Post by lasereyes on Sept 5, 2023 14:50:26 GMT -5
A couple years ago when I got my AR16, I was completely new to CNC. As soon as I surfaced the spoilboard for the first time I knew I was a little out of tram, but I was in no position to tackle it. I was completely overwhelmed at the time with Aspire, CNC, x-axis this, y-axis that, speeds, feeds, just everything. Huge learning curve. I also was nervous to tram, assuming I would screw something up and end-up with an even bigger problem. I wasn't that out of tram, and was getting good results on my carves.
Fast forward 2 years and I recently encountered an issue that needed to be resolved. Tramming was the obvious first step to rooting out my issue. I had no choice. I searched the forums high and low, and although I have seen many people in search for guidance, I haven't seen a lot of answers. So this post is to help anyone else out there like me.
I learned that tramming my AR16 wasn't that bad at all! I learned that I was decently out of tram on my y-axis, and it took about 1 1/2 hours and cost $0 to get perfectly trammed.
Here's what you need to know:
1. Before you start, you're going to want to ensure your spoilboard is properly surfaced. A less than flat surface won't give you a proper reference to check your tram. For this, I like to use a smaller 1" bit with a 40% stepover. It takes a little longer, but gives me a good, even surface.
2. You need a way to check your tram. You can buy a $100 tram bar with dual dial indicators, which I'm sure people will say is the best and most accurate. Perhaps. It's also totally unnecessary and you can make your own tram bar in 20 minutes for free that will allow you to achieve perfection.
The first pic below shows my tram bar. I used a 15" long piece of 3/4" scrap. On one end I inserted a bolt, secured with a nut. On the other end I used an old 1/4" router bit so I could chuck the bar to my spindle. When you drill for the router bit, make sure you drill undersize so it doesn't slip.
After you make this tram bar, throw it in your spindle, drop your Z so the bolt is barely not touching the spoilboard, then manually rotate that tram bar around your table. When you do, that bolt should stay at an even distance from your spoilboard. If it touches the spoilboard, or raises way above the spoilboard, then your out of tram. The second pic below shows the tram bar in my spindle:
When I did this, I found that while I was barely not touching the table on the left side, when I swung it to the right it was 2-3mm above the table. Pretty good actually. If you think about it, that's over a 30" distance, so it would have very little tilt over the span of a 1/4" or 1/2" bit. My Y-axis tram was a different story, it was pretty off. Maybe 5-6mm.
3. Now you're ready to tram your spindle. To do so, you're going to need to loosen the four bolts on the front of the clamshell that is holding the spindle. But first, make sure you have a way to hold the spindle when you loosen those bolts. For this, I present you with use #517,265 for duct tape. See photo #3.
I'd heard I could shim the back of the spindle with a piece of aluminum foil to tram the y axis. I started there. First one ply, then 3, then 6. Still not where I needed to be. At this point I grabbed a set of feeler gauges from my local auto store, Photo #4 (ok, this cost me $3). After trying a couple, I found the .014" was perfect to shim the back of my spindle (Photo #5). Now my Y was perfect, but my X was still off.
Not sure what to do about the X, I reached out to support, but before they were able to get back to me, I made it work. Some guy on Youtube used a screw driver to pry his spindle to the right. NO WAY was I going to do this to my machine. My X wasn't that bad to begin with. So I was able to MOSTLY get my X in tram by firmly applying hand-pressure on the spindle in the necessary direction while tightening the bolts. This got me 60% of the way there. It really was probably fine at this point by almost any standard, but it wasn't perfect. At this point I decided to slightly move my Y shim (which was dead-center behind the top of the spindle) slightly off-center in the proper direction. It is still almost directly behind the spindle, just moved a few degrees to provide some shim in the right spot on the X. This did the trick.
4. Get that spindle bolted back into place and check for tram using your tram bar.
I hope this helps someone and I am happy to answer any questions, though I am still very much a newb. Now it's time to go build something! This is going to be my best one yet.
Theodore
Fast forward 2 years and I recently encountered an issue that needed to be resolved. Tramming was the obvious first step to rooting out my issue. I had no choice. I searched the forums high and low, and although I have seen many people in search for guidance, I haven't seen a lot of answers. So this post is to help anyone else out there like me.
I learned that tramming my AR16 wasn't that bad at all! I learned that I was decently out of tram on my y-axis, and it took about 1 1/2 hours and cost $0 to get perfectly trammed.
Here's what you need to know:
1. Before you start, you're going to want to ensure your spoilboard is properly surfaced. A less than flat surface won't give you a proper reference to check your tram. For this, I like to use a smaller 1" bit with a 40% stepover. It takes a little longer, but gives me a good, even surface.
2. You need a way to check your tram. You can buy a $100 tram bar with dual dial indicators, which I'm sure people will say is the best and most accurate. Perhaps. It's also totally unnecessary and you can make your own tram bar in 20 minutes for free that will allow you to achieve perfection.
The first pic below shows my tram bar. I used a 15" long piece of 3/4" scrap. On one end I inserted a bolt, secured with a nut. On the other end I used an old 1/4" router bit so I could chuck the bar to my spindle. When you drill for the router bit, make sure you drill undersize so it doesn't slip.
After you make this tram bar, throw it in your spindle, drop your Z so the bolt is barely not touching the spoilboard, then manually rotate that tram bar around your table. When you do, that bolt should stay at an even distance from your spoilboard. If it touches the spoilboard, or raises way above the spoilboard, then your out of tram. The second pic below shows the tram bar in my spindle:
When I did this, I found that while I was barely not touching the table on the left side, when I swung it to the right it was 2-3mm above the table. Pretty good actually. If you think about it, that's over a 30" distance, so it would have very little tilt over the span of a 1/4" or 1/2" bit. My Y-axis tram was a different story, it was pretty off. Maybe 5-6mm.
3. Now you're ready to tram your spindle. To do so, you're going to need to loosen the four bolts on the front of the clamshell that is holding the spindle. But first, make sure you have a way to hold the spindle when you loosen those bolts. For this, I present you with use #517,265 for duct tape. See photo #3.
I'd heard I could shim the back of the spindle with a piece of aluminum foil to tram the y axis. I started there. First one ply, then 3, then 6. Still not where I needed to be. At this point I grabbed a set of feeler gauges from my local auto store, Photo #4 (ok, this cost me $3). After trying a couple, I found the .014" was perfect to shim the back of my spindle (Photo #5). Now my Y was perfect, but my X was still off.
Not sure what to do about the X, I reached out to support, but before they were able to get back to me, I made it work. Some guy on Youtube used a screw driver to pry his spindle to the right. NO WAY was I going to do this to my machine. My X wasn't that bad to begin with. So I was able to MOSTLY get my X in tram by firmly applying hand-pressure on the spindle in the necessary direction while tightening the bolts. This got me 60% of the way there. It really was probably fine at this point by almost any standard, but it wasn't perfect. At this point I decided to slightly move my Y shim (which was dead-center behind the top of the spindle) slightly off-center in the proper direction. It is still almost directly behind the spindle, just moved a few degrees to provide some shim in the right spot on the X. This did the trick.
4. Get that spindle bolted back into place and check for tram using your tram bar.
I hope this helps someone and I am happy to answer any questions, though I am still very much a newb. Now it's time to go build something! This is going to be my best one yet.
Theodore
