It’s been a while, amongst others due to a well earned holiday, but unfortunately also due to the unexpected passing away of a family member.

In the meantime I finished my new bed/spoilboard.

The three panels it consists of:

From left to right:
• Bottom: 6,5mm black waterproof plywood. This is a buffer for the bolts I use to mount/clamp my material onto the machine. Due to this extra panel the length of the bolts I use is less critical. Next to that the heads of the nylon bolts that hold down the actual spoilboard stick out into this panel.
• Center panel: 9mm black waterproof plywood. This holds the press in nuts for the material mounting bolts. The countersunk m8 hex bolts that hold down the entire bed/spoilboard are also mounted through this panel.
• Spoilboard: 18mm waterproof MDF. The larger holes are for accessing/being able to tighten the m8 hex bolts that hold the entire bed/spoilboard down.

In 3 panels I drilled 4 1/8″ holes for aligningen them together and onto the machine.

Mounting method:

25 countersunk m8 hex bolts with slot nuts run through the 2 bottom panels. These are for mounting the whole to the machine:

Next the spoilboard is mounted on top of them with nylon m6 bolts from below:

I simply cut away the part of the nylon bolts that was sticking out.

And mounted onto the machine and surfaced:

With the help of the 1/8″ holes I can easily align the entire bed. All I had tp do is jog the machine to the correct spot with a broken 1/8″ bit upside down in the spindle and lower it into the hole.

Spindle lighting:

Since I could now use the machine again I started on a new project: A mounting ring for my spindle lighting (70mm led angel eye from ebay) with neodynium magnets for mounting it to the spindle.

The endresult isn’t 100% perfect, extruded plexiglas just isn’t easy to work with, but I’m happy with the result.

It’s a good thing that I decided to use 6 magnets. The cap of the spindel turned out to be aluminium instead of stainless steel like the housing. Fortunately it’s mounted with 3 steel bolts so 3 of the 6 magnets align perfectly with these bolts and are strong enough to hold it in place enventhough they are only 5mm in diameter and 4mm thick.

Next step: mounting it. I quickly hooked it up to a power supply to see how much light it gives: