Messages

8151

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: Gertrude Gets Some!

« on: July 11, 2009, 04:06:03 AM »

Just a suggestion, but it may be worth scanning the image of the coin whilst you have it in your hands. May make a future project one day.

Tweakie.

8152

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: My first attempts at laser engraving.

« on: July 11, 2009, 04:02:03 AM »

Hi Chris,

The output from this is in the infrared part of the spectrum so the beam is hardly, if at all, visible. Setting the focus would have to be trial and error. No idea if it would work well or not.

Tweakie.

8153

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: Milla's coming along nicely

« on: July 08, 2009, 09:03:29 AM »

Certainly does look good Barry.

I wonder, does your wife know how much you are spending on this ?.   

Tweakie.

8154

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: My first attempts at laser engraving.

« on: July 07, 2009, 09:42:49 AM »

Look forward to seeing the results Chris.

Tweakie.

8155

Tangent Corner / Re: CNC fire hazzard.

« on: July 07, 2009, 01:38:41 AM »

Hi Daniel,

It wasn't my machine, fortunately.
It appears that it was a mechanical fault when the leadscrew nut broke free from it's mounting and allowed the Z axis to drop.

Tweakie.

8156

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: My first attempts at laser engraving.

« on: July 07, 2009, 01:33:08 AM »

Brilliant.

Tweakie.

8157

Tangent Corner / CNC fire hazzard.

« on: July 06, 2009, 09:15:21 AM »

Just look and see what happened when this Z axis failed and plunged the plastic bodied spindle into the work and stalled the spindle.
Perhaps the lesson is to make sure the correctly rated fuse or circuit trip is always used for the spindle when machines are left operating unattended.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29506322@N08/sets/72157620853267251/

Tweakie.

8158

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: My first attempts at laser engraving.

« on: July 06, 2009, 02:34:30 AM »

Hi Bill,

Initially I did edit out the Z moves but have now found that there is advantage to leaving the code 'as is'. I now disable the Z axis movement and make use of the Z code, by altering the Z Axis DRO scale factor to set the required dwell time.

Guy is, of course, quite right - If you want to do serious work then you need a serious laser and as we already know, nothing in the world of CNC comes cheap.

Tweakie.

8159

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: My first attempts at laser engraving.

« on: July 05, 2009, 10:46:12 AM »

Hi Bill,

As far as I can remember the feedrate was set at 30 mm/minute so total time would have been around 15 minutes per gasket. OK it is very slow but then I have all the time that God has decided to allow me.

Tweakie.

8160

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / Re: My first attempts at laser engraving.

« on: July 05, 2009, 08:38:41 AM »

Hi everybody,

More for information only, as I have already posted the picture on another thread, but these little gaskets were cut with a 150 mW diode laser.
The crankcase was scanned (on my printer/scanner) and the image converted to vector and then to GCode. The gaskets produced are a perfect fit and probably a good example of what can be achieved.

Tweakie.