Best upgrade EVER

Would you mind snapping a pic of your finished dust collection rails mounted?

Sure, camping with scouts today so it’ll be tomorrow…

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Awesome. I am about to pull the trigger on the Slider and a 269oz for the Z…but wanted to see a few ways of mounting the inventables dust control first.

So I have the suckit dust boot, however here’s how I attached the rails …

I basically cut the brackets so they are flush with the bottom edge, and with enough clearance at the top so the right side won’t interfere with the plug for the probe (mine is an older version that didn’t have the plug, but I wired one up myself)

Then I drilled and tapped with an M4 tap (from Lowe’s, the package gives you the bit size you need) and used flat Phillips machine screws

Take your time drilling and tapping, I did it directly on the machine

The top screw is just high enough to make it over the top face of the carriage, and the bottom is just under

As for left right spacing, I just bumped them against the screw heads for the V wheels

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clever.

countersink bit from Lowes would help sink the heads on the screws and break the burr on those threads.

I actually did countersink, however I was worried about blowing thru the back of the rail since it’s very thin, so I didn’t countersink completely, which is OK since the arms of the dust boot fit as-is…

If I were to do it again I’d likely thread the rail and run the screws in from the back, but it works and I haven’t had an issues.

I bought replacement T-slot from McMaster-Carr. It had holes pre-drilled and counter-sunk for attaching. I just had to cut it to length.

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Are the SuckIt and Inventables arms the same measurements? Will that track work for either?

What is the difference between using the stock motor and using either of the 2 options from cnc4newbies . Do the other motors increase speed or help stability.
I just received the z axis and before i start installing might order one of the other motors.

Thanks

Sean

So this seems to be the general recommendation for the CNC4newbies Z upgrade, yes?
I saw someone else went 3000/500 with the 269oz motors…(which I have).

What has everyone else changed to? (only a couple posts regarding this change here in this thread).

Just debating on what to change the Z speed to, guess I will try 1800/300 first, maybe bump up after using the machine more.
That would be
$112=1800(from 750 changed, from 500 stock - max z rate)
$122=300(from 50 - z accel)

Correct?

For those who also upgraded their x/y motors to 269oz what did you end up adjusting those speeds/settings to?
8000 speed seems to be standard?

As far as the Z steps…(with the new CNC4newbies slider).
$102=50(used Phil’s calculator and Manhattan Wood Project Video 36), going off of 50 higher or lower made it worse, calculating says we should be at 50.063, but, 50 was actually more precise, maybe 1/64th off over 5 inches), so switched back to 50 as that slight increase calculated made it about 1/16th off for some reason over 5 inches.

X/Y with the 9mm belt/pulleys/new 269oz motors was set to 26.616(x) and 26.646(y) IIRC to be accurate.

Just reporting what had to be changed on my machine.
calibrate yourself with Phil’s Calculator and the video below from Manhattan Wood Project for precise settings to your machine.

$112=750 (as mentioned way up in this thread, this really helped the awful noises coming from the Z screw, slow speed it’s still pretty awful sounding)

Links below

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Correct. Your max feed only lets GRBL go higher. You still have to change your toolpaths to utilize the speed.

You’ll want to do some jogging with the new settings (up and down) at max rate just to make sure you don’t ever stall the motor. You’ll know if it stalls.

I have 270 oz. in motors on my X and Y and changed my rate up to 12000 from 8000. I got more out of them before a stall but felt that 12000 was safe.

My motors, even though similar holding torque, are not the same as the 269 oz-in from StepperOnline. Those 269 oz-in actually perform worse on the Xcarve due to them having a higher inductance. They still work well, but the torque curves aren’t as flat due to the 24VDC operating level of the Xcarve.

Your belts, for the max rates, shouldn’t matter. You only ever hit those rates when you’re doing rapid moves and not actually cutting.

On those lines, the optimum voltage for the drivers is derived from the following formula:
Inductance squared multiplied with 32
SQ(mH) * 32

So for a 5,6mH stepper you get:
SQ5,6 * 32 = 75V
The driver will need to be capable of this input voltage, which the TB6560/TB6600 chipsets won’t take.

Thanks for the detailed response, I am learning more and more. I will up my x/y to 10,000 for now.

So they’ll still operate ok, but would be far better with more power?

Yes, especially at speed.

Here is a online calculator you can play with to see the prediction in speed / power requirements:
http://www.daycounter.com/Calculators/Stepper-Motor-Calculator.phtml

More voltage, not power.

Based on my research, the relationship between voltage and torque is linear up to the max of the stepper. Double the voltage, double the torque at any given RPM. Stepper motors drop off in torque as their RPM increases. That’s why there is always a max RPM with useful torque of a stepper that can be calculated based on the stepper parameters. Variations between spec sheet and real world can also be expected as well.

I did quite a bit of testing with feed rates and acceleration values:

Again, not saying that the 269 oz-in won’t work as it does work (that’s what Phil uses). It’s just not an ideal match (but an ideal match doesn’t really exist either) and for not much more per motor, a better match can be found.

Are you ever going to notice the difference on the Xcarve? Most likely not. You’ll run into other mechanical limits before the steppers become the problem.

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What about on acme with the added friction?

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It all depends on what screw and how fast it is. I also would think the screw, with added friction, would stall the motors at a lower feed rate because they need more available torque to overcome the friction.

The issue will arise when the stepper RPM is high and therefore have lower torque. So you’ll stall out.

For the X and Y axis, the system rigidity will probably come into play first. Then probably the Vwheels.

Correct on the v wheels. There is definitely some friction on that but why is there less torque during high rpm?

Stepper motor theory. It’s just how it works.

There are some good websites that discuss that but they escape me right now.

Sorry I wasn’t clear, that was for the Z axis, so we have about 5 inches without bottoming out or hitting the limit switch jogging in 1" increments(I think we started about 1/2" up from the wasteboard). Guess we could’ve jogged smaller but 1" seems easier. With the tape measure as a reference. I’ll use the calipers to measure depth on the next carve to see how accurate it is.

For the X we did 27" from 3" to 30" on tape measure, so 685.8mm.

We used the 1/8" straight cut bit right edge turned in the spindle as a reference (before it snapped - my fault forgetting to set the Z to 50). Will definitely get a nicer mm ruler(have a clear plastic one) and recheck with a V-bit later.

The first test carve was done with the easel dude, then my friend did a multi-rectangle inside rectangle grid to measure accuracy with the mm ruler, it’s really close, maybe a very very thin line off, but not enough to cause any issues.
Interesting info on the motors.