Shop Improvements for Spring
The move to a shop space I own has resulted in a much nicer setup. The previous spaces I inhabited were leased and required me to set up my tools and infrastructure somewhat temporarily. This always meant at least a subconscious “good enough for now” mentality. Being in a long term space now means I’d undertaken some nice upgrades:
They used to be under the machine, which was annoying and discouraged me from doing any wiring updates in the control boxes. Now they’re up on the wall.
Setting the CNC on permanent feet. Prior it was on casters to facilitate moving when necessary. Having it on solid feet now means the bed is rock solid, and this results in better troubleshooting for isolating unwanted cut vibration.
Hardwired cabling and relocated control boxes. Now I have starting and control switches outside of the CNC enclosure so that I can be further from the harmful parts when I initiate spindle on/off and speed values. I also can start the dust collector from the same spot. As you can see on the picture, the control boxes are now mounted to the wall so that working on their contents is easier.
Added a gantry squaring procedure to the homing command. This could have been done anywhere, but I finally got around to it. I added another switch to the A axis so that the machine would reset itself to the proper square configuration every time it started or homed. Stepper motors don’t retain tension on the rack and pinion when they are turned off and so this always results in a slight shift when they are powered up initially. Adding this functionality results in a more accurate machine.
Giant sliding tool drawer. I bought these two heavy duty slides that are designed for an RV that extend for 60”. I built a shallow box as a base and mounted it inside the slides to provide some more easily accessible tool storage.
Dust collector alert light. I bought a proximity sensor and blinking light online and installed the sensor on the dust bin. I set it to detect something that’s about 5” away from its eye and wired it to the fancy light. I was waiting for it to fill up so I could see the fireworks!
Now when the dust collector bin gets full a fancy alert light turns my shop into a party! Takes some of the sting out of emptying it.
This pull-out drawer is even more amazing in person. It works so smoothly.
