Zed Lives!

Yes, the correct way to say the letter z is 'zed'.

Regardless, I now have the Z axis on my milling machine working!

Here's the final parts of the z axis motor mount before I welded them together and mounted it on the milling machine:



And now, the moment we've been waiting for for 3 weeks:



I couldn't be happier with the results! You'll note in this picture that the larger of the two timing gears is a different color. I decided to try making these gears using the ones I bought online as masters. This one I cast out of epoxy resin. I was amazed that I was able to drill and tap the set screws and not strip the threads in the epoxy; it's pretty strong stuff!

And here's the Z axis going through its paces:



I dug up the ubiquitous roadrunner DXF file that came with Mach3, and ran the machine through its paces again. This time I didn't have to pause the machine and manually move the z axis. It worked flawlessly!



The next thing I wanted to try was a graphic of my own, so I found a Superman logo via google:



Imported it into TurboCAD, then converted it to a DXF file. I then brought it into LazyCAM, and exported the GCode for the milling machine. The result was impressive:



I actually scaled down the cut to the milling machine to 35% of the orginal to see how it looked. Remember: this is a 400kg 220V lump of metal creating that delicate pattern not much larger than a penny!

The sky's the limit now!