My usual machining supplier let me down badly last week, letting me know on Friday afternoon that the parts I'd ordered two weeks ago had been junked in making them by a combination of last-minute rushing and crappy programming. So i had to program the Y-shaped waveguide section in, run the electrical tests on it as a bare block with a cavity, program the back side, foam-run it, cut the whole thing in metal, paint, pack and ship across country by Monday lunchtime.
This is the inside of the thing, it's a y-shaped waveguide designed to split power evenly between two outputs for a hot-standby satellite reciever. Tolerances are low in here.
This is the outside of it, trimmed and assembled. Those are M4 screws. The whole thing is about 75mm long, maybe 85mm wide, and very light. (long being along the waveguide port axes)
I did the drilling and edge trimming on the Bridgeport as this was needed quickly but production ones will have a jig set and it'll be full CNC all the way apart from the tapping. The bad news is that I spent the entire weekend going at it like a madman, and spent Monday in bed. The good news is that it went out on time
even if it was hung up in the cab of a van so that the paint could dry en route.
Mach performed amazingly well throughout, and being able to run a copy on my laptop as well as the machine allows me to take work home and code off-site. just as importantly the big Excel worked well, although I could do with a new cutter soon, this one's been through a lot, so to speak
Best of all I have the capacity to make my own now ... no more pigs' ears and a better bottom line for me. Nice!
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