Kronos Robotics

I needed to cut some angle iron for a project I am working on. Once my angle iron fixture was installed the torch could not reach the proper height with the CAP 04 installed. Back when I had to double the height of the riser blocks, I kind of Knew I was going to have to redesign it. KRCCS gantry.jpg...

I just got the new gantry built. _MG_9973.jpg Its a more conventional X axis. Next I have to design the X carriage. The sides of the gantry will have braces that will tie the X beam to the risers. These braces will also act as the motor and bearing mounts. To do this however I have get my inventor 3...

I have already started. I will post some pics as I get some things fabricated.

As for the CAP04 THC. Here are some things I dont like about it. 1. Since its capacitance base the aluminum Y carriage riser blocks interfere with it when you get within an inch or so of the left side (side the CAP04 is mounted on) This means if using the THC, you loose over an inch of X travel. Eve...

The cost of building the CNC Construction Set Plasma will depend alot on what you have on hand. I had most items on hand, including the G540 which is one of the most expensive parts. The G540 is probably a little much for this build so you could get by with something a lot cheaper. If you change to ...

While I did get the CAP04 THC to work. I don't think its the best fit for a plasma CNC. I will be testing some torch voltages based units in the future as well.

I got the THC in and have spent the last couple days getting it installed. Its now installed and ready for some testing. Since it does not have to have the torch running, I can do some dry run testing just to make sure Mach is setup correctly. http://www.kronosrobotics.com/cap-04-thc/ zTG5S6Egqcw

I see they have posted a new PocketNC V2.

Its selling for $4900.

I could post a link, but the ones on Amazon are priced way to high. Go to your local home center and pick up some 2" gusseted braces. The ones I got I purchased from Homedepot. SKU 824542 They cost $3.97 for two. Any will work, as you are only going to be using the holes closest to the corners....

For the THC, the first one I am going to try is the CAP04 capacitive sensor. I am using an Everlast plasma cuter so I cant add an Ohmic sensor. The CAP04 uses capacitance to measure the distance to the stock so it can be used as an initial sensor, and a running sensor. The folks at CNC4PC are sendin...

Yes, the base and rails will not change. If there is anything you need from me, just ask and I will try and post it.

The current build of the plasma cutter still needs some upgrades and modifications. You might have noticed that I raised the height of the gantry. I needed to do this for clearance of the hand torch. A torch sticking out the front of your machine means you have to build things a little different. I ...

In an attempt to keep things current and to give my builders options, I am always on the look out for controller options. This helps keep my workbooks up to date. A while back I tested the UC100, UC300, and even the UCCNC software. I found the UC100 to be the easiest and most straight forward approa...

On the first one, I have my doubts you would get much resolution. On the second one looks like an overpriced Chinese 6-1 belt driven rotary axis.

You can get pretty much the same thing for about $300 less on Amazon.

Magazines have to pivot and need to really embrace the internet. Some magazines like MotherEarth News or Make are doing pretty good. But they have a Ton of online content and products. Servo should have made the pivot over to the maker side of things and away from the robotics. Robotics in general i...

Yes it is the same. The folks a Servo Magazine have been having some hard times lately. They are now doing a remake of their magazine and have released the articles back to me so that I could post them on the web site. I will be presenting the complete build on my website as I get them converted to ...

I'm using Eagle software and the PCB Gcode plugin.
http://www.kronosrobotics.com/setting-up-the-software/

Still working on my single sided workflow page.
Here is a quick vid of a circuit I just made.

Did some testing with the 20 degree V-bit today and have to say it exceeded my expectations. While these are not true CAD generated PCBs, they do show how tight the system is. The spacing on the tiny little rectangle under the CNC text has a spacing of .02" and still leaves enough isolation and...

I am starting an in-depth web series on isolation routing printed circuit boards. I will start by creating a fixture that will help create an easy way to mill a board with as little setup as possible. I will start with some easy tests to make sure your physical setup is sound, then move into single ...

There are a couple in the VA/DC/MD area, I would be willing to sponsor a meetup if we can get a few interested.

Mach4 is more expensive than Mach3. If you use a parallel port that will cost you as well. While Mach3 has a few quirks, I still be believe you get more bang for your buck by purchasing Mach3. There is also a ton of information out there on Mach3. For instance, I wanted to change the homing sequence...

Do you mean belt drive on the reducer? If so its the only way to go if you want to keep backlash down to near zero. On my original design I used a belt drive system instead of the R&P. They dont scale well. The longer the belt the more it stretches and thus you get a lot of wiggle. On top of tha...

I have a few other things in the works as well. For one, I have been playing with R&P drive reducers. The latest ones I have are working very well, but I need to make some design changes. I am using a 14.5 pressure angle rack and while it works, its not as smooth as a 20 degree pressure angel ra...

I started using SheetCam with my KRMx02 plasma experiments but find it works very well with the the KRMx02 CNC router.

My tutorial can be found here:
http://www.kronosrobotics.com/sheetcam-introduction

I just posted a piece about my DIY rack clamps. While I am using them on my plasma CNC prototype, I have tested them on my KRMx02 and they work great.

You can see them here:
http://www.kronosrobotics.com/rack-clamps/

The Shark is a hobby machine, much like my early KRMx01. The KRMx02 was designed from the start to be a production machine.

I did another video. On this one I did a fillet weld. Worked very nice.

While doing research for a "Building a Plasma Cutter CNC" workbook, I started experimenting with using one of my CNC machines to do some fusion welding. The biggest challenges was the shielding. The HF start on the TIG welder causes some major EMF spikes in any cable that is near the TIG t...

I limit the height and width so they dont mess up the display. Sometimes they get posted without thumbnails and a large photo will really mess up the flow of the forum.

Here is how I look at it. If you are on the web, your data is being collected. If not by google then by someone else. As for google+. They can collect only what you give them. If you want privacy, stay off the net.

Its only going to get worse.

The forum is set for 512K, so there is not much I can do. There are also limits on width and heights

Something very important about a mill, is its ability to drill. Unless you are using a very small drill bit, CNC routers don't have the low end torque and spin way too fast. I wont even get into the downward forces (for drilling) you have with a mill. Most routers can not take that kind of force.

Dwell issue when using a smoothstepper. This issue is that the smoothstepper always uses seconds requardless of the dwell settings in Mach3. This issue is not going to be fixed as both the Smoothstepper folks and Mach3 folks are pointing the finger at each other. Indeed if the problem is with Mach3 ...

Just added a post on cutting holiday shapes.

You can see it here:
http://www.kronosrobotics.com/making-holiday-shapes/

Here is a video of the KRMx02 cutting the parts:

Feel free to post the projects links on other forums. They really do help with sales as it brings more traffic to the site.

Just added a cool child's step stool project.

See it here:
http://www.kronosrobotics.com/foot-stool/

Be sure to check out this CNC archive project.

You can find the write-up here:
http://www.kronosrobotics.com/pour-over-coffee-maker/

You manage your drafts under your user profile.

It is the outside of the angle. The stand is not critical. There is a lot of room for change since the CNC just sits on top and there are a number of ways of securing the cross beams on the KRMx02 to the stand. Another option is to just increase the size of the panel mounting holes to fit. Washers w...

I recently built a new CNC PC and everything seemed to work fine except any thing connected to ports 12 and 13 on the parallel cable did not work. In this case it was my Estop and Probe. After swapping the cable and testing another PC I decided to take a look into the bios. Sure enough the port was ...

Awesome

!

Here is the rub. You need true parallel ports to control a CNC directly. You can not use a USB port because of the latency. The SmoothStepper is actually a complete hardware based controller with a parallel port. Mach3 has a driver that allows it to send bulk USB commands to the SmoothStepper. The S...

Well folks, things are just getting too crowded in my current shop and lab area. I wanted to start a couple new projects (workbooks) and just don't have the space. It's time to expand. I started a blog on the progress that can be found on my obsessiveme.com web site. You are welcome to follow along ...

I have added two ways to embed a YouTube video into your posts. The first: Place the YouTube video identifier on you post and surround with the "vid" tokens as shown here: [vid]Ly9VpUopoNQ[/vid] The second: place the complete YouTube URL in your post and surround with the "youtube&quo...

See the Surface pro 2 in action.

That's a little pricey, but most micromark stuff is. I have a couple of their tools.

If you have the need to make small plastic parts, you might want to consider polymer clay.

Check out this project:
http://www.kronosrobotics.com/polymer

In January I purchased a Surface Pro 2 to use with my various CNC and 3D printers. I have been able to get the unit to do these tasks but it does have issues. For those of you considering this you might want to check out my journey. The blog is over on my personal website here: http://www.obsessivem...

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