So... yeah... almost 3 years later...

I lost all motivation for the photo documentary part of this when my personal life exploded shortly after my last post, I did continue on and make it functional, although calling if finished would be entirely false.

I am ramping up to "rebuild" the router now, and figured there would be some interest in where it ended up, the process to upgrade/rebuild, and likely some of the projects that I want to use it for.

Looking forward - Upgrades:
Increase usable cutting area to at least 4'x4'
Replace steppers with ClearPath Servos
Replace no-name chinese 110v 2.2kw spindle with Jianken 220v 2.5KW spindle with Automatic Tool Change capability

Likely part of the rebuild:
Epoxy granite bed
Epoxy granite gantry supports
Epoxy granite replacements for Y extrusions

Some of the history

Control Cabinet Build:
First cut of the power supply after putting it together on my desk. Used a scrap of plywood to mount it for testing.
20220214_222506 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Rats nest of wiring for testing motion.
20220214_222459 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

With motion proven, it got built onto the back plane of the cabinet.
20220308_134832 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Closer shot of the Mesa Electronics board to the Stepper drives. I put the effort in to make the cables nice and clean, and then had to undo it later when I swapped a few things around. Lesson learned. Wait to make things pretty until it's a fully baked product...
20220312_130134 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Despite the progress on assembling it, that's about as far as it got. I never did get it put into the cabinet, as the machine got put to work almost immediately.

Z-Axis Build:
Z to X axis interface plate
20220207_201937 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

One of the best things about having built this router, and it was one of my original plans, is that I can use it to machine accurate parts to use during the rebuild. I did a decent job getting things laid out and manufactured by hand, but there are some holes that had to be oversized to add enough slop to get it to work.

So much dykem, time with calipers, scribbled dimensions, and drilling...

Mounting the spindle on the Z-axis plate.
20220209_192552 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

I switched the Z-axis around from "traditional" builds and mounted the bearing blocks to the interface plate and the rails to the longer piece. The advantage to this is that I have a much smaller intrusion into the working envelope when the Z-axis is retracted. The "downside" is this makes the machine noticeably taller, but I'm okay with it.

Z-axis plate mounted on the gantry with the X axis ball screw tied in.
20220210_200025 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Z-axis mounted on Gantry:
20220211_095322 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Y-axis Motion:
Tandem Y-axis motors and ball screws, mirrored on the left side.
20220211_212716 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Motor mount and ball screw fixed block.
20220211_212729 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Long term, the offset between the Y extrusions and the X extrusions is intended to have an end cap with integrated Nema23 mount. The plan is to use 3/4" aluminum and have a nice, clean, integrated plate/motor mount. Now that I am going to swap those extrusions and use the full 1500mm of the rails, this may get changed around.

Proximity limit switches, also used for homing on each axis. I wanted to avoid the physical contact micro switch solution that lots of entry units and first time build use. These are cheap ebay special ones, but thus far, they have been extremely consistent and reliable. Just a simple 3d printed mount. While these will trigger off of aluminum, the reliability and consistency is much better with steel, hence the bolt threaded into the side of the Z-X interface plate for homing the X axis.
20220625_230759 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Not a ton of other photos before I dove into running the machine.

First test cuts on the 2x4 and then cutting 14ga steel in prep for cutting holes into automation cabinets for the O/G industry.
20220217_182831 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Cutting parts to adapt an older dust collector to an Oneida cyclone.
20220227_115023 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Machining aluminum parts for a custom Pan/Tilt mount for $100k IR cameras being used for AI based gas leak detection. Before getting serious about this, I added mist coolant with control from the linuxcnc side.
20220528_192854 by ARNEWB, on Flickr
20220528_192917 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

There are STILL aluminum shavings in most of the garage. I don't run dust collection when I am using coolant.

New ATC 2.5KW spindle next to 2.2kw spindle. The old one weighs ~12lbs and the new one is ~34lbs.
20220226_131942 by ARNEWB, on Flickr