awaiting supplier costing for the go ahead for these, so you can either leave a reply in this thread or private message me and I can add you to the waiting list for final cost and a possible delivery date for a steel frame.
Project design sketches after the hyperlink:
So there are a handful of todo’s before submitting the final draft for the project for costing, if you have any that you’d like to add please let me know!
resize the sheet holder backing plate to be able to place clamps on each corner of the sheet material
source stepper motor fittings to attach to the steel top plate
attach a holding bracket for the MaslowCNC logic board and cabling
anything else you can think of! be creative! we might only have one chance at this.
Keep me in the loop when you have some more info, I and getting my kit delivered this week and live on the Gold Coast, haven’t had much time to think about the frame design yet.
Well ok, so far I’m having to decide on if it’s going to need 25mm x 50mm for final draft before submitting it for costing.
Obviously the less the better, currently there’s approx 17 lineal metre’s of material per frame but that could be made less and it might bring down the quote cost if I can squeeze it down some more, without losing any of the rigidity benefit of having it made from steel.
Also the top plate where the stepper motors attach to may need to actually be wider for the sled to cover the full width of a 2400mm sheet.
So i’ll send you a message once I have an approx cost for one.
Hi Tod,
My kit arrived last Friday, I haven’t had time to start on the frame at this stage. I have been working on my sled, gone with a different design using Parallelogram method. and the main part of the sled in steel plate with a melamine backing for less resistance. I am just building a timber frame for now for convenience and economy, for now using 90x45 structural stud, ($20 per len from Bunnings) My thought was if its not rigid enough with the addition of some extra bracing, then I’ll build a steel one.
I am actually an aluminium fabricator so no problem building a steel one if I think necessary.
Tod looking at your extra points, the stepper motor brackets have slots so will fit the narrower frame. I’d suggest fixing them with self drill tek screws. I am also making the frame wider and a bit higher. I have ordered some extra chain, in case needed. Had to order 10’ so if you need more I can send you some.
Denis
Tod are you in Bris,
Are you making your frame yourself or having it made.
I can assist with making your frame if you want but not for a week or so at the moment.
Denis
so I was thinking that the top bracket would need to be maybe 2600mm to give the sled enough room either side to cut close or near to enough of a 2400 sheet? I’ve read up on some other threads that this was a consideration in making their frame but unless I missed something (more likely) there doesn’t seem to be a definite guideline for this caveat of building a frame?
Would the parallelogram or trapezoidal sled brackets take care of this or are they a consideration for smoother router/spindle movement when the cut direction changes?
I also have a small tallboy cabinet and peninsula reef tank designs all toolpathed for a 6mm end mill ready to g-code import into Groundcontrol, if you want I can attach or googledrive share it to you but you probably have plenty of ideas anyway.
yes, looking at having it made: i don’t have any welding skills. If i were to make it myself it would be from like you said some 2x4’s and other misc hardware
Looks like we crossed messages.
I saw the posts a while ago about accuracy problems in the corners, so decide to go wider by 500mm o/a. This would however possibly cause some problems with a shallower chain angle at center top also causing more chain load, so I am also raising the top bar by 150mm. Hopefully this will still work with machine calibration. Using a parallogram system must be very precise and rigid in hole position, or it will cause errors. I have made mine from stainless steel, stock I had, May have to re-make in aluminium as they are quite heavy at the top. will find out when I get it operating. There is also a problem with play in the holes and fixing bolts as they have to pivot so can’t be tight. To overcome this I have ordered small ball thrust bearings to fasten between the linkages. I expect these will remove all play when connected. Waiting for them to arrive and will report when its done.
I have a small milling machine with digital readouts, I used it to machine all the holes so they are position accurate to 0.01mm. All experimental until tried, but I am very hopeful.
Hi all,
I look forward to seeing how it goes as well.
We got our Kit last Tuesday I think it was, & we are out west in a small town called Millmerran in Queensland, I have some pictures to put up later of our frame, we are making it to be able to cut a 2.7 m x 1.5 m sheet & the sled will be able to go just shy of about 15 mm to the edges all round.
Cheers for now
Swany
So the plan is to have it welded for frame rigidity, I can modify the design to have it bolt together fitting if you want to be able to have it be compact for transporting/storage. Otherwise I could possibly deliver it to within the SEQ/Gold Coast area if required (so that’s for a welded/fixed frame variant).
At the moment the design is to have the top bar made from the same gauge metal as the rest of the frame, afaik this is to make ordering the material as straight forward as possible for the supplier. If you believe that something > 25mm x 50mm would be more appropriate let me know. (this is my first project like this)
you need to move the top beam forward, you want the motors to be at the balance point of the sled. You should make it so the forward/back position of the top beam can be adjusted if you are doing significantly different thicknesses of material.
I would put some sort of wood blocks under the bottom of the spoil board so that you don’t have to have screws or brackets that you can hit and damage your bit.
for the motor mounts, take a look at the ez motor mounts that i created and @bee uploaded to the community garden, that will give you the spacing that you need for the holes (you can bend that, or just make a steel plate with holes spaced appropriately and weld it to the front of the top beam)
I’ve got another drawing (it’s a flat cutlist type of sketch) that I’ll upload soon once I figure out a way to make the top bar moveable and have a look at your stepper motor brackets.
Im on the Sunshine Coast
My kit arrived last Friday.
I knocked up a frame today from 50x50 Rhs
I have hinged the back legs till I can get the backboard angle right
Once that is done I will fix the legs and put casters on the base
I have also left the top bar a bit long and will trim that to length when I get the motor positions right
If anyone needs help building the frame let me know and I will see what I can do
picked up my kit today from the post locker, just don’t have the frame ready to go yet (still waiting for it to be made up)
are you going to have that ply board you have on it in those pics as a spoiler board? I guess if you’ll be cutting with a z-axis for trim tabs etc it might be useful
cool design, keep us updated with the hardware and logic board once you get it all setup
The ply is actually 4 boards of 3mm ply and was left over from doing the electrical in the shed
If you look in the pics the ply was cut into strips that cover the power point wiring
I only finished building the shed a few months ago and did the ply as a temp measure
The next step is to cut the same thing from sheets of gal steel.
I didnt do that at the time as I was waiting for my new cnc plasma to arrive but that’s another story
The new shed is 36m*18m single span with a 6.5m apex. I also have 6m awnings on the side and front
For a backer I will be using a sheet of 17mm film faced form ply. Ill cut the sled from the same. Im also going to add a border on the top and sides from the same form ply.
can’t help but wonder why you chose a kind of hobbyist kit like the maslow which seemed to me to be like a tradeoff for an afordable price but a more complicated setup when there are flatbed gantry kits with maybe an optional extra like a vacuum table for around ~$5000
I only have plans to cut ply to make some clip together cabinetry and maybe try to toolpath some furniture designs i’ve found online
