Iām a beginner to CNC and shop-work in general, although Iāve been around heavy machinery for the last 20 years working from the software side. I had a couple dumb questions on the wasteboard before buying an altmill.
I was trying to figure out the best way to make a t-track wasteboard for an AltMill 4x2. My current plan is to buy the 34ā kit and chop them to size using a band saw. Is there a ready-made solution for this?
In addition, whatās the best method of squaring the t-tracks? Thereās probably a good way of bootstrapping the machine to make it so the work for me.
If you run your t tracks along the x axis you can just buy 4 ft tracks and use them like that. If you want to run the tracks along the Y axis I would buy 2 ft tracks.
There are two ways that I would square tracks - you can cut your wasteboard slats and use them as spacers for the tracks or you can use the mill to pre-drill the track mounting holes in the base board of the mill. I donāt think tracks need to be installed āpreciselyā. If they are visually square then that is good enough.
We will be making our own āTube Fuixtureā To allow us to accuratly modify variously sized Aluminum extrusion. This is a common practice in FIRST Robotics. To do this well, we need to know the exact dimentioosn of the T-Tracks. We need that info to create the hole mounting pattern for the fixtur itās self. So, how wide are the tracks?
I have the Altmill 4x4 and will be installing the t-track parallel to the Y axis. I plan to install a total of 14 t-tracks, thus the slabs will be between 3-4 inches wide.
This will be determined by installing a 15 degree V bit and making a very light vertical cut from Xzero, Yzero to Xzero, Ymax. Iāll follow up with pictures as I move forward.
Note in the following image how close the bolt of the EDGEHUGGER is to the board being clamped down. This is why I wanted the right inside edge of the t-track to be on the left-most cutting edge of my spindle.
Iām now in the planning stage. After the first left-most t-track is installed, I will measure the distance between the inside of the left Altmill support to the left inside edge of the first t-track, as in the following image.
