You’ll do better if you do your own research. I’d start with asking the people you bought the components from. That might sound snarky but I promise it’s not. These things come in a wide range of tolerances and need to be dealt with differently. I’m used to cleaning and lubing ball screws quite frequently but you might end up doing something quite different based on spec and usage.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Building A CNC - Watch a first timer stumble through a crazy build
- Thread starter John_Nicholas
- Start date
You’ll do better if you do your own research. I’d start with asking the people you bought the components from. That might sound snarky but I promise it’s not. These things come in a wide range of tolerances and need to be dealt with differently. I’m used to cleaning and lubing ball screws quite frequently but you might end up doing something quite different based on spec and usage.
Thank you for the suggestions. I totally understand and agree. Remember I asked for suggestions, and you provided an excellent one!
Your help is greatly appreciated!!
Thank you! Deeply appreciated.
Did a bunch of research about cleaning and lubricating linear rails and bearings. After reading from a bunch of different manufacturers, there are a few different thought processes and ideas they each recommend. Finally stumbled upon a YouTube video of a guy who tested the two major different lubrication recommendations.
It is a very practical test and comparison. If anyone is interested, it's a long video (over 48 minutes) and the beginning part you really don't need to watch as it's about different options for rollers and v rails.
The new flat 20mm Linear Rails arrived today and just looking at and rolling the bearings, you can see they truly do not have much lubrication. Even worse, I'm very concerned that there are metal filings trapped in the insufficient lubrication. So all of the bearings will be cleaned and properly lubricated before being assembled.
By the way, these linear rails and bearings are massive. This is going to be structurally strong and when lubricated will move very easily. I'm so very happy so far!
Oh yeah, they also come with grease fittings!!
There was one item that was missing from the package, small bolt hole covers. I wrote to the seller and am waiting for them to write back.
This is starting to get very exciting for me!
Last night it was out into the garage to bolt together the aluminum extrusion base.
Of course now I'm thinking all the allen screws need to come out and blue Loctite applied. They do not have tight tolerances, so vibration could loosen them, making it difficult to see or tighten them if they loosen, especially if they are "buried" under the waste board.
So of course now that the thought is in my head, this has to be done.
But it was only thought of after everything was bolted up tightly.
The total length of the frame is 60 inches so the three cross braces were placed at 15 inch intervals.
Sort of looks like a ladder!!
Since I have most of the wiring and tubing, it seemed like a good idea to see if everything would fit in the drag chains. The first ones purchased might be too small, so larger ones were ordered, and hopefully all the wires and tubes will fit in the smaller drag chain to be used on the Z Axis.
It really looks like the smaller drag chain (15x30) will not work on the Z Axis. Of course the wires for the proximity limit switches are not in there and I'm not sure they'll fit! What do you think?
But the larger one (18x50) looks like it will be large enough for everything else. Thankfully the wires for the Y & B Axis do not go through the drag chain, otherwise even larger drag chains would have been needed.
Of course now I'm thinking all the allen screws need to come out and blue Loctite applied. They do not have tight tolerances, so vibration could loosen them, making it difficult to see or tighten them if they loosen, especially if they are "buried" under the waste board.
So of course now that the thought is in my head, this has to be done.
But it was only thought of after everything was bolted up tightly.
The total length of the frame is 60 inches so the three cross braces were placed at 15 inch intervals.
Sort of looks like a ladder!!
Since I have most of the wiring and tubing, it seemed like a good idea to see if everything would fit in the drag chains. The first ones purchased might be too small, so larger ones were ordered, and hopefully all the wires and tubes will fit in the smaller drag chain to be used on the Z Axis.
It really looks like the smaller drag chain (15x30) will not work on the Z Axis. Of course the wires for the proximity limit switches are not in there and I'm not sure they'll fit! What do you think?
But the larger one (18x50) looks like it will be large enough for everything else. Thankfully the wires for the Y & B Axis do not go through the drag chain, otherwise even larger drag chains would have been needed.
I mean, as a Southern boy, unless you put a taco next to it, we really have no way to judge scale.
Also, blue Loctite.....always!
I mean, as a Southern boy, unless you put a taco next to it, we really have no way to judge scale.
Also, blue Loctite.....always!
Unfortunately, no tacos available for sizing. Sorry!
How about a ruler and some other parts?The red bearings are 15mm rail and the Green ones are 20mm rail, compared to the round 16mm Linear rail bearings. And no! No more changes... as much as I'd rather use the flat Hiwin rails, there's no way I'm going to change everything around. There are just too many changes that would be required to make it work.
And then i took out all the Allen screws, soaked them in Acetone, using a Q-Tip with acetone to clean the threaded holes, applied Blue Loctite and tighten each one up, one at a time. Only took a couple of hours!
Over the weekend a bit of work was done, this time it’s for the aluminum Gantry sides. After creating the templates, one was aligned on the 3/4” thick Aluminum plate. Next up was to use a punch to mark the hole positions.
I figured it was best to start with a very thin drill bit, so I got out a 1/16” drill bit to start. In retrospect it was far too thin a bit. Why? Because even using the drill bit and using the “pecking” method for drilling, the bit snapped off in nearly the middle of the 3/4” stock!!
Figuring that drilling a hole from the other side and using a punch to drive the bit out. That did not work! So a larger drill bit was used and of course it broke off as well! Not to make a long story super long, let’s just say that it took over 2 hours to recover from this mistake.
The good news is that at the end, the hole only had a small amount of mess left over when it was up to final size. Luckily it will be covered by the ball screw mount.
Then it was a slow drill time as the holes were slowly drilled to the final size.
Here are the holes in process. Yes I counter sunk the holes as I went along.
Once the mistake was recovered from and all the holes were drilled to 3/32” the two gantry sides were very carefully taped together and the second Gantry side was partially drilled.
Them all the holes were drilled to the correct sizes, there are actually three different sizes. All the holes on the bottom of the gantry sides were drilled to 5.2mm, the upper larger holes were all drilled to 8.2mm and the four holes to hold the stepper motor are drilled to 4.5mm, because these get tapped for the motor mounts and motors.
Then it was time to use the step drill bits to countersink the heads of the hex head machine screws to the level of the top of the aluminum face.
They look so professional when the ball screw mount was screwed in.
I figured it was best to start with a very thin drill bit, so I got out a 1/16” drill bit to start. In retrospect it was far too thin a bit. Why? Because even using the drill bit and using the “pecking” method for drilling, the bit snapped off in nearly the middle of the 3/4” stock!!
Figuring that drilling a hole from the other side and using a punch to drive the bit out. That did not work! So a larger drill bit was used and of course it broke off as well! Not to make a long story super long, let’s just say that it took over 2 hours to recover from this mistake.
The good news is that at the end, the hole only had a small amount of mess left over when it was up to final size. Luckily it will be covered by the ball screw mount.
Then it was a slow drill time as the holes were slowly drilled to the final size.
Here are the holes in process. Yes I counter sunk the holes as I went along.
Once the mistake was recovered from and all the holes were drilled to 3/32” the two gantry sides were very carefully taped together and the second Gantry side was partially drilled.
Them all the holes were drilled to the correct sizes, there are actually three different sizes. All the holes on the bottom of the gantry sides were drilled to 5.2mm, the upper larger holes were all drilled to 8.2mm and the four holes to hold the stepper motor are drilled to 4.5mm, because these get tapped for the motor mounts and motors.
Then it was time to use the step drill bits to countersink the heads of the hex head machine screws to the level of the top of the aluminum face.
They look so professional when the ball screw mount was screwed in.
The next part was a more interesting step, taking the center motor hole from 8mm to 32mm. The hope was that metric step drills would do the job.
This was tougher than I thought it would be, but going slowly I made progress. Here you can see the steps using the drill bit. After this I turned over the Gantry side and using the step drill bit drilled from the other side.
It took some time, but I'm really happy with the end result.
As you can see in the photo above, when drilling the holes the curly waste scratched the surface of the Aluminum. I don't know about you, but that is highly unprofessional looking and completely un-acceptable.
So out came the 150grit sandpaper and a sanding block. Sanding in the same direction until the deeper of the scratches came out. One of my friends said that I should really polish the Aluminum to give it a professional look. I think that will be the way to go.
In this photo you can see the difference between a sanded gantry side and an un-sanded one. I really don't like the one deeper scratch on the lower left corner of the left side gantry side.
Hopefully I'll get to work more this coming up weekend.
This was tougher than I thought it would be, but going slowly I made progress. Here you can see the steps using the drill bit. After this I turned over the Gantry side and using the step drill bit drilled from the other side.
It took some time, but I'm really happy with the end result.
As you can see in the photo above, when drilling the holes the curly waste scratched the surface of the Aluminum. I don't know about you, but that is highly unprofessional looking and completely un-acceptable.
So out came the 150grit sandpaper and a sanding block. Sanding in the same direction until the deeper of the scratches came out. One of my friends said that I should really polish the Aluminum to give it a professional look. I think that will be the way to go.
In this photo you can see the difference between a sanded gantry side and an un-sanded one. I really don't like the one deeper scratch on the lower left corner of the left side gantry side.
Hopefully I'll get to work more this coming up weekend.
After attempting to sand and polish the gantry sides to a high sheen. I found that it wasn't so good, because every time I touched them, they left fingerprints and "stains" behind. To try to get a better and smoother surface I used different grades of sandpaper on a test piece. What I found is that it looked better as a dull sheen instead.
Using just 180grit sandpaper on my random orbital sander, both sides and edges of the gantries were treated to this new idea. It came out better than I had hoped. This will be the finish used on all the 6061 Aluminum plate on my CNC.
Using just 180grit sandpaper on my random orbital sander, both sides and edges of the gantries were treated to this new idea. It came out better than I had hoped. This will be the finish used on all the 6061 Aluminum plate on my CNC.
Been very slow to update but have made a bit of progress on this build. It's interesting and quite a challenge to build a machine like this. It gets far more interesting when you shift lanes and update certain components along the way!
One issue was the mounting plate on the Z Axis. The Slider unit purchased had a stepped plate, in order to attach the spindle mount, the only way seemed to be to add a 3/8" aluminum plate on top of the existing plate and then mount the spindle mount. I got the aluminum, cut it to size and was examining how it would mount and just didn't care for the way it looked or how it would mount when finished this way.
So another thought bubble popped up and instead a 3/4" Aluminum plate was ordered and cut to size. The better "idea" was to replace the current stepped plate with the "new" 3/4" plate. Here's what I did...
The stepped plate (about 15mm thick) and the 3/4" aluminum plate.
I used the stepped plate as a template and marked the holes needed to attach the plate to the slider using a punch.
Then drilled them to size, making sure to countersink the hole edges a little.
Of course the ridges looked terrible and the plate was not really "flat" so it was sanded to flat on both sides. Here is an in process photo.
Once everything was nice and flat, out came the random orbital sander and 180grit and the surfaces were all treated to the "brushed" aluminum look.
No plan ever goes the way you expect it to go... once this was completed, it was time to measure and place the spindle mount. When the spindle mount was placed on the "new" mounting plate it rocked back and forth!!
So the spindle mount was mounted in the vise and sanded flat. When it was flat and no longer rocked on the mounting plate, holes were drilled in the spindle mount, marked on the mounting plate, drilled and then tapped. Sorry no photos of the spindle mount work...
Here is the finished mounting plate.
Here is a side by side of my new plate and the "factory" plate. I was very pleased. This only took about 4 hours of work to complete.
Cutting the aluminum on the table saw it very time consuming. Small "bites" have to be taken, which means it goes through the table saw about 8 times to cut through the 3/4" Aluminum plate. Small chunks of aluminum fly all over (including onto me) and often had to vacuum between each pass.
More frustrating is that I've been using small drill bits to start the holes, and gradually drill larger and larger. This is done for a few reasons, but the most important is to ensure the holes get drilled in the correct place. It is far too easy to have a larger bit "drift" off of your small punch mark. But a 1/16" drill bit, fit exactly into the center of that punch mark.
This entire process is a huge learning curve for me. The first few times I drilled all the way through the aluminum starting with that 1/16" bit. After breaking two of them, the very small bits were only used to start the holes going about a 1/16 of an inch into the aluminum, then using a larger bit. Of course later I broke one of the larger bits when making this plate.
The process of removing a broken bit from the aluminum is a long slow process that ends up dulling or destroying your drill bits. This is what has slowed my progress down a great deal.
Once the plate was completed, it was time to bolt the new plate onto the Z Axis slider and bolt on the spindle mount.
Here is the completed Z Axis slider, ready to mount on the X Axis.
It's coming along... more to follow.
One issue was the mounting plate on the Z Axis. The Slider unit purchased had a stepped plate, in order to attach the spindle mount, the only way seemed to be to add a 3/8" aluminum plate on top of the existing plate and then mount the spindle mount. I got the aluminum, cut it to size and was examining how it would mount and just didn't care for the way it looked or how it would mount when finished this way.
So another thought bubble popped up and instead a 3/4" Aluminum plate was ordered and cut to size. The better "idea" was to replace the current stepped plate with the "new" 3/4" plate. Here's what I did...
The stepped plate (about 15mm thick) and the 3/4" aluminum plate.
I used the stepped plate as a template and marked the holes needed to attach the plate to the slider using a punch.
Then drilled them to size, making sure to countersink the hole edges a little.
Of course the ridges looked terrible and the plate was not really "flat" so it was sanded to flat on both sides. Here is an in process photo.
Once everything was nice and flat, out came the random orbital sander and 180grit and the surfaces were all treated to the "brushed" aluminum look.
No plan ever goes the way you expect it to go... once this was completed, it was time to measure and place the spindle mount. When the spindle mount was placed on the "new" mounting plate it rocked back and forth!!
So the spindle mount was mounted in the vise and sanded flat. When it was flat and no longer rocked on the mounting plate, holes were drilled in the spindle mount, marked on the mounting plate, drilled and then tapped. Sorry no photos of the spindle mount work...
Here is the finished mounting plate.
Here is a side by side of my new plate and the "factory" plate. I was very pleased. This only took about 4 hours of work to complete.
Cutting the aluminum on the table saw it very time consuming. Small "bites" have to be taken, which means it goes through the table saw about 8 times to cut through the 3/4" Aluminum plate. Small chunks of aluminum fly all over (including onto me) and often had to vacuum between each pass.
More frustrating is that I've been using small drill bits to start the holes, and gradually drill larger and larger. This is done for a few reasons, but the most important is to ensure the holes get drilled in the correct place. It is far too easy to have a larger bit "drift" off of your small punch mark. But a 1/16" drill bit, fit exactly into the center of that punch mark.
This entire process is a huge learning curve for me. The first few times I drilled all the way through the aluminum starting with that 1/16" bit. After breaking two of them, the very small bits were only used to start the holes going about a 1/16 of an inch into the aluminum, then using a larger bit. Of course later I broke one of the larger bits when making this plate.
The process of removing a broken bit from the aluminum is a long slow process that ends up dulling or destroying your drill bits. This is what has slowed my progress down a great deal.
Once the plate was completed, it was time to bolt the new plate onto the Z Axis slider and bolt on the spindle mount.
Here is the completed Z Axis slider, ready to mount on the X Axis.
It's coming along... more to follow.
I'm sure I mentioned it along the way, but to repeat myself once again, to run the cooling fans, I purchased a PWM temperature controlled fan speed controller, so the fans would run at whatever speed was needed to keep the CNC Controller box cool.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PMQH66D/?tag=tdpri-20
Everything in my controller box will be mounted on DIN Rails, so a DIN mount for a Raspberry Pi was ordered.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H8HSGXF/?tag=tdpri-20
Of course new holes had to be drilled, but when it was all bolted together it looked like this.
Of course still to be done is to mount the temperature probe and heat overload alarm buzzer to the plate...
And here is a "sneak" peek of the layout inside the controller box. This is just a quick layout to figure out where things will go and where I need to drill holes to mount the aviation connectors and other inputs and output connectors. There are separate power supplies for the Masso (24V) and the cooling fans (12V) the power supplies that came in the stepper motor kit were too big to fit in this box, no matter how everything was arranged, so they are being sold on Ebay and new DIN Mounted power supplies will be used.
Since there is a good chance of electrical interference from the VFD, that will be mounted in its own controller box to shield it from the other components. Plus this requires a 20 amp circuit so will be powered from a newly installed circuit for the garage.
Here is the quick VFD cabinet layout.
This cabinet will only have one fan, but will have a second opening for an air inlet. Still have not decided whether to add a second PWN controller for this cabinet.
Of course the this cabinet was stainless steel because there has been a run on all this stuff and they are always out of stock or worse the prices are sky high!!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PMQH66D/?tag=tdpri-20
Everything in my controller box will be mounted on DIN Rails, so a DIN mount for a Raspberry Pi was ordered.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H8HSGXF/?tag=tdpri-20
Of course new holes had to be drilled, but when it was all bolted together it looked like this.
Of course still to be done is to mount the temperature probe and heat overload alarm buzzer to the plate...
And here is a "sneak" peek of the layout inside the controller box. This is just a quick layout to figure out where things will go and where I need to drill holes to mount the aviation connectors and other inputs and output connectors. There are separate power supplies for the Masso (24V) and the cooling fans (12V) the power supplies that came in the stepper motor kit were too big to fit in this box, no matter how everything was arranged, so they are being sold on Ebay and new DIN Mounted power supplies will be used.
Since there is a good chance of electrical interference from the VFD, that will be mounted in its own controller box to shield it from the other components. Plus this requires a 20 amp circuit so will be powered from a newly installed circuit for the garage.
Here is the quick VFD cabinet layout.
This cabinet will only have one fan, but will have a second opening for an air inlet. Still have not decided whether to add a second PWN controller for this cabinet.
Of course the this cabinet was stainless steel because there has been a run on all this stuff and they are always out of stock or worse the prices are sky high!!
As an Amazon Associate, TalkBass may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via links on this site.
Quite the project you have here. It's been a while since I looked at this thread but I just had a quick skim through as I was procrastinating on other things and I noticed this. That centre hole I believe is for spreading the clamp open. Taper-lock hubs used on sprockets and rollers etc. are similar in having one set of threaded holes to draw the parts together, and another set threaded on the opposite side used to force the pieces apart.
I gotta say, it is fun living vicariously on your thread. Looking great so far!
You probably already thought about this, but I would be sure to have a filter on the air inlet and check it often. Otherwise you'll be sucking a lot of dust through that cabinet and probably making things worse rather than better in terms of cooling.
Thank you!
Thanks so much Jeff!!
Good point... the plan is to use dust collection on the cutter, my shop also has a air filter which circulates and removes the dust from the air. It works really well. In addition, small filters will be used in front of the fan cutouts... you are correct, these are very small and will need to be clean often.
These are the ones I purchased for this build.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075Q55ZNN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I really appreciate all those who are following along with this crazy fun build!!
As an Amazon Associate, TalkBass may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via links on this site.
The DIN rails and cable management slots were mounted to the backing plate of the Vevor Electrical box....
Drilling holes in this box is very tough, it's 1.5mm thick, especially the 115mm circular bit!! The steel seems to have dulled the step drill bits, but it might be that I was tired (which happens very easily) or the bits got really hot. The true test will be when I get to drill more of the holes.
The lower right hole is not finished but it will be for the C-14 power inlet socket...
On the opposite side of the box a 120V receptacle will be installed to power the monitor.
To make the wiring clean, I set the Aviation connectors a bit to the side of each of the Stepper Drivers, this way the excess wire will sit to the left of the Stepper drivers.
My friend Jason made a test cover for the Stepper Motors. Personally I hate the way the wires just "hang" out of the motor. Jason printed these at 60% and in clear, he will be printing the 4 new ones at 100% in black.
So when searching for solutions, I found that some sellers sell "universal" style covers, but they are big huge bumps off the back of the stepper motors. I found these narrow ones on Thingiverse, the printer files are located here if anyone wants to print these covers..
Parametric NEMA 23 Stepper Motor Cover by chaddavisdesign
These covers take a 16mm Aviation connector. I love the design, because the Aviation Connector wire "doubles" back on the motor itself and will look very clean and professional, which is the goal of my build.
It feels good to make headway and progress. My new mantra is slow, steady and as accurate as possible.
Drilling holes in this box is very tough, it's 1.5mm thick, especially the 115mm circular bit!! The steel seems to have dulled the step drill bits, but it might be that I was tired (which happens very easily) or the bits got really hot. The true test will be when I get to drill more of the holes.
The lower right hole is not finished but it will be for the C-14 power inlet socket...
On the opposite side of the box a 120V receptacle will be installed to power the monitor.
To make the wiring clean, I set the Aviation connectors a bit to the side of each of the Stepper Drivers, this way the excess wire will sit to the left of the Stepper drivers.
My friend Jason made a test cover for the Stepper Motors. Personally I hate the way the wires just "hang" out of the motor. Jason printed these at 60% and in clear, he will be printing the 4 new ones at 100% in black.
So when searching for solutions, I found that some sellers sell "universal" style covers, but they are big huge bumps off the back of the stepper motors. I found these narrow ones on Thingiverse, the printer files are located here if anyone wants to print these covers..
Parametric NEMA 23 Stepper Motor Cover by chaddavisdesign
These covers take a 16mm Aviation connector. I love the design, because the Aviation Connector wire "doubles" back on the motor itself and will look very clean and professional, which is the goal of my build.
It feels good to make headway and progress. My new mantra is slow, steady and as accurate as possible.
This was ordered from Aliexpress in order to make homing and tool changes faster and more accurate.
The stand on the side is an air "cleaner" used to blow any chips or dust off the top of the tool. I'm not sure if it will be connected at all. Time will tell if it is needed.
The stand on the side is an air "cleaner" used to blow any chips or dust off the top of the tool. I'm not sure if it will be connected at all. Time will tell if it is needed.
One thing I'd been considering is adding a second PWM controller for the VFD box, but the cost of the mounting bracket was a bit much at nearly $20.00 Then remembered there were a couple of sheets of 16 gauge aluminum purchased for another purpose and not being used.
Which was then cut on the table saw. It was more of a test than anything else, so using my vise, I attempted to bend the aluminum into a 90 degree angle. The good part is it worked.
So I bent the other ones.
Next up they were drilled, DIN rail connectors were screwed on and the stand offs were added on.
Instead of using the purchased bracket which was painted for Arduino boards, it seemed better to use the narrower one I made.
So why did I build three of them? Two narrow ones for the PWM boards and the larger one for another board that is going to be used for a PCB board needed for some Proximity Switches.
I much prefer to be using the home built brackets. Just because I don't like the idea of using something with Arduino lines printed on it. Is that crazy or what??
Which was then cut on the table saw. It was more of a test than anything else, so using my vise, I attempted to bend the aluminum into a 90 degree angle. The good part is it worked.
So I bent the other ones.
Next up they were drilled, DIN rail connectors were screwed on and the stand offs were added on.
Instead of using the purchased bracket which was painted for Arduino boards, it seemed better to use the narrower one I made.
So why did I build three of them? Two narrow ones for the PWM boards and the larger one for another board that is going to be used for a PCB board needed for some Proximity Switches.
I much prefer to be using the home built brackets. Just because I don't like the idea of using something with Arduino lines printed on it. Is that crazy or what??
Last edited:
Drilling, drilling, drilling and more drilling! This part took far longer and was much harder to do than I thought. First up was to figure out where to mount everything on the outside, based on the interior layout.
First was to use an awl to "dent" the steel so the drill bit didn't wander. I started out with smaller bits, slowly graduated to larger bits and then to the step drill bits.
Here is an "action" shot of the step drill bit....
The toughest holes to drill were the large ones for the 120mm fans.
After hours of drilling, it was time to do a mock-up to see how it would look.
After showing these photos to my friend Helmut, he told me that now was the time to add some spares for the future, just in case. At first I thought he was silly and it wouldn't be needed. After thinking about it for a while, it seemed like he was correct. So I went back and added six additional Aviation connectors, 2 12mm, 2 16mm and 2 20mm. Just in case!!
Here are the finished holes in the electrical box.
Additional holes need to be drilled into the front of the cabinet door, an on off switch and an emergency shut off switch. But need to wait until I have the new power supplies to make sure the switch backs do not touch or even come close to anything. It would stink to drill holes and then need to move them....
One day soon more holes will need to be drilled into the Stainless Steel box. Not really looking forward to it...
First was to use an awl to "dent" the steel so the drill bit didn't wander. I started out with smaller bits, slowly graduated to larger bits and then to the step drill bits.
Here is an "action" shot of the step drill bit....
The toughest holes to drill were the large ones for the 120mm fans.
After hours of drilling, it was time to do a mock-up to see how it would look.
After showing these photos to my friend Helmut, he told me that now was the time to add some spares for the future, just in case. At first I thought he was silly and it wouldn't be needed. After thinking about it for a while, it seemed like he was correct. So I went back and added six additional Aviation connectors, 2 12mm, 2 16mm and 2 20mm. Just in case!!
Here are the finished holes in the electrical box.
Additional holes need to be drilled into the front of the cabinet door, an on off switch and an emergency shut off switch. But need to wait until I have the new power supplies to make sure the switch backs do not touch or even come close to anything. It would stink to drill holes and then need to move them....
One day soon more holes will need to be drilled into the Stainless Steel box. Not really looking forward to it...
Last edited:
