Topics

11

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / First Piece cut in Aluminum

« on: September 05, 2010, 07:19:53 PM »

Hey folks, I'm doing an installation piece about femme fatale profiles.  This is the first piece I've every cut in aluminum and notice some strange properties of aluminum that I'm hoping you guys can recommend ways around.  First off, here's the piece and also another showing the aluminum place, how I've mounted it, and cutting.


http://www.3dmation.com/images/First_AL/al_setup.jpg

The plate is seperated from the table by about 4 mm, and the plate is 2.3 mm.  When I cut, I'm cutting at .35mm depth at a time, and it's humming along.  As it starts to cut through, the aluminum starts to bend up and have sway.  At near the end of the process the piece bounces around a bit and breaks the bit.  Any idea how to make it so it doesn't do that?

12

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / 4th and 5th axis test

« on: July 20, 2010, 12:34:45 AM »

Hey folks, I'm slowly ramping up my machine's axis.  I built these models to test the 4th and 5th axis, and am sure I'll have to build a jig to get both sides of the shapes.  However, how would you hold the stock in the jigs?  I'm a little lost on that part.



Barry

13

General Mach Discussion / aluminum die making

« on: May 09, 2010, 12:55:35 AM »

Hello, I'm about to cut my first piece of aluminum, and thought I'd ask some questions for you veterans.  The piece I'm going to cut is for a die stamp that will be used to emboss into leather, or heated and to wood burn a logo into metal.

The metal I'm using is 6061 aluminum, and would like to know a few things if you guys know it.  First off, what is the usual depth of this kind of die.  Then what kind of taper is used.  What angle taper, and also if you start from a prestine logo, (lets pretend it's the letter O), is the regular full size of the O, at the outside edge?  Or are we tapering to a thinner O on the outside of the die?  By outside, I mean the part that touches the leather fiirst when it's stamped in.  I hope that makes sense.

Lastly what kind of depth and feed rates do you recommend?  I've got a 2 HP machine, air cooled.  Is there a table for feed rates on metal?  I found them for wood, but haven't found them for metal.  Btw, my mill is running flawlessly so far, I freakng love it!

Barry

14

Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / 4th Axis Round-up...

« on: April 27, 2010, 01:52:45 PM »

Or in my case, 6th axis...

I'm looking at adding a rotary axis to my table and am looking for suggestions.  I thought about building one of these, but my small machine shop and my limited knowledge leads me to the answer of buying it instead.  The two that I've seen so far are:

K2CNC:
http://www.k2cnc.com/shop/products.asp?cat=29

Tormach:
http://www.tormach.com/Product_RotaryProducts.html

One of the main pieces I'd like to do, is mill instruments, both sides without using a jig, using the rotary axis to flip over the stock.  The size of the instruments would be about guitar body size, so I'd need enough room to rotate that kind of stock.  The material would be mainly hardwood, but I think I'd do metal every now and then.

What do you guys think.  Would either of these companies fit the bill?  What would you do, if you were in my boat?

Barry

15

SmoothStepper USB / smooth stepper works differently in different computers?

« on: April 06, 2010, 08:44:43 PM »

Hey folks, I'm trying to set up a smooth stepper on a custom built AMD box, and I'm having a devil of a time.  I originally set it up on a laptop, which I've gotten it to work on that brilliantly.  However, installing Mach on the custom AMD box, the smooth stepper loses connection all the time.  If I do get it to be seen at the startup for Mach, it will almost always lose connection as soon as I try to turn the spindle on.  This doesn't happen when using the laptop.  Any ideas?  The computer is closer to the CNC machine, but would that matter?  Everything else is in the same spot regardless of which computer drives the card.

Barry

16

General Mach Discussion / 2nd parallel port madness

« on: March 13, 2010, 04:59:38 PM »

Hey folks, I'm trying to get a 2nd parallel port installed to work with Mach 3 and the C23 board I have installed.  I was having trouble with the smoothstepper so, I decided to go this route instead.

I'm using the Rosewill card (which is the one that works according to our board), which has a 9835 chipset.  This card has two parallel ports.  I've downloaded the driver, installed fine, and it is being shown in the device manager as LPT2 and LPT3.  The addresses are:

LPT2
C400
C000

LPT3
CC00
C800

Onboard LTP1
0378
0778

I can get the LPT 3 to appear just fine as port 1 within Mach using CC00.  I can't get anything to work for port 2, even the onboard LTP1.  I know that port does work though, as it was with the smooth stepper.  Now that I'm trying to use parallel ports on a desktop machine, instead of the smooth stepper on my laptop, I'm running into this problem.  Any ideas?  I'm at my wits end here.  I built this PC just for this purpose!

Barry

17

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / 'No Moon' Series

« on: February 16, 2010, 12:23:25 PM »

Hey folks, I know you like to see projects prestained, so here goes the 'No Moon' series that I did.  I'll be staining it tonight and mounting for display.  These are the first real art pieces done on my mill.  Everything before it was just a test.  I did it using a 3/8 inch roughing bit, and a 1/8 inche finishing end mill.  The stepover for finishing was .25 mm.  I had the feed rate set to 600, but I could probably do more.  My plunge was set to 90, so the pieces with a lot of up and down took longer.  Each piece is 6 inches square.  I think I've proven that my mill works, at least in 3 axis;)

Barry

18

General Mach Discussion / 2nd parallel port card issues

« on: January 30, 2010, 05:11:01 PM »

Hello, I just bought a parallel port card, and although it's seen in the device manager, I can't seem to get Mach to use it.  The address/range is CC00-CC07, and C800-C807.  if I try to input either cc00, or c800, Mach doesn't recognize anything.  I am on Win XP, there are no conflicts.  The card is set to LPT2, the motherboards parallel port is set to LPT1, both work fine.  I saw on the list, that I can try the opposite, using the motherboards parallel port as LPT2, and the PCI card as LPT1, but this didn't do anything either.

The cabling are straight through cables, and they plug into a C23 board from CNC4PC.  I used to be using a smooth stepper, and was reading both ports through it.  I decided to go straight parallel port, but so far no luck.

Anyone have suggestions?  I was hoping to be cutting all weekend;)

Barry

19

General Mach Discussion / simultaneous vs index support

« on: January 28, 2010, 05:02:35 PM »

Hi folks, I was recently asked from a CAM vendor if my machine could do 5 axis simultaneous, or index.  My machine is using stepper motors, so I was thinking index, but they asked about the controller, meaning Mach3.  Can Mach3 support simultaneous, or is it just index?

Barry

20

Show"N"Tell ( What you have made with your CNC machine.) / That is no moon.

« on: January 28, 2010, 02:46:28 AM »

Hey folks, this is the first part I have cut on my machine.  I'm still learning the ins and outs.  The resolution I've set on this is 1.375mm stepover in finishing, which was a good test, but I think it needs to be finer.  Also, I learned that I need a real tool setter for Mach, rather than relying on my home switches and fixtures.  Anyway, without further ado, here's my first part.



Be kind;)  Oh, the size of this is 8" x 8".

Barry