Chapter 14 - Finishing the KRMx01
If you have the book you know that there are a total of 17 chapters. My intention is to jam the last little bit of the initial build into this last chapter. Now this does not mean I am done building or upgrading on the machine, but instead, this marks the finish of the initial build to get it running. I will document the other stuff I do to the machine, upgrades and add-ons in a different section.
Cable Hookup (Book Chapter 14)
The Side Table
In this image you see the side table cut out and laying on the machine. The only thing extra I done to it was to use a round over bit in a router to knock down the hard edge and corner on the top of the table. In a future upgrade, I hope to have a monitor that will slide out of the rack far enough so that I can dispense with the table part that sticks out, leaving only the shelf for bale management.
The Cable Hangers
Here are a couple of pictures of the cable hangers installed. These are only temporary and will be removed when the energy chain or dragon cable has been made and installed. I am not too worried about how neat this looks as I have lots of other work to do on the machine and will tidy this up when I get the upgrades and add-ons done.
Connecting the Motors
This first image is of the electronics drawer installed into the rack. More electronics will be going into the drawer over time but this gives you a pretty good idea of what is going where. At this time I am not worried about getting the motor cables and other wires into the wire managers until more of the upgrades have been completed. The second picture shows the motors connected to the drawer. The cables are just laying inside the frame. When I get more of the upgrades done, these motor cables and other related cables will be run through the two cable managers you see attached to the PC drawer and electronics drawer.
Adjusting the Drive Train (Book Chapter 15)
Adjusting the drive train was a pretty straight forward process and Zachary and I only ran into one difficult spot. The problem happened when we tightened up the top anti-backlash nut on the Z-Axis. It wanted to bind the travel a bit. The solution was to run the Z-Axis to the very top of travel, loosen the bearing blocks back up, tighten the top anti-backlash nut, then adjust and tighten the bearing block back again. After we done this there seemed to be no issues with it.
The video below shows the machine moving under its own power. I apologize for the poor lighting and audio. The tablet I used didn't record it well, but at least you will get the idea.
Router Hookup (Book Chapter 16)
Attaching the K2CNC Router Clamp
This was a pretty straight forward thing to do. Insert the 8 screws, washers, lock washers and nuts. Square the assembly up to the table and lock it down. The image to the left shows the router clamp installed.
Attaching the Hitachi Router
I just knew this was going way to smooth! The router would not fit in the router clamp. There was not enough clearance between the support above and the head of the router. If you recall, I had to add shims to the supports for the anti-backlash nuts to clear the extrusion. Looks like I will have to add shims under the router back plate as well to get the router installed.
Making the spacers
The spacers are cut from 1/8" x 2" strap and are 5 inches long. The same as the height of the router plate on the Z-Axis. I used the same template as for the Z-Axis router plate to mark and punch the holes. The last image shows them drilled and ready to paint. I am going to do a test install before painting them.
Hitachi Router installed into K2CNC Clamp
Finally I have the router installed into the clamp. To do it, I had to have the clamp loose, then slide the router into the clamp, then finally square the clamp to the bed and tighten the clamp to the router plate. Lastly, I tightened the clamp on the router.
Final thoughts
It has taken me quite some time to complete the basic KRMx01 CNC Router. There is still lots to do with add-ons and upgrades. Please follow along if you are interested. This has been a fun project and as a result got to spend some time with my son Zachary that I don't know I would have gotten otherwise. The attached images show where the machine stands at this point.