Post date: Feb 16, 2014 4:29:44 AM
Two images today, the sum of which doesn't seem like it should have taken an entire day to complete.
First up, there's the bearing clamp all set to be screwed down to the stepper mount plate. The new progress on this front is the indent seen in the middle of the stepper mount pattern. This allows the bearing clamp (round chunk of aluminum with the bearing in it) to be properly centered, which is especially helpful when doing something like aligning leadscrews and stepper shafts for coupling.
The indent itself is CNC milled, hence it being nice and round. (You can also see lines where the end mill went around- my spindle isn't quite perpendicular to the work surface) The clamp itself (top) was done by hand. I have no clue why the finish looks as awful as it does; the lathe evidently doesn't like me today. That said, it should at least hold the bearing in place, which is what really matters.
Next up is the little rail to trigger the limit switches on the new axis. The limit switches will be mounted vertically and roll along the rail, triggering at either end where you can see the taper.
In in interest of full disclosure, I didn't do this today/this week. Actually, I didn't do it at all- my dad was kind enough to make it for me. It's definitely nice to have the help.
So if that's all that I did today, why did it take so long? Well, it's not all that I did today... there's another bearing clamp in progress, and a second stepper mounting plate (for the X axis) completed. That's at least a little more (though I would agree that it seems like I should have more to show for the number of hours of work I put in).