#2014F - the Birth, life and fall of a machine...

[Gadgetman!]

I have the Stepper shield soldered together and installed.
I didn't find the 2A rated drivers that I know I have, though, so had to plunder the Polulus from my derelict Prusa Mendel.
And they doesn't seem to deliver enough power for the Y-axis.

No, I didn't install two drivers for the Y-axis. That would require me to rewire the second motor, and right now I can't dig out the enthusiam to do that. Maybe tomorrow...
(Unless I manage to find the correct drivers)

[Gadgetman!]

I have found the DRV8825-based drivers...

And have now one less of them....

A stray wire in the enclosure originally planned to be used for a fourth axis somehow came loose from the tape, and touched the driver...
That punctured the chip and let out the magic blue smoke... And probably killed off a couple of pins on the Mega328 mCU on the Arduino, too.

I have spares for the driver, but not for the Arduino.
I thought I had, but they're all crappy clones from China (doflye.net) and no matter what I do, I can't get the Xloader to work on it.

In other news, I found an eBayer who sold 0.01, 0.02 and 0.1mm steel material. Just about perfect for adjusting the angle between the X-axis and the motor plates.

Now to find someone who has genuine Unos in stock and can ship quickly.

EDIT: Seems Elfa has them in stock in Norway, and may be able to ship already tomorrow...
Maybe, just maybe my weekend won't be wasted...

[Gadgetman!]

*Sigh*

Arduino(s) are listed as 'ready for pickup' so I doubt I get anything in time for the weekend.
(I ordered 3... )

Good news, though, is that today I got a 9/32" HSS drill-bit.
(The eccentric spacers need that size hole. )

[MeanderBolt]

Hey Gadget,
Couldn't you just route the holes? (sort of a null point though as you already purchased it)

I ask because I have been sort of going back and forth on how to deal with drills. As I understand it, GRBL does not natively support just a straight down and up drill (at a loss for the number at the moment), so one has to build in a spiral drilling process into the cam, (which seems to work great). Are you finding actual drills to be better? Also, are you drilling on a press, or with your spindle on the Shapeoko?

[WillAdams]

AIUI, Grbl doesn't support the specific G-code for canned drilling cycles (I believe these ``peck'' in and out) --- one can do this by hand, or use a pre-processor which will replace the unsupported command w/ suitable code. We do have one such listed on the wiki: http://www.shapeoko.com/wiki/index.php/G-Code_Utilities

https://github.com/skipmcdonald/g-code-converters

[Gadgetman!]

Peck drilling takes a lot of time. And circling down takes even longer.

So, I'm going to peck drill some pilot holes, then use my drill-press to drill out the rest.

In fact, I'm not even going to cut the outline of the motor plates on the ShapeOko.
All that matters is that the holes are placed accurately in relation to each other. And THAT my ShapeOko can do pretty easily.
(Going for slightly elongated SO1 plates, adding 50mm of length, moving the X-axis towards the back, heightening it and adding holes for the MegaRail, and skipping holes I don't need)

[MeanderBolt]

Thanks Will, I am able to do this in CamBam, I was just curious about his logic about using an actual drill vs. milling the holes. Tomorrow I am going to be milling some end plates for a camera slider and there will be a number of holes. So I was just curious about his drilling.

I think I have been hesitant about drilling, even on a press after my experience making my spindle clamps. "Just about" was working prior to using a Shapeoko / CNC and the clams were my eye opener. The first set did not work at all and the second was on the edge of not working. I had the same experience with my dust shoe. These were drilled on a press after milling. I think this is why I am trying to mill my holes wherever I can as I have found so much goodness in that. But this seems to be working for Gadgetman, so I am looking to learn where I can.

[Gadgetman!]

Drilling with a drill-press is just a question of setup.
I can spend as much as 5 minutes lining it up to drill a hole.
And I watch very carefully when the drill bit touches the material. Any sign of deflection at all and I abort and reposition the material.

I KNOW that currently my ShapeOko isn't stiff enough to make those holes properly...
(I have a piece of scrap aluminium with a hole with 5mm diameter at the top and maybe 3mm at the bottom... )

[Woodworker]

Gadgetman, I'm confused. You say it could take 5 minutes to setup and drill a hole but peck drilling takes too long? How long does peck drilling take for the same thickness of material?

[Gadgetman!]

I need to peck-drill the pilot holes anyway.
But they don't need to go all the way through.

So, frankly, I don't know how long it would take to peck-drill.

Also, I need two plates.
After I peck some pilot holes in one plate, I can clamp the two together and drill both at the same time.

I wish I had an XY-table for my drill-press. It would reduce the setup time considerably.