I have posted a tentative parts list for the new machine. It will be necessary to see detailed pictures to understand what some of the vague references are. I hope to take and post these pictures soon. There are a number of custom turned parts that are listed. Pictures will make it clear what these are. The reason for the parts list is to give an idea of how much is needed and where to get the more important parts that I have determined are the best for this machine. Do not buy any parts from the sources listed until you understand exactly what it will take to build this machine and until I double and triple check to make sure the exact parts are specified. There are definitely a few outdated prices and other errors in the file. Just posted to give an idea of the scale and cost of the project.
Please note that this build project will initially be an advanced project until I can make the difficult parts available to builders who do not have access to machine tools. I have finally determined that to make the best possible machine there is no way to do so without some relatively precisely machined components. The previous design made largely of wood works very well but can not approach the smoothness and durability of the new design.
Greetings! I just found your site, and you’ve been building exactly the kind of machine I’d like to move up to. I currently have the ‘ThunderBalls Pro’ from KTM, and it’s not a bad machine, but very over priced for what it is. I’ve made a few improvements, but at the end of the day, it’s still just a run of the mill ‘in-n-out, in-n-out’ setup.
I’ve been doing a lot of searching and such on the ShockSpot, but that actuator they use is stupid expensive. I’ve been playing with Arduino’s and Raspberry Pi’s for the past few months in conjunction with my new hobby of 3D printing, so the controller aspect is starting to clear up.
You have a new fan for sure…. 😉
On a side note, one of my best friends owns a CNC machine shop here in Phoenix, and is always looking for new work. If you have any interest in doing small production runs of your custom parts, I’d be happy to assist in whatever way I can.
Cheers!
R
My machine is quite different from others. It took me a few years to get all the aspects working well together. It is Arduino controlled. Do not want to part with the code at this point since this (and the mechanical design) was not arrived at in the first attempts. Really was a lot of work to get it where is is now. There are a few parts that are beyond the ability of the average builder so it could be helpful to have someone who could make these parts at a reasonable cost. The rest is basic drilling cutting and maybe a little welding to make it really pretty.
Hi Shag, it looks like most of the parts would be within the realm of a decent, determined DIY’r… are you considering having the parts that need to be precise done by a CNC shop? It’d be very cool to see this get off the ground. It’s capabilities rival the ShockSpots at what would be a fraction of the cost, and quieter to boot. I found the exact actuator that ShockSpot uses and the couple of used ones I’ve come across are in the $450 range!
I can’t tell you how stoked I am to have found your site! Very clever design and very versatile. Once it cools off here in Phoenix, I’m going to be building a King size ‘Dungeon’ bed, and I’d already planned on making a mount for a machine on the foot board. 😉
Cheers!
The parts that need to be precision (relatively) made could be made by cnc but also with a turret lathe. I have a turret attachment for my lathe and could set it up but that requires a certain minimum number of parts be made to justify the setup time. I have a friend who has a more serious turret lathe and who is more experienced using it. She also has the help of her father who is an excellent machinist. I will see her in a week or so and will ask her to give me a quote on the necessary parts. She needs the work and might be interested. I think that the setup for a multi axis machining center is actually easier in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing but most shops tend to charge for this sort of work as if it was rocket surgery. Part of that might be that the machines are very expensive to purchase. Maybe someone following this blog will know of a shop that charges reasonable rates and can get a quote on the parts needed. They are the drive wheel, idler rollers, quick connect adapters, limit switch magnet holders (internal simple bushings not visible in the pictures) and maybe some little thing i am not remembering right now. It is nice to knurl the main shaft but it is not critical. Just might slip a little which could be a safety factor. I will make a shaft without knurling to compare and see how necessary it is. The drive wheel uses a urethane tire of a particular softness (shore A 50, i think but have to look at recent orders to be sure) Without the knurling it might be better to use something a little softer?
I have a machine that looks like the KTM that Ron has. It is called Blue-Balls over here (UK).
Maybe a conversion kit, that uses the frame but upgrades the “action” part?
The double ended ram might not be possible, or even desirable.
The most difficult operation would be the knurling.
Tony
the ThunderBalls Pro’ from KTM looks like a well made but very basic unit. interesting that the positioning adjustment is similar to what i used for my recent designs. i use a more serious clamping lever than the little knobs.
it should be possible to convert any rotary machine to use a stepper however many of the advantages of my design would not be realized and some aspects might nor work too well at all. i put a lot of effort into limiting the mass of accelerated components. machines that use a heavy flywheel could not be reversed quickly enough to achieve high speeds. also the stroke of most flywheel machines other than really massive ones is quite limited. converting a rotary machine to my system would require installing limit switches and replacing the original motor with a stepper. if there is a lot of inertia to the flywheel, the position of the limit switches might need to be played with a lot and it might also be necessary to modify the code that reads the limits to deal better with overshoot. it was quite a challenge to get the limit switches to work with my current design and it has very fast reversal. this is because the machine can be controlled with three inputs simultaneously. these would be the automatic reversing, the offset and the joystick all sending position data to the motor driving routine at the same time. it took me a while to figure out how to deal with overshoot with all these factors. so it might be a similar challenge to get a flywheel to work well. i do have acceleration ramping in the motor control code but for my machine the acceleration factors are very high. with a flywheel it would probably be necessary to ramp much more slowly to not damage the motor and this would reduce the maximum stroke rate. it took quite a while to balance all these factors to get what i consider adequate maximum speed in automatic mode. i forget if i am currently changing ramping parameters for different strokes but that is possible. when stroke is short and speed is high, my machine becomes a vibrator. don’t know if this would work well with a flywheel machine that would require much slower acceleration.
mentioning some of the above to let readers know that in spite of the simple appearance of my machine, the code that drives it is not simple and did take years to finally get to the point it is now at. once there are some machines being used by others. i might consider sharing the code since there would certainly be programmers who could improve it and maybe help with new features such as the audio control that i am eventually going to write. this will probably have to be a winter project as i have too much going on right now.