Aligning the spindle?

[C&C Woodsmith]

I just received my AR8 yesterday and I'm impressed with the fit and finish so far. However I noticed when surfacing the waste board that there are minute ridges along the path that make me think the spindle is ever so slightly tilted so the right side is lower than the left. Are there instructions anywhere on how to align the spindle head? I tried searching but all the keywords I can think of are too vague so I'm getting too many results to sift through. Thanks!

[zaxis4]

Mine does the same thing when using the large diameter morticing bit. It probably amounts to 1 or 2 thousands in the ridges. I have been told that tolerance is 3 to 5 thousands on these machines. Chad said you could loosen and retighten the spindle clamp where it is mounted to the gantry but those are in so tight that I did not force the issue on mine. I makes absolutely no difference in what your machine produces. If it was a Bridgeport mill that would be a different issue but not for a CNC like this. The work it turns out is flawless IMHO

[C&C Woodsmith]

Thanks for the reply. I'm about to make 1000 little jewelry-type boxes and I'm afraid that the 1-2 thou could increase my hand sanding time...and with 1000 boxes I want the least amount as possible. I do believe it will be better when I switch to the smaller radius. Just nervous I guess.

[jordandemoss]

The mortising bit isn't flat on the bottom, that may be what you're seeing.

[C&C Woodsmith]

I don't believe the bit not being flat would make the path looked angled because if the spindle is level to the table and the bit isn't then the low point on the bit would always be low as it spins around. I believe it would be a less smooth cut, but it would still be flat. Similar to how I use a coat hanger wire to make sure my drill press is level. Chuck the wire and bend it kinda z shaped and as it rotates it will always be on a perpendicular plane to the chuck.

[Deleted]

There are several videos on YouTube about tramming a CNC router. Basically, you have rotation left and right which is done with rotation of the mount. Then there is forward and backward which is done by shimming the top or bottom of the mount relative to the gantry, brass shim stock is ideal but you may get away with aluminum foil or thin paper. Normal paper is 3-5 thousandths but cigarette paper is closer to just one thousandth.

You don't need fancy equipment, like a dial indicator unless you happen to have one, because you can use a bent coat hanger. The important thing with the coat hanger is that the longer the radial arm the more accurate you can tram your mount. You can make something like in this video or just bend a coat hanger to that approximate shape.

[meesh]

I finally got my Autoroute 8 fully setup and downloaded the spoilboard surfacing file. Ran a few 1.5” rows with resulting definite ridges, as X+ runs deeper. So noticeable it’s unacceptable. Tried flipping/rotating the router, with no change. There are quite a few screws securing the router mount, z axis plate. Any I shouldn’t touch?

I wanted to cut something real last night!
It’s 3:24am. Blaming any typos on Siri. 😂

[chuck26287]

Jun 3, 2017 6:15:40 GMT -5 @fean said:

There are several videos on YouTube about tramming a CNC router. Basically, you have rotation left and right which is done with rotation of the mount. Then there is forward and backward which is done by shimming the top or bottom of the mount relative to the gantry, brass shim stock is ideal but you may get away with aluminum foil or thin paper. Normal paper is 3-5 thousandths but cigarette paper is closer to just one thousandth.

You don't need fancy equipment, like a dial indicator unless you happen to have one, because you can use a bent coat hanger. The important thing with the coat hanger is that the longer the radial arm the more accurate you can tram your mount. You can make something like in this video or just bend a coat hanger to that approximate shape.

I have had a slight raised edge from not being truly perpendicular to the table when surfacing the spoilboards (with the 1.5" mortising/flycutting bit) since getting my AR8 a couple years ago.  I simply significantly reduced the amount of stepover and it reduced the symptom quite a bit.  I then just took a sanding block over it VERY lightly and it was fine.  For the precision of what I've usually been doing I had no symptoms of the spindle not being perpendicular.  However, I'm now doing some more precision assembly work, and when your 3/4" thick pieces are not cutting square edges, the assembly of square boxes is off a good bit.  Nothing that some major sanding can't save, but investing in high precision equipment to then have to manually sand to correct raised edges is very counter-productive, not to mention time consuming.  So, I'm at the point of wanting to perform a tramming adjustment.

I made a basic 12" tramming arm, and when checking my surfaced spoilboards, on one side my reference point just touches the surface, and on the other it's almost 5mm high.  That's probably not as bad as it sounds in actuality (hasn't been for me until just recently), but I think tramming it should really fine tune the alignment, and make for much more square/perpendicular edge cuts through 3/4" boards.

So... that said, I see below Chad from Axiom has emailed procedures/info on the tramming of the Axiom.  If anyone has this Axiom specific procedure, could you email it to me?  I have left a message and an email for Axiom support, but have no idea of when they will be able to get back to me, especially with this being the weekend.  My hope was someone who has this Axiom specific procedure could get it to me a little sooner.

I am interested specifically in what Chad sent out as I want to ensure I don't loosen anything on the spindle head that shouldn't be loosened.  The example videos in this thread show how easy it is to loosen the wrong points.  These types of procedures often make things worse before they make them better, and can be really compounded by adding variables like unnecessary mounting points being loosened.

My email, should anyone have this, is [e-mail].  Thanks so much!

Chuck

[chuck26287]

Well, Chad got back to me and identified which bolts to work with. The workmanship that the AutoRoute is made with is impressive, almost to a fault. The rear half of the spindle mounting bracket is engineered to be aligned. Period. The rear bracket is very precisely steel pinned in place, so there is no rotational play for precise adjustment. The only adjustment for tramming appears to be shimming the back side of the rear spindle mounting bracket at the top or the bottom, causing the spindle to tilt toward or away from the home end of the Y-axis. I suppose one could also try foil shimming inside the bracket, between the bracket and the housing wall of the spindle, but that seemed a little iffy to me, so I stayed with just the foil shimming between the two bottom screws of the rear mounting bracket, between the rear bracket and the Z-Axis plate.

I should also note that I had said I was 5mm off on one side when checking with the 12" tramming bar. Well, I can't believe I was eye-balling it that badly. It was actually a little over 3mm. Big difference. But, when I was done, I had it to less than 1mm across the table. Much better, so I decided to try it there. I resurfaced the spoilboards and immediately saw improvement. I used the 1.5" mortising/flycutting bit again, but this time used a stepover of 1.4" vs. the 0.5" I was using. As good or even better on the surfacing at 1.4" stepover now. Just BARELY leaving a ridge. Much better, so we'll try cutting some assembly parts where it is now and see how much sanding is required.

Being a perfectionist and not able to leave things well enough alone, I decided I'd resurface my touch-off puck and reset the CAD Thickness value while I was spending some time doing accuracy touch-up maintenance.

Short story... my puck now has a glass-smooth surface, with a 1/8" hole in the center of it.

Longer story... I broke a new aluminum "O" flute bit smack in the center of the puck. Congrats to those who have already realized what I did (start the laugh track here). It was stupid, and I'm not even embarrassed to tell you I did it. What I'm embarrassed to tell you is I did it TWICE, and broke TWO new bits! Yep... I set my Z-zero with the puck... then went to skim 0.005" off the same puck. I know... stupid move. So how in the world could I turn around and do it again? Well, had I left the puck plugged in when I started the first cut (I never do that, since I don't use a mounting bracket for it). Since that basically makes an electrical short to frame I would guess, I assumed it had somehow interfered with the machine stopping at the material surface, and the Z-axis just kept going down. So, I changed bits, and made sure the puck was unplugged and ran the setup again, since I THOUGHT I had identified my problem. I was obviously not thinking, as I should have been clued in when it didn't go from fast-move to slow-move 0.2" above the material surface. As I was looking at the second broken bit the clouds parted and the sun shined through and I saw clear as day my own stupidity. ALWAYS set Z-zero manually when surfacing your puck.

Oh well... bits are bits. We'll always be buying more, and stupid things do happen. Moral of the story, and reason I'm so willing to be laughed at by the entire forum... ALWAYS wear eye protection, now matter how routine an operation seems it will be. You never know when a little piece of metal is going to become a projectile.

Chuck