So I figured out what I need for the drill press. A nice sturdy X-Y table that I can move around manually and of course electrically. The bed should be about 12" square. So far this is just a pipe dream, but just maybe.
DESIGN: First I'll need two lengths of V-Rail, Aluminum 6063-T5, each one about 500mm long. Since I have a much smaller work surface I will have to get creative. I really only need to drill 5 holes at a time for aircraft instruments. Five inches is the largest circle for mounting aircraft instruments. (see the picture on the right, the bottom profile).
| Description | Options | Manufacturer | Part No. | Quan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2080 Series Aluminum Extrusion, V-Slot 20x40 | 500mm | Open Builds | 155-LP | 6 |
| 8mm T8x2 Lead Screw Threaded Rod Trapezoidal ACME with brass flange nut | 500mm | T8x2-500mm | 2 | |
| Nema17 Stepper Motor | Removable Wires | Kayroad | KR42HS40-1704 | 2 |
| 5mm-x-8mm Shaft Coupler (Al w/ Anti-Backlash | Coupler | 2 | ||
V-Wheel Kit, Delrin, Solid OD: 23.90 | Pack of 10 | BULK-MAN 3D | OX-CNC/328491 | 1 |
| Mini Gantry | Link CNC | Mini Gantry Kit | 8 | |
| Dual Bipolar Stepper Motor Shield for Arduino | DFRobot | DRI0023 | 1 | |
| Arduino Mega 2560 R2 | 1 | |||
| Ethernet Shield for the Arduino | 1 |
I'm going to build this in the shape of a pound sign (#). This may evolve into something else but for now, that's fine.
- The bottom two rails are going to be mounted at 500mm on center and mounted rigidly to the base
- Then you will need 4 mini-gantries, one per mounting point.
- Then attach a rail to each pair of mounts, now this will be our X-Axis.
- Then attach 4 more mini-gantries.
- Then attach a rail to each pair of mounts, now this will be my Y-Axis
- Now attach a custom gantry to the top 4 mini-gantries. ( Al, Wood, Plastic, etc.) In this way, I can build custom fixtures
It looks like I will most likely drive this with G-CODE (RS-274), a standard, I most likely will need a couple of micro-switches for alignment, and a few more to tell it when at its limits, and stop. There are a few Arduino G-Code Interpreters/Routers out there, but I kind of like the one I found at Marginally Clever Robots. I think that for software on the PC I will use UGS or Universal Gcode Sender as it is written in JAVA so it will run on my lab pc which runs Linux.
I'll let you know how this turns out.
~~Cris H. 
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