Thursday night is CNC mill investigation night!

[Andrew Crawford]

At the members meeting we talked about perhaps having regular evenings to work on specific projects together. Thursday evening was mooted as a possibility for those of us interested in figuring out the CNC mill.

Anyone up for it? I personally intend to go out there this evening at around 8pm. Would welcome anyone else who is interested.

Cheers,

Andrew

[Chris McDonald]

Hello All,

What did you guys get for a CNC Mill?

I've gained quite a bit of experience with milling machines and CNC routers over the past few years. I've got two milling machines at home now and a large CNC router here at work. 

The makerspace is far out of my way so I won't be able to make it out. But I may be able to answer some questions via email or over something like telegram.

Thanks, 

Chris McDonald

 

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[Tom Servaes]

Marcel and Shawn are experimenting right now if you are available.

Tom

[Chris McDonald]

I'm at work at the moment and can answer emails.

I'd like to see some pictures of the machine. 

[Shawn Wilson]

Hi Andrew,

Marcel and I are working on it now.  I think it's a great idea to have a CNC night, but I think it would make sense to not work on it until we get you up to speed on what we have been told from the original owner and have learned with Marcel.  I could drop by early tonight with my kids in tow, but Sunday would be more convenient.  Does Sunday work for you?  Or next Thursday would also work well for me.

Shawn

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[Shawn Wilson]

Hi Chris,

I tried to send pics, but Groups 8Mb limit killed them.  I'll send them properly tonight.

Shawn

On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 11:40 AM Chris McDonald <lord...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm at work at the moment and can answer emails.

I'd like to see some pictures of the machine. 

On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 11:38 AM, Tom Servaes <tom.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

Marcel and Shawn are experimenting right now if you are available.

Tom

On Nov 23, 2017 11:36 AM, "Chris McDonald" <lord...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello All,

What did you guys get for a CNC Mill?

I've gained quite a bit of experience with milling machines and CNC routers over the past few years. I've got two milling machines at home now and a large CNC router here at work. 

The makerspace is far out of my way so I won't be able to make it out. But I may be able to answer some questions via email or over something like telegram.

Thanks, 

Chris McDonald

 

On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 10:25 AM, Andrew Crawford <acra...@laetabilis.com> wrote:

At the members meeting we talked about perhaps having regular evenings to work on specific projects together. Thursday evening was mooted as a possibility for those of us interested in figuring out the CNC mill.

Anyone up for it? I personally intend to go out there this evening at around 8pm. Would welcome anyone else who is interested.

Cheers,

Andrew

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[Andrew Crawford]

Marcel and I are working on it now.  I think it's a great idea to have a CNC night, but I think it would make sense to not work on it until we get you up to speed on what we have been told from the original owner and have learned with Marcel.  I could drop by early tonight with my kids in tow, but Sunday would be more convenient.  Does Sunday work for you?  Or next Thursday would also work well for me.

Again, all I'm saying is that I will be there at 8pm this evening, and if anyone else is interested in this topic, they're invited to come too. I personally don't plan to actually run the machine this evening (though I probably will take a look at the software with the mill powered off).

If you can be there next Thursday, that would be great, because maybe I can see the thing actually running :)

Cheers,

Andrew

[Shawn Wilson]

Cool.  I will try to write up some info from the original donor and what Marcel and I  learned today and post it to this thread.

[Andrew Crawford]

Cool.  I will try to write up some info from the original donor and what Marcel and I  learned today and post it to this thread.

Thanks, I think that will be interesting for everyone. 

 

[Shawn Wilson]

It's a lot disorganized (brain dump), but here's what I know so far about the CNC.  I could show Andrew or anyone else what I know that's too complicated to write up on Sunday or next Thursday.

It was donated on long term loan by someone moving away, Troy.  He may want it back if he ever moves back, but he's cool with it getting banged up a bit.  He gave me a brief verbal overview, though the machine was mothballed at the time.  I built a mobile cart for it when we got it.  It will cut wood and do some metal engraving.  Troy used it mostly to make necklaces from thin ply, I think.  It's from China with no documentation.  Troy mostly used Dremel degrouting bits, but I picked up some acute V bits, with the intent of engraving PCBs.  There are a couple leads acute V bits in the misc parts case that's on the cart.  There is a fourth axis with it (rotary) with a headstock and tailstock. Troy never used it, but it might be cool to figure that out.  The software is Mach 3 for running gcode.  CamBam is the Cam software, currently installed on a laptop in the yellow room (not the one hooked to the monitor).  I guess the idea would be to make an object to in CAD software, use CamBam to make the gcode from it, and then Mach 3 to run it, though both Mach 3 and CamBam have rudimentary Cad.  There is a usb dongle to pair the wireless remote to the computer, mostly used for jogging the spindle around.  The Step and Mode buttons allow you to jog using the wireless remote, jogging 1, 10, 100 or 1000 steps per increment on the jog wheel.  CamBam needs to have the Mach 3 post processor set to the default before exporting gcode.  Windows 7 32 bit is running on the computer.  It has to be 32 bit for some reason.  Password is password.  It could theoretically be converted to have limit switches and changed from parallel to usb, but either of these are probably major enough that they should be talked about at a member meeting before commencing.

CAVEATS:

There's an emergency stop button on the unit.  Anything goes wrong, pound it. Rotate clockwise to reactivate.
There are no limit switches on it.  This means you can't leave it under any circumstance while it's running as it will grind itself mercilessly.
The cooling fluid pump needs to be plugged in manually.
The steppers get super hot, so it's best to turn the thing off between cuts.
The spindle can go quite fast, and CNC bits break often, so it makes sense to wear safety glasses.

STUFF THAT NEEDS DONE:
There are 2 monitors on the cart.  It's hooked to the one tucked on the bottom shelf.  The second one is a touchscreen on an arm.  The touchscreen should come off the arm and go back on its base (which is in the storage room).  Then the monitor should go on the arm.  Unless people think a touchscreen would be useful. 

The computer needs to be networked.  We'll have to get a wireless dongle for it.

The cooling fluid tank should be secured a bit better.  It's tall and thin and just sitting on the shelf.

The power cords/bars on the cart should be better organized, maybe with a couple cleats to wrap a cord around easily.

If there's room on the cart for it, it'd be nice to store some 1x1' sheets on the cart.  They're urgently in the front room.

On Thu, Nov 23, 2017, 13:45 Andrew Crawford, <acra...@laetabilis.com> wrote:

Cool.  I will try to write up some info from the original donor and what Marcel and I  learned today and post it to this thread.

Thanks, I think that will be interesting for everyone. 

 

--

[Shawn Wilson]

There's an 8Mb limit on images here, so I put them on FB.  https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1374116836048588&id=241396192653997

[Andrew Crawford]

Due to family being family I’m aiming to be there at 9 rather than 8....

[Tom Servaes]

Ha! Maybe if you get a family membership, they can come with you? ;-)

On Nov 23, 2017 19:12, "Andrew Crawford" <acra...@laetabilis.com> wrote:

Due to family being family I’m aiming to be there at 9 rather than 8....

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[Andrew Crawford]

Ha! Maybe if you get a family membership, they can come with you? ;-)

Bring it on! I have a teenaged daughter who is very keen on wood working  (and has lots of wood shop experience from school). If family membership becomes a thing, we'll do that. Otherwise I'll probably be buying an associate membership for her. 

[Shawn Wilson]

Hi Chris,

I am trying to test out a simple dogtag - etching the letters, pocketing a hole and profiling a bone shape.  I would like to do it from an SVG (inkscape) if possible, as that's the go-to for the laser.  It seems this is maybe not so easy as I'd hoped.   I tried MakerCAM, and got gcode from it, but it's showing the same gremlins as when I used CAMBam before I realized I had to set the post-processor to Mach3, but I don't see an option to set a post processor on MakerCAM. Basically, it wants to do hundreds of huge sweeping arcs, 4 times bigger than the dogtag itself.

I guess my question is: what software chain would you use for something like this?  And 2) if your chain includes expensive software, do you know of a freeware chain that would accomplish it?

Thanks,

Shawn

On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 11:40 AM Chris McDonald <lord...@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm at work at the moment and can answer emails.

I'd like to see some pictures of the machine. 

On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 11:38 AM, Tom Servaes <tom.s...@gmail.com> wrote:

Marcel and Shawn are experimenting right now if you are available.

Tom

On Nov 23, 2017 11:36 AM, "Chris McDonald" <lord...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello All,

What did you guys get for a CNC Mill?

I've gained quite a bit of experience with milling machines and CNC routers over the past few years. I've got two milling machines at home now and a large CNC router here at work. 

The makerspace is far out of my way so I won't be able to make it out. But I may be able to answer some questions via email or over something like telegram.

Thanks, 

Chris McDonald

 

On Thu, Nov 23, 2017 at 10:25 AM, Andrew Crawford <acra...@laetabilis.com> wrote:

At the members meeting we talked about perhaps having regular evenings to work on specific projects together. Thursday evening was mooted as a possibility for those of us interested in figuring out the CNC mill.

Anyone up for it? I personally intend to go out there this evening at around 8pm. Would welcome anyone else who is interested.

Cheers,

Andrew

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[Chris McDonald]

Hey Shawn,

Fusion 360 is free for hobby use. It's got a bit of a learning curve but its quite powerful. That is what I'm using here at the centre with our large CNC router. There are lots of tutorial videos on youtube. 

Its CAD and CAM all in one application. There are lots of post available for it, including for mach 3.

Chris

Shawn

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[Shawn Wilson]

Cool, thanks.  I keep hearing about it in all my YouTube channels, but haven't jumped in yet.  I guess it's time. :)

Shawn

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[Tom Servaes]

You should put links to your YouTube channels on the wiki, Shawn. I'm always looking for good ideas, but YouTube is bad at recommending things I want.

Tom

Shawn

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