A bandsaw is designed for making precision horizontal and vertical cuts on different types of materials. Although it’s primarily used for cutting wood, it can also be used on plastic and metallic materials. Since the tool is powered by electricity, it enables you to make many cuts in a short period of time. This is because it doesn’t break your back like an ordinary saw. Besides that, you can use it to make custom curves when you want to enhance the appearance of your job. To compensate for its bulky design, the power tool is fitted with wheels to enable you move it at ease. If you have never used a bandsaw before, the following projects will give you a chance to put it to the test.

1. Drawers

Drawers are usually needed in the bedroom and in the bathroom. When they are installed in the bedroom, they can be used for storing medicine, jewelry, stationery and accessories. They also come in handy when you need a space for keeping items that are commonly used in the bathroom such as unused towels, robes and laundry supplies. When you are equipped with a bandsaw, you can construct several drawers in a day. This is because you only need to get a huge plank of wood, split it into small pieces and join them using a nail gun.

2. Shelves

Making shelves is definitely the simplest home project that demands you keep a bandsaw by your side. Shelves provide extra space in the kitchen for placing cups, plates, cooking pots and other utensils. You can also install shelves in your personal library for keeping books. If you don’t have shelf ideas, you can comb through the internet and explore thousands of designs especially on Pinterest. Getting started with shelves is easy. You first need to measure the space on the wall so that you can know how long your shelves will be. In fact, short shelves are easy to customize than those that are long. Besides that, they tend to be sturdier. Once you have cut the wood into desired sizes, you can then proceed by nailing them on the wall. You can then paint them if you wish.

3. Wooden Fence

A wooden fence helps in creating a gated compound. It actually tells people that they can’t access your home without using the main entrance. In addition to that, it helps in taming your pets by preventing them from sneaking out of the home compound. And last but not least, it gives your home an elegant outlook. However, the fence uses many pieces of wood. A bandsaw can therefore be useful when you want to cut multiple pieces of wood into one length and width.

4. Garden Furniture

When the sun is too hot, most families prefer to relax in the garden and enjoy the shade that’s provided by the tall plants. But for you and your guests to enjoy such moments, you will need to first construct garden furniture. The furniture includes things such as dining tables and chairs. Having several sets of each furniture comes in handy when you have many visitors. If you are a DIY maniac, you can make the furniture on your own instead of hiring a carpenter to do the job. You only need a bandsaw, sander and a nail driver. For more insights, check out professional horizontal bandsaw review.

The post 4 At-home Projects That Require a Bandsaw appeared first on OCFreaks!.

In Chapter 1 of the DIY 3D printer build, we had explained all the hardships we faced in our Prusa i3 build, and how it motivated us to build our own DIY 3D printer. In this chapter, we will be detailing the structure of our printer.

The 3D printer that we decided to build was a Cartesian-XZ Head FDM type.

The first and foremost thing we needed to think about for our DIY 3D Printer build was the body/structure. Any machine is only as good as the structure that supports it, so we didn’t take this lightly.

We tackled this issue step by step.

Open-Air design or an Enclosed Chassis design

Both these designs have their own sets of advantages and disadvantages:

In the end, we decided to go with an open-air design as we found it most suitable for our scenario.

Structure Material

The next thing we needed to tackle was what to use for skeleton support structure. The things we initially considered were: aluminium angles and Aluminium square/rectangular profiles. Both these required heavy labour on our part to make the structure (Drilling Holes in multiple places, etc.). Luckily we found a local seller who was willing to sell us 30×30 Aluminium extrusions(T-Slot profiles) at a reasonable rate. This helped us in more ways than one, as you will come to know in our later posts.

However, the seller was selling T-Slot nuts and angle brackets at exorbitant prices. This created a whole new set of problems for us to tackle.

The angle brackets, we figured, could just as well be substituted with precise aluminium angles cut at exact lengths (25mm), with holes drilled in them. But What about the T-Slot nuts. After brainstorming for quite a bit, we figured out a way. We already had (albeit, a horrible excuse for) a 3D printer (read chapter 1). So we designed a 3D model with shape and dimensions such that it could slide inside the slot of the extrusion and with holes cut out to fit a 5mm nut and a DIN 9021 M6 washer. We printed said part, fit the nut and washer in it part and fixed them there semi-permanently using Super-Glue. Voila, we made our own 3D-Printed T-Slot nut!!!We worked out how much this cost. Turns out, it was a hell of a lot cheaper(even with all the labour and material counted in) than the price of the T-Slot nut. We still had to use (actual) T-Slot Nuts in places with tight tolerances, but that just amounted to 8. All in all we required about a 100 T-Slot Nuts, a far cry from what we actually used.

Have a look at the images of our DIY Brackets and T-Slot Nuts:

DIY Aluminium Angle Bracket

DIY Aluminium Angle Bracket

DIY 30×30 M5 T-Slot Nut Cage

DIY 30×30 M5 T-Slot Nut Cage

DIY 30×30 M5 T-Slot Nut Cage

DIY 30×30 M5 T-Slot Nut Cage

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With all that being settled, we started on the base design of the skeleton structure. Here’s a few rendered images of the same:

DIY 3D Printer Aluminium Frame

DIY 3D Printer Aluminium Frame

DIY 3D Printer Aluminium Frame

DIY 3D Printer Aluminium Frame

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The post DIY 3D Printer Build Chapter 2: The Body / Structure appeared first on OCFreaks!.

3D printing is a technology that has taken the DIYing world by storm in these past couple of years. New companies manufacturing 3D printers and DIY 3D Printer kits have been popping up (and going down, too) like crazy. We* have to admit, in it’s concept, it is a pretty great idea.

We just recently were bit by the 3D printing bug. So, powered by our DIY-ers genes, we decided to purchase one of those cheap 3D printer (Prusa i3) kits. It seemed like a really sweet deal, the whole kit along with 2kg ABS filament coming for 23,500 INR. That, friends, turned out to be a pretty dumb move on our part. The kit was riddled with a horrendous amount of issues. Where do I even begin?!?!:

1. The printed parts were, putting it plain and simply, unusable. Not only was the print quality bad (that I can actually forgive), but even functionally speaking, a lot of the (clamping) holes in the parts were filled. When inquired, the seller told us that it was just the “support structures” that can be easily removed. Who does he think we are, kindergarten children playing with our first Lego sets that he could fool so easily?!?! We dont know if anyone reading this has ever tried drilling into small irregularly shaped parts (that too, made of ABS) before, but trust us, it ain’t easy!!! This itself meant that we had to modify (in some cases, reprint) the 90% of the parts.
   

   
   

   
   

   
2. The hotend(the part that extrudes molten Plastic) was again, unusable. The Hotend is a part that has to be manufactured with utmost precision and tight tolerances. A good Hotend can make an otherwise bad 3D printer OK. But a bad Hotend can make an otherwise (mechanically speaking) excellent printer unusable. A lot of engineering goes into designing a hotend, so most manufacturers just make one following one of the many existing Open Source Designs. So, imagine our surprise on finding that the hotend provided in the kit was not conforming to any of the popular designs found online, and was just a PEEK rod and a brass part (comprising of heater block and 0.4mm nozzle) put together.
   

   

3. The feeder mechanism(the part that pushes the plastic filament through the hotend) was a joke. Leaving the botched print jobs aside, the design was flawed in a number of ways.
4. The filament that we got with the kit was utter shit(if you’ll pardon my French). The quality was really bad and the filament diameter was uneven.
   

   

   
5. The pins in the electronics (Arduino Mega+RAMPS) were not properly soldered in multiple places, leading to a whole bunch of wierd issues.

Despite of all these shortcomings, we decided to go forward and assemble the printer, reassuring ourselves that we have not wasted our money. Have a look at the end result.

Heres a few images of the (horrible) print quality:

Here’s a few images of the (much more bearable) print quality after upgrading to an all metal hotend(which seems to be an E3D V5 clone) and a custom extruder design:

Now, we know many of you might laugh seeing this. We don’t blame you, even we would!!! But trust us, if you know what we went through, you will admit that this is quite an accomplishment! We had to redesign the whole feeder mechanism, and reprint many other parts (on another cheap 3D printer. Someone up there must really hate us!!!) too on account of the botched print jobs.

After suffering through this whole ordeal, we decided to make our own 3D printer. The goals we had set in our mind was:

1. Make it as reasonably priced as possible, while at the same time not compromising one bit on quality.
2. Address many common issues faced by a lot of the cheap 3D printers available on the market.
3. Keep the number of 3D printed parts used down to a minimum. This was as much a necessity (we did not have a 3D printer readily at our disposal) as a goal.
4. The design should be both modular and scalable.

Keep tuned for more details on this build.

*Not the royal “We”. The 3D printer build was a joint project of Saby D’silva and Umang Gajera. Hence, all the usage of “we”.

The post DIY 3D Printer Build Chapter 1: The Nightmare appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Project Bootstrap – (Yet another xD) DIY 3 Axis CNC

Project Bootstrap is OCFreaks’ 2nd Official Project which is – a Homemade DIY CNC Routing and Milling Machine.

For those guys who are new to CNC and related stuff lemme give you a formal introduction to ‘CNC Machine’ :

Link to CNC on wiki : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_control

It all started when I entered into Robotics & Embedded – Somewhere around in late 2009. Back then I was working on a Hexapod Robot project. I had made a new design for my hexapod and then was faced with a challenge. How do I cut the design ? I had to do it manually or get it fabricated. Pro fabricators wont accept such sample quantity jobs. So I had to manually cut the parts for my hexapod .. Damn! During that time a random thought came in my mind – Why not make a CNC router and cut parts for robotics projects at home? I was like .. hmmmmm .. but making a CNC is tough ask. For months I was still like .. hmmmmm .. can I make it? can I really make it? Finally in April 2012 somewhere around my birthday I decided – Enough of this ‘can I make it? crap’ , Lets start freaking buildin’ it. After my exams in June 2012 I started researching on DIY CNCs seriously .. I mean damn seriously .. endlessly going through CNC related stuff for hours n hours n hours. My CNC story starts from here! My CNC project is divided into Intervals – each interval has its own story to say.

Here is Quick Video of Interval 6 : Here I’ve used the CNC to engrave text on PCB Copper Clads:

So .. What next in pipeline? : 2nd Version of the current CNC and a 3D-Printer!

The CNC Build in a Nutshell(sort-of)

6mm Thick Wooden Plates cut as per Design:

Drilled Sandwiched plates with effective thickness of 12mm:

Base aluminum frame:

Anti-backlash Lead Nuts , Regular ball-Bearings , Thrust Bearings & Couplings , Shaft and Lead Screw end support blocks:

Cut & Drilled Aluminum Angles of thickness 2mm:

Open and Closed type Linear Motion Bearings for Linear Motion:

Nema-23 18.9Kgcm Stepper Motors:

20mm Shafts , M10x1.5 Mild-steel & Stainless-steel Lead Screws:

Fasteners:

1st Prototype of Opto-Isolated Parallel Breakout Board – Sadly this prototype failed and didn’t make it ): [2nd Prototype in Progress (:]

2nd Prototype of DRV8825 based stepper motor driver – This too didn’t make it since it had a few bugs ): [3rd Prototype in Progress (:]

5mm Thick Aluminum Angles for reinforcement:

Anti-backlash Lead Nut Housing:

Lead Nut where it should be: When the Lead Screw rotates the Lead Nut moves back-n-forth i.e it converts the rotational motion of stepper motors into linear motion.

X-axis Base on which Z-axis base is mounted:

Y-axis Base:

Z-axis Base :

Z-axis Lead Screw Assembly:

Thrust Bearings to secure Lead Screws in place:

Z-axis Assembly:

Z-axis Stepper Motor:

Y-axis Stepper Motor:

X-axis Stepper Motor:

Y-axis Limit/Home Switches:

X-axis Limit/Home Switches:

Z-axis Limit/Home Switches:

CNC Base assembly:

The Gantry:

CNC almost complete! :

CNC on Wheels! :

The final setup for Test Runs:

Test Print(after calibration) Result:

And its Made in India. (:

The post DIY CNC Router / Mill appeared first on OCFreaks!.

This is DIY CNC Interval 2B – Linear Motion Bearings, Motor & Coupling Selection.

Linear Motion Bearings , Shafts and Support Blocks
For linear translation support I decided to go with 20mmm (dia.) Linear Motion Ball Bearings mounted on 20mm chrome shafts. Per axis 4 Linear Motion Bearings will be used.

Open Type Linear Motion Bearing:

Closed Type Linear Motion Bearing:

The Linear Motion Bearing Stock:

To support shafts I have got some Shaft End support blocks:

Shaft End Support Stock:

20mm Chrome Shafts:

Stepper Motors

I’ve also purchased 3x Nema-23 18.9 Kg-cm Torque Stepper motors which provides enough torque to mill metals like Aluminum given a proper lead screw is used.

Couplings
A Nema 23 Standard Stepper motor shaft has a diameter of 1/4″ i.e 6.35mm. On the other hand my Lead Screws are 10mm in diameter. Hence I wanted a coupling which can couple the 10mm lead screw with 6.35mm stepper shaft. Once such type of coupling was available on Ebay – HongKong but then I found a fabricator who could flexible shaft couplings at almost the same price. Within 5 days I got it fabricated from Excella electronics – Ghatkopar , Mumbai.

Misc

Also got a sample of pillow block bearing which I had originally thought of using as end support for Lead Screw. This might or might not go into the actual CNC.

Interval 1 Post is @ Here
Interval 2A Post is @ Here

The post DIY CNC – LM Bearings, Motor & Coupling Selection appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Introduction
Hey Folks! Lets make our own Lead Screw End support for our DIY CNCs! I’ll let images do all the talking since therez nothing much to write about xD.

So this was my situation : I was having Bearings with ID=10mm , OD=19mm and same kind Flange type bearing with Flange dia=21mm along with a 20mm Shaft End Support. Using those bearings one could easily convert a ‘Shaft End Support’ into a ‘Lead Screw End Support’. Lets see how.

Parts required:
1) 20mm Shaft End Support Block :

2) Normal + Flange type Bearings :

3) Paper Tape :

4) Small Hammer

Building Steps:
Step 1 : Stack the normal bearing over the flange type bearing. Start ‘rolling’ the paper tape over it. Keep on checking the Outer diameter after each full/half revolution. It must not go beyond the Shaft end support’s ID which is 20mm in our case.

Step 2 : Once the Outer diameter barely reaches 20mm its time to cut the tape. Trim the excess tape.

Step 3 : Its time to put the bearing stack into Shaft end support’s 20mm slot. Apply pressure using thumbs to force it in. When its mid-way inside u’ll need a small hammer to force it completely in. If it still wont go inside then a peel of a small section of the paper tape and try again. When its completely inside the slot lock it using Shaft end support’s lock screws.

And thats it! We’r Done!

The post DIY Lead Screw End support for CNC appeared first on OCFreaks!.

DIY CNC Interval 2A: Leadscrew, Leadnut & Bearing Selection

In the first part of this Diy CNC Series I had given a brief introduction on my way of building a CNC. Here I talk on one of the most important part of CNC viz.: leadscrews(& its support bearings) and leadnuts.

Leadscrew(or simply precision threaded rod) is ‘the’ part that converts rotational motion of stepper/servo motors into linear translation. The Leadnut is similar to a nut which moves back and forth as the leadscrew rotates. The pitch of the Lead Screw and the number of thread starts decide the accuracy of a CNC and also the maximum linear speed aka Rapids. Pitch is simply the distance between the center of 2 threads on the Lead Screw. When the Lead Screw makes 1 complete rotation it makes the Lead Nut travel a distance which is equal to its Pitch. In My case I have used a standard Metric Lead Screw of Diameter 10mm and pitch 1.5mm. When it rotates once the lead nut mounted on it travels an exact distance of 1.5mm in the respective direction.

Leadscrews come in a variety of standards and types. Amongst them most famous and widely used in DIY CNC are ACME and Metric M-x(where x is the diameter) thread type leadscrews. ACME is as per the imperial standard and most widely in west. Metric M-x is as per the Metric Standard. Lead screws having ACME threading are generally precision threaded rods. Metric M-x thread type is generally used in fastners hence the leadscrews may have high tolerences hence lower precision. But Precision Metric M-x leadscrews also do exist.

You can find more information on Leadscrews at these links:

• www.cnczone.com/forums/linear_rotary_motion/20745-screw_threads_101_a-5.html
• www.roton.com/acme-lead-screws-nuts.aspx?line=Acme
• www.roton.com/trapezoidal-lead-screws.aspx?line=Trapezoidal
• www.cncroutersource.com/acme-lead-screw.html

Initially I had thought of using ACME 10TPI(2.5mm pitch) threaded Leadscrews but ran into a bit of stock issues since at my place we follow Metric Standard .. hence ACME components are not easily available while Metric components are very cheap and readily available. The counter part to ACME Leadscrew in Metric system is Trapezoidal Leadscrews. Trapezoidal Leadscrews are too not readily available at my location despite of the fact that its a Metric component! Hopefully I found a manufacturer of Leadscrew who could custom make Leadscrews as per my requirement be it ACME or Trapezoidal. Now the problem next was the availability of Trapezoidal nuts and Leadnuts. Trapezoidal nuts are costly .. I could have got them but that would mean more time waste. Since this is the frist time I am making a CNC I thought of using readily available components to make a sort of boot-strap CNC after I could make newer version using ACME leadscrews.

I finally decided to go with M-10 Leadscrew which I got manufactured from a manufacturer. M-10 Leadscrew has 10mm diameter and a pitch of 1.5mm. The advantage of lower pitch is more fine resolution but at the cost of low feed rates. Advantage of having higher pitch is higher feed rates but a bit lower resolution. But the fact is : even in the case of higher pitch the resolution is still very good since stepper have a step angle of 1.8 Degrees and they can be run in micro-stepping too!

M-10 Precision Leadscrew (Mild Steel):

Now , coming to Leadnuts. I ordered 4x M-10 Anti-backlash Leadnuts from www.dumpstercnc.com. The Leadnuts are indeed as per the specs and of top notch quality. When I tried them on M-10 Leadscrew the backlash was 0!

Anti-backlash(AB) Leadnuts:

AB Leadnut mounted on Leadscrew:

To support the Leadscrews at both the ends I also got some flange type and normal ball bearings. I’ll talk about how I have used these bearings for the Leadscrew assembly in detail in next my next post.

Bearings:

Now the last thing remaining was to decide on bearings for the Lead Screw end support which will secure Lead Screw in place. I purchased some normal bearings with ID = 10mm and OD = 19mm and similar Flange type bearing with flange diameter around 21mm. Using these bearings with a 20mm Shaft end support I made my own DIY Lead Screw End Support and later on used Thrust bearings to lock the Lead Screw in place.

The post DIY CNC : Leadscrew , Leadnut & Bearing Selection appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Building Blocks of DIY Quadcopter: Introduction & Overview

Lately I got involved into another DIY project – A Quadcopter. It was during my exams I got into this xD. And it was during my exams I started researching on Quadcopter. Plenty of information is available on the Internet on multicopters. I had decided on using 9×4.7 Propellers since its going to be a Mid-Sized Quadcopter. So , ordered some Clockwise and Anticlockwise Slow Fly Propellors.

Clockwise Props:

Anticlockwise Props:

Also , what I found was that a motor having around 900 to 1200KV was a best fit for my project. KV is simply RPM per Volt. Like many others I too selected Turnigy 2215J-900KV Brushless DC Motor. The Quality and performance of these motors is top-notch considering the price. I ordered 5 of them from Hobbyking.

The package:

The motors:

Closeups:

Accessories:

Next was selecting proper ESC i.e Electronic Speed controller for these motors. As per the specs on Hobbyking these Motors draw upto 20 Amps at around 10-11 Volts. Most of the RC enthusisats select ESC which can handle around 5 to 7 Amps more than their Max requirment. Even I too Agree with this since Higher-AMP Rated ESCs will run much cooler so possibly will last longer. Its better to stay away with smoking ESCs. I selected HobbyKing Blue Series 30 Amp ESCs. I could have gone with 25 Amp ESC but the difference in price was very less hence decided to buy 30 Amp ones instead. Again like with the motors I ordered 5 of them.

Also ordered a Program Card suited for the ESCs I had ordered. Its sort-of necessary to change the ESC parameters for multicopters.

Ill be KK-Multirotor controller since I am a “First Timer”. Planning to use 4AH Lipo Battery for the Quadcopter but not fixed yet. First want a get a prototype ready which will be powered by a bench PSU which I generally use for my Hexapod and other stuff.

At this very moment I’m working on the Frame using Aluminum Extrusions and fasteners.

The post DIY Quadcopter Project : Interval 1 appeared first on OCFreaks!.

DIY CNC Interval 1: Inception

I had originally thought(not planned) of building a CNC Machine back in 2011 .. but then it was just in my head since I was noob in mechanical stuff. Frankly speaking at that time I didnt even knew what is a lead screw , linear bearing , coupling , etc.. which form the basic building blocks of a DIY CNC. It was around in March 2012 that I finally decided to make one(along with quadcopter xD) and had the commitment. I researched a lot online for weeks to get myself comfortable with the mechanics of CNC Machine and related calculations. Had gone through a big number CNC Designs and finally made a rough blue-print of a CNC which I am gonna build. At the moment I’ve still not decided that which kind of Aluminum Extrusion will be used for making the frame.

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