check out this thread to see the pictures of what I need. http://www.fordtruckfanatics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13676

I can buy motor mounts from the parts house but the perches need to be sourced else where. (the reason for this posting). Comment on this post to give me leads.

Update:

Auto Salvage Yards are a good source if you are willing to do a little work.

Make sure you understand your salvage yards rules before you go. The problem is that the perches, specifically the perch on the driver’s side is attached with rivets and will require power tools to liberate. I chose a battery powered saws all and took two fully charged batteries. The salvage yard banned torches and industrial equipment that can cause sparks i.e stone wheel grinders…

I cut the rivet heads off with a metal cutting blade chucked in the saws all. I chose 24 tpi (teeth per inch)blades but any good metal blade should cut decently.

After I had the rivet heads off I took a chisel and a  ten pound sledge to separate the perch from the cross member. The perch is heavy duty so pound as hard as you can. Start your chisel closest to the frame and once you get a gap started place a large screw driver there and move your chisel down.

Since only one perch is riveted, be sure to have help taking the other off to speed up the ordeal. Also look for trucks with the motor removed already but do not hesitate on removing the mounts because the next time you return the truck could be off to the crusher…

Alternatively, you can cut an X in to the head of the rivet and air chisel the rivet out. If you have a right angle drill attachment, it may be possible to drill them out. Determine what resources you have to remove the rivets and what is allowed at the salvage yard. Maybe the salvage yard can help you with equipment to remove the perch.

Last resort (or for those that do not want to get your hands dirty)…..

The cnc router build in these posts will be made from parts salvaged from junk. Another way to build is to buy structural parts like 8020 aluminum or steel pipe (gas pipe). There is also square tubing, angled aluminum and other raw stock that can be used to build a sturdy frame to mount parts to.

The main idea with a frame is to have a solid foundation for the motion system (x,y,z axis). Flex and backlash are your enemy and will cause inaccurate milling. To maximize structural support, you will need to obtain materials for the frame that will not flex based on the load applied to it and or reinforce the frame at weak points. A steel rod of x length will flex in the middle if not supported properly or too much load is applied to it. For example, while designing your z axis, the router (a dremel like rotary tool in my case) and supports should not exceed or even come close to the load bearing capacity of the linear rails and bearings used. A 1/8″ steel precision rod that has a length of 12″ will deflect under a small load hanging from the middle. Now that same rod, with supports every inch along its length, will deflect less increasing precision and accuracy.

In short you can use linear motion components that are designed to meet the cnc routers’ load requirements. Rigidness is key.

A good lesson in practice to demonstrate the tolerances that one should be watching is to take a rotary tool such as a dremel or rotozip. Now place it in a vise or something to keep the tool from moving. A dial indicator can then be mounted in such a way to touch the probe to the tip of a drill bit or other tool mounted in the collet of the rotary tool. Zero your indicator and push the bit towards and away from the indicator. Even the best spindle used on cnc machines have play or movement in the tool. The difference is that greater precision spindles are designed with less play (sometimes called run out or backlash).

With that said, do you think that using zip ties to mount your dremel to the z axis is very robust or precise and will give you the tolerances you need to mill with?

Ok, now that we have a grasp on tolerances we can apply this to making a better cnc mill when looking for parts to salvage. Stepper motors are a must unless you want to design your system around shaft encoders or rail encoders. Stepper motors are designed to rotate to a specific angle depending on the current and voltage applied to the individual coils. This rotary motion is measured in steps and different motors have various specs. For each complete rotation of the stepper the motor takes so many steps, such as 200 steps per revolution. 200 steps comes out to be 1.8 degrees per step. These specs are another vital tolerance in the design process. More steps per revolution of a particular stepper can give higher resolution during milling.

Lead screws and Ball nuts are a popular choice for linear motion systems as they give good precision at a decent price point. Finding these components and reusing them can be tough. Wear of the used parts can cause adjustment problems so buying new with these components is probably the best idea.

Tips:

The thicker the material the more rigid it probably is.

triangles are more sturdy then squares when a load is placed perpendicular to the shape within the 2d plane.

used parts that provide motion such as ball bearings could have wear undesirable to the cnc’s operation. although some used ball bearings will have wear that is still well within operating tolerances for your specifications. (if a used bearing is tested for tolerance @.002″ run-out and you find .00002″ then it is better then your spec and can be reused in the design).

measure, remeasure and measure again while keeping records of these somewhere. Having a good micrometer/caliper/dial indicator will give you the precision measurement you need to test with.

Here is a link to a pdf on design decisions. It is recommended that you read this to get some better ideas before moving on.

Step one: cut the bottle around the top at the neck before it reduces smaller in diameter. See pic.
Step two: flip the mouth section and push this end first into the other part of the bottle and be sure it makes a tight fit.
Step three: fill with small parts. Enjoy.

Everywhere you look on the internet there seems to be this DIY revolution happening. People are starting to take projects into their own hands instead of outsourcing the many steps involved. This is great for many reasons. If you are planning on accomplishing a project in the spirit of DIY then please publish the information with documentation so that others can learn from your experience.

*****************DISCLAIMER*******************

Please use common sense when attempting to salvage parts from discarded sources. Gloves, eye protection and good tools will help but experience is a must when attempting what this article post suggest.  If you get hurt, you are dumb and probably did not heed this advice. I am not responsible for anything you do after you read this post.

Oh and this is another form of recycling so Go Green Save the Planet reduce reuse recycle…

It really does not matter what your project involves just as long as you feel that the information could benefit someone else in some way or another.

For example, this post will start a series of posts and possibly an instructable that will guide someone wanting to build a low cost cnc router mostly from scratch with the help of surplus materials.

Take a look at the last post. Go on, I will wait here…

That picture in the post shows an old (circa 1987) IBM dot band printer. (I have the band still in good condition for anyone wanting to pay me for it, as they are very expensive and even harder to find.)These older printers have many parts that can be used for cnc. The stepper motors in many older printers are of high torque which is great for a desktop cnc. The one stepper motor in the IBM printer I have, was used as the paper feed (it may be useful to salvage parts from multiple printers of the same make or model to be able to have similar hardware) There also may be some usable cables, bearings, limit switches, metal rods and many other parts you should hang on to for your projects.

Since these style printers use a stepper motor, the electronics more then likely drive the motor as well (allowing the computer to issue commands and the electronic control board drives the motor). This board may or may not be able to be used to make a reliable controller for a cnc router but more on that later.

After completely gutting the old IBM printer, I was left with a huge TDK regulated power supply (the big brass colored box on the top left in the pic of the last post), an electronics card cage with many chips and discrete components, and the mechanics of the printer (i.e. the frame and motors).

The frame was stripped down which included a large piece of aluminum (~25lbs going to the recycle center), a steel and aluminum structure and many other mechanical sub-components. The steel and aluminum structure will be re-purposed as the gantry for this CNC router.

As it stands this is where I am at on the build, sourcing parts. At the moment, I have a rough frame from the printer and some bearings, rods, a power supply and motors. Having all the components to work with before moving on to assembly will help greatly with prototyping your idea. This can save you from a costly irreversible modification by allowing you to trial fit and mock up your prototyping with the other parts you chose.

Having previous shop experience will help and I do not plan on going that in depth with instructions as this is a generic build log that should be used as an inspirational How-to. Also, one should have a general understanding of a CNC machine which has been well covered in many books and information else where on the inter-webs. Things such as X,Y,Z axis, lead screws, stepper motors/controllers and cnc computer software  are all example topics that will not be covered here in this series.

This low quality pic is of the frame I will be using for the gantry.

Gantry frame from IBM dot band printer

Using it for parts… cool huh?

Motorola Mobility released the Atrix 4g in late February on the AT&T network. The design includes a plethora of docks, one of which (the laptop dock) resembles AI inc’s Touch Book and more specifically the Smart Book.

see for yourself:

Smart Book

As you can see from the photo of the Smart Book (left) and the Atrix 4g w/ Laptop Dock (below), The similarities are very striking.

Always Innovating is top notch on tech and they offer open source solutions for much of their portfolio.

The founder of Always Innovating Inc., Gregoire Gentil is a brilliant man with his heart in the right place for technology and making life easier during the digital age.

Full disclosure: The author is a Motorola Mobility developer and has no affiliation with Always Innovating inc. Also, the author owns Motorola handsets including the Atrix 4g.

guess what phone is on the right

This is a solid phone and I recommend it to Android users.

Pics soon and root available at XDA Developers

Anyway, if you want to know more goto qualcomm dev and look at the pdf. They are releasing them soon and you can preorder one.