DIY CNC 2

I think I have a pretty good idea of what I need, but I might switch the LRS to a 48V 10A supply just so that I have room to grow in the future if I want to.

Yes, this is a fact, and the drives you chose should be fine on 48V. 

The drives have a 50V max but if you don't think it'll cause an issue I'll go for it and see.

I would expect that adjustable PSU to work just fine for this application. Like I said, I would not bother adding a capacitor. But if you do, don't use the 35V capacitors I suggested earlier, for use on a 48V PSU.

The supply seems to have protections in place already for this so I'm probably not going to bother but thanks for the heads up

Not sponsered at all, just Meanwell make well priced power supplies that are available globally.

I will add one caution about putting a big capacitor on the output of a switching power supply - this may cause the supply to become unstable (depends on the supply) and may cause an overcurrent trip at startup (depending on the supply).  Most power supplies themselves have to solve this problem in their input stages, using current limiting devices.
 

@NWE: Re box size... that's what I was poorly trying to say- "get a bigger box than you think you need"

@Logthor: Re cheap tooling... there are few things you don't want to be too cheap with. IMO power supplies, tooling, and motor drivers are 3 of them. ALL of them can drive you crazy and/or totally ruin things.


Power supplies: The PSU is one part of your machine that can easily take out all the rest of your electronics if it fails wrong. Plus super cheap supplies can be fire hazards, and power issues can be a nightmare to debug. Meanwell is a good suggestion.

Motor drives: Listen to @tommylight, he has way more experience than I do. My experience (15-20 years ago) was that the cheap drives I bought wouldn't work well no matter what I did- the steppers whined, missed steps, jerky motion, and eventually a crater literally exploded out of one of the ICs. Spent way too long trying to chase jitter, signal issues, etc., and it was just crappy parts.

Tools/tooling/collets: I'll post a reply in your other thread, since you asked about it there.



Other things:

• I linked to Geckodrive because of their explanation of motor torque/speed/voltage/current. It's informative regardless of what drives you use.
  
• You mention in your other thread wanting to do complex parts. To me that implies multiple tools per part. You can definitely get by without a toolsetter, but I would at least not cut off the option to add one without too much pain. It doesn't take many broken tools and/or scrapped parts to pay for one.
  
• MPG == manual pulse generator. It's a hand-held thing that lets you jog your axes about (and other functions, depending on how fancy) without needing to be at the keyboard.
  
• I forgot to mention ferrules! Way better than putting bare wires into screw terminals, if that's a thing you're doing. I got a cheap ferrule + crimper set off eBay for my machine, and it was a very nice QoL upgrade. Not essential, but nice.

Is there a cheap way of acquiring tools for the mill (e.g., cylindrical edge finders, collets, drill bits, end mills, etc)?

Oops, it was in this thread...

I highly recommend NOT buying the cheapest of the cheap cheap no-name stuff. Cheap collets are prone to having high runout. The Sherline is a small machine, so you're probably using small tools. If you have 0.002" runout in your collet and are using a 1/8 2-flute end mill that's expecting a 0.001" chip load... you may well have one flute taking NO cut, and the other taking 0.003"- 3 times as much as you expect. Really easy to break tools "for no reason" like that. Even if you don't, tool life, surface finish, and dimensional accuracy will all suffer.

I don't know what collet types you need. For ER collets, I've found Techniks to work well for me. IIRC they're... $15ish each. I got mine on eBay. You probably only need a couple? 1/8, maybe 3/16 and 1/4"? You're not working with much power, so the larger tools aren't going to buy you too much (non-zero, though- larger tools for facing and/or more rigidity for deeper pockets is useful even if you can't put more power into them)For end mills, I don't use HSS, so can't speak to that. For carbide, any of the following places will get you good tools at reasonable prices:
onlinecarbide.com/
www.maritool.com/
www.carbidetoolsource.com/
routerburr.com/

Double-ended end mills can save you a bit on cost. For drills, I really like the PCB drills. At that last link, you can get them for cheap. The nice thing about them (in addition to being cheap) is they have a common 1/8" shank size, so you can use the same collet you use for end mills to hold them instead of a drill chuck (one less thing to buy, no drill chuck eating a mile of Z height).


For workholding, I've found the screwless "grinding vises" to be excellent. I've heard that even the cheapest of the cheap of these are actually pretty OK, but can't vouch for that. I got mine here: littlemachineshop.com/collections/screwless-vises Just make sure you get clamps that can hold it down.

I haven't tried these, but supposedly the Xin Dian self-centering vises are shockingly good for their price: xindianprecise.com/collections/manual-self-centering-vise If you're flipping parts over, you can avoid having to re-center in one axis at least... two if you also use a work stop.


Other assorted tools: IMO buy as you go and buy nice used stuff. eBay can be good for this, but also if there are industrial surplus auctions near you a lot of times you can get the common stuff dirt cheap, since a lot of that customer base already has the basics you're looking for. Searching "<name of big company around me> surplus" may turn up auctions that a lot of large companies regularly have to get rid of stuff.

I really appreciate you info dumping here; so much good stuff to know.