is there anyone in the boston area (or north/south shore/rhode island!) interested in swapping ideas or putting together a CNC machine, router or mill?

or anyone interested in just building electro/mechanical stuffs?

-steve

I'm on the North Shore, and am interested, but it will be a while until I get around to it :)

Eventually, I would like a CNC mill and a CNC router for my metalworking and woodworking. The CNC router would be great for furniture and the telescopes that I am making.

-Jeff

Jeff,

Sounds good, i'll shoot you a PM or an email!

-steve

I'm in the area and have retrofitted a CNC machine and built my own plasma cutter. I'm always down for swapping ideas and hearing what other people are up to.

What electro-mechanical stuff are you thinking of buildilng?

-Matt

almost anything! for one thing, i'd like to get started on my CNC router.
making parts for RC helicopters, motorcycles, gadgets and widgets.

Hi guys,
I am in the area also(southern N.H.) I have a cnc router/plasma combo & Manual Lathe. I would be interested in talking shop.

I'm south of boston cnc by trade I will be buying new in the next six month but if you need program help let me know I'm in Hanson 20mile south of boston just north of plymouth

I'm right on the MA/RI border and would also be interested sdantonio93@gmail.com

Steven

I'm a little farther south in Westerly RI, but would be interested in talking.
I am working on building a router.
So far I have accomplished little. I built a hobby board, and am in the process of turning down the 1/2 acme to fit the bearings I have. Then I still have to make the bearing trucks and the router assembly itself. Hope to be finished before August gets here, but I doubt it.
Stephen

Hello, Speedre here, I'm in So. NH also, right on the Mass border. I use Mach 3 as a control system and have suggested at their forum site that we start a support group made up of regionally local members, but to no avail. I'm down to get one going. I have a K2 CNC Ganty that I'd just love to know how to use to its full advantage. I'd also like to share horror stories :rolleyes: :rolleyes: . Get the ball rolling.

900 steve,
What size router are you looking to build?

SPEEDRE,
I bought a practicalcnc router, hows that for the first horror story!
All kidding aside, I have made a ton of stuff on this thing. I am using wincnc on mine but have heard the Mach is better. What are you having trouble with? Maybe I can help.

Lakeside,
Thanks for the offer. What are you going to Buy? Router, Plasma, Mill?

Chaulk up another one for southern NH, south of Manchester specifically. Already started on a servo machine that will mill Al, plasma and wield the gas hatchet....

900 steve,
What size router are you looking to build?




cut more:

i'm aiming for the 36" x 48" x ?" as a first router build. i layed out some PCBs for drivers, which now need to be populated and tested. i haven't started any real construction yet, mostly sketches and plans for now.

-steve

One more here in Southern NH. I have a Bridgeport Mill that is running Mach3, a small small cnc dremel tool, and I'm working on converting an old hardinge, and two high accuracy mini mills. I'm still gathering parts for a plasma cutter... I have a few friends in the area also using Mach3, some of them are members of this site.

This hobby and my job are very closely related, as I design custom actuators and high precision motion systems for high tech industries. I've had fun meeting a few people, and would love to be part of a group.

I have attended a couple New England Model Engineering Society meetings, ( http://www.neme-s.org/ ) and there are a few people at these monthly meetings in Waltham MA who have and know CNC. It's free to attend, and it's a very cool old mill building where they used to make watches. Plus, some of the work that these members have done is simply amazing. Definetly worth a visit.

Neatman

Hi
Im south of Boston in the Weymouth area.
In the process of building a mini machine shop
and got my taig cnc mill setup and running.
I can make small parts.
Email frank02189@yahoo.com

Lakeside,
Thanks for the offer. What are you going to Buy? Router, Plasma, Mill?

looking at a fryer cnc 40X 20Y bed mill

I am Portsmouth, NH. I am putting plans together to build a 5x10 servo CNC router. The servo part of this is new to me. If there is anyone in the area who has some back ground and insight into setting up a machine with servo motors, I'd like to talk.

I think it would be great to make some connections in the area.

Sounds like there are enough of us along the NH/MA border that we should have a get together somewhere...

If no-one has a shop big enough for us, we could meet at a resturant.

I'd love to see the kinds of things people make. I especially would like to see plasma cut samples in steel, stainless, and aluminum.

-Jeff

hi; I am interested,I have a wood shop in lawrence,mass and been dabling in something for this industry..... joe

what a great response!

let's try to organize a meet or two. maybe it seems like we need a south shore meet up, and a north shore/southern NH meet, any ideas?

i got a small project i want to start on, i'd like to make a collective and cyclic inputs for the microsoft 2004 flight sim to be used for helicopter cockpit simulation. a little bit electro, and a little mechanical. any locals interested?

send me a PM and i'll try and organize things so we can put some heads together or just swap CNC and related (or not!) ideas.

-steve

If the group want I live in Hanson,Ma. just north of Plymouth,Ma.We have a town camp with a big lodge and pond and bar services the only cost is booze. Hanson is about 2 hours from Nashua, NH. and about 1 1/2 hours from RI. The camp is Camp Kiwanee if you want we could try turning this into a family type picnic here a link to town site http://www.hanson-ma.gov/Public_Documents/HansonMA_RecDept/kiwanee

hi
maybe we can have chat sessions here in cnc zone.
we can share info about what were doing in our free time.
I usually jump into chat here and have met some really nice folks from all over the country.
thanks
frank

well we can pick any where this time of year I have no prefence myself other than to say that Saterday and Sunday our the days open

After thinking about it. Our first meeting should just be to meet and say hello. Given the fact that the big dig is closed. I would think that some spot on 95 would make sence somewhere like Walpole when theres no game or concert

I think we may have an answer to our question of where and when




#1 Today, 06:53 AM
HighSpeed
Chip Sweeper Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: New England
Posts: 17

Beer-Fest '06

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This invite goes out to CNC enthusiasts interested in German beer, Authentic German Food, and unique CNC technology for small part manufacturing.

August 11th at our facility in New Hampshire – BEERFEST. If you’d like to attend, please phone, and I’ll email you an invitation and details of this awesome event.

Here’s an overview: http://www.highspeedcnc.com/beer_fest_06.htm

Robert Murphy
www.datrondynamics.com
__________________
Robert Murphy

August 11th at our facility in New Hampshire – BEERFEST.
__________________
Robert Murphy

If I could take the day off from work I definitely would be there. But unfortunately I can't, my whole company would fall apart without me (at least that is the line my boss gives me) :)

Steven

Hello fellow New Englanders!
Just wanted to announce myself. I run a part time business out of the basement building bench-top CNC machines and retrofit kits. By day a Toolmaker and by night a husband, father of two young boys, and small business owner. I am in West Warwick, RI. It would be great to get together with other locals and shoot the breeze and share knowledge. See ya at Beerfest!!

Ken
KDN Tool

Hi,

I am in Ashland MA I need someone to teach me a little about running a r2e3 Bridgeport with a Boss 8 control. Bobcad help would be great also. I have a CNC laser that I cut foam on so I do have some background. I also have a lot of stepper drives, Linear rails, Motors all new for trade or for sale contact me. gguidi@hometheater1.com

gguidi I'm in Hanson,Ma. and can help you with Bobcad and machining Feel free to drop me an e-mail with any question or files mikelakeside@comcast.net

WEll its like an hour north of Boston, so I don't know if this counts.
But I am in Dover NH, about 45 minutes from Manchester.

gguidi,
Hi I am in Plaistow N.H. so I might be a little far but I might be able to help with Bobcad questions. Also I have some machining experience so maybe I could help there too.
Feel free to E-mail me.

Watertown, interested in learning all that I can.

Does anybody know if there anything in the way of machining classes that a person can take in these parts? I'm not a student, and I work full time 9-5 weekdays.

I am new to this, I am in somerville and I am converting an super x3 to CNC.
Is anyone on the area to discuss this conversion ?

Calvin

jon003,

you should look into the tech schools around here. i've seen a lot of them offer intro to machining classes, as well as some CNC programming classes.

Calvin,
i'm in quincy. send me a PM.

-steve

I'm in Merrimack,NH. I am going to be converting my mini mill to cnc this winter.

Just bumping this thread - Did anyone ever get together in the Boston/Southern NH area?

I'm thinking of attending the next NEMES meeting in Waltham on Dec. 7 at 7 PM. http://neme-s.org/

Neatman

Hello everyone, I'm south of Worcester on the MA. , CT. line. I'm interested in learning more about homebuilt CNC. I'd like to build a plasma table in the future as I get a better understanding of the CNC end of it. Dick

Hi Dick,

I'm just a litle east of you in Bellingham, on the MA/RI line. I'm finising up my first 2 CNC router tables.

Steven, Dick - Welcome!

Be warned, this can be a very addictive hobby. There is a wealth of information here on CNCzone. I would strongly reccomend Mach3 for both cnc routers and CNC plasma cutters. It's very capable software. I've run it on routers and CNC mills. A plasma cutter is the works also.

NEATman

Anyone in Boston/North Shore/Southern NH have an X3 I could come over and measure? I want some real numbers to figure out some vise selection/placement issues.

Thanks!

-Jeff

I will measure my X3 in all dimensions tonight, when I get home. My machine is all taken apart from being in the middle of a CNC conversion, but I think I wrote most of this stuff down.
I do know that from base to top of the column, machine is 35". Allow at least 48" side to side to allow movement of hte table to the extreme limits. And 27" for depth, to allow room for the table to move.

They say the machine is 353 pounds on Grizzly, I do not buy it. THe freight shipper told me it was 448 pounds. I doubt the box and a few allen keys weighs almost 100 pounds.

I will measure my X3 in all dimensions tonight, when I get home. My machine is all taken apart from being in the middle of a CNC conversion, but I think I wrote most of this stuff down.

Thanks!

I'm especially interested in:

actual table width
length of T slots
distance between T slots
distance between table and column when the table is as far back as it can go

-Jeff

Hi,
I live in Malden,MA
and I have a shop in Tewksbury.
I have a Bridgeport with fitted with ProtoTrak Plus. I haven't used anything but the DRO feature. I would like to learn how to use the other featuress to make parts for an Ultralite Glider.
Am I in the right place to get some help??

Thanks.

Wally

Wally,

I can't help you much, but I'd love to learn too! I'm in Malden also.

I mainly build combat robots, but I'm alway looking for something fun to try.

I just bought an X2 mini mill that I'd like to eventually convert to CNC.

Dave

Wally,

Your in the right place, but I'm another guy who probably cant' help you out much. I work almost exclusively in wood. I just finished my first CNC 2 weeks ago and I'm trying to learn it myself.

Although your interest in making parts for an Ultralite Glider is very interesting to me, I have been looking at plans for an autogyro for years and might just make one by the time I retire at the rate I'm going about it (which gives me another 14 years to make it :) )

Hi,
I have a change in plans for my building program.
I was lucky and I found a set of plans for a Carbon Dragon. It is an all wood and Carbon Fiber ultralite sailplane. It requires hundreds of small accurate plywood parts.

My thinking at this time is to build a CNC router and cut the parts on it.
I have a friend that is going to digitize the plans for me. From what I am looking at for parts, it would be a much shorter time frame from start to finish if I take the in the begining to build a CNC router and then cut the parts on it. The parts will be accurate for a faster build, they will come off the machine faster once I get going and I will have another machine for my shop.

I would like to see what you have built. If you would have time to show me, please let me know how I can get in touch to schedule a visit.

Thanks.

Wally

Wow Wally, that's cool! But uh, didn't several of them crash? (Or was that the windrose?) Where will you launch it?

Do you fly out of Sterling? I plan on learning to fly at some point.

If you don't decide to build your own router, you could also look at laser cutting of the parts. I have some samples I could give you done by Boston Laser. I also know some places to outsource your parts to.

Keep us updated!

-Jeff

Hi Jeff

There have been only 8 of these planes built and none have crashed. I am told that few were built because of the number of pieces that are required to construct this plane. There are hundreds of them, but with a CNC router, the time required to make an accurate part is next to nothing.

I was very forturnate to find someone that wanted to sell a complete set of plans. I am going to build a router and then have at it.

I used to fly a J-3 cub when I was a kid. Later on I flew a 172 Skyhawk. I haven't flown in 30 years but I really am excited about Soaring these days.

I haven't any thoughts of having someone cut out the parts. I thought it would be pretty expensive, so I figured that doing the CNC thing would be a great learning experience and save me lots of time and money.

Oh, I did all of my flying out of Nashua, NH.

I just stumbled on to a set of plans that I had bought a long time ago for a 3 axis hobby router. I bought most of the things I need to build it, but just never put aside the time to do it. Its small but it will get me going and once I get it running and making parts, if I need a larger one it should be very easy to build one and plug it into my existing computer and software.

Thanks for the reply.

Wally

Sounds good Wally!

I checked, at it was the Windrose, not the Carbon Dragon that had all the problems.

Make sure to check out http://soargbsc.com/ for the Greater Boston Soaring Club.

-Jeff

Been lurking here for awhile. Will be in Cape Cod at end of June (military) Still trying to come up with a design for a mill, would love to learn from some of you guys.

Hello everyone in the greater Boston area-
We'll be having another Southern NH CNC Club meeting either this week or next. If you are interested in attending and have not already sent me your e-mail address, send it to me in a private message and I'll add you to the list.

For those who haven't atteneded before, it's really just a informal group of guys with interest in CNC. We have members with Mills, lathes, routers, plasma cutters, etc.

NEATman
Keith

Hello again-
The meeting will occur this Thursday, the 21st in my "shop" (A.K.A. Messy basement). Send me a private message if you would like to attend, as I would rather not post my home address online.

NEATman

Hi,
I live in Malden and I am building a small CNC router to build a bigger CNC router.

I have 2 CNC Bridgeports but only one is operational at this time.

I would like to come but I have a previous comittment. If you can let me know a little earlier of the time for the next meeting, I would like to attend.

Wally

Hope to make the next meeting, to many side jobs lately.

We'll be having another Southern NH CNC Club meeting this Thursday in Kingston, NH. If you are interested in attending and have not already sent me your e-mail address, send it to me in a private message and I'll add you to the list.

For those who haven't atteneded before, it's really just a informal group of guys with interest in CNC. We have 22 (currently) members with Mills, lathes, routers, plasma cutters, etc.

NEATman
Keith

It was really great to meet everyone tonight. Big thanks to our host and NEATman! Wish I could have stayed longer.

Cheers,

Dan

This coming Saturday, Oct. 13th in Concord NH.
If you are interested in attending, send me a private message with your e-maiil address, and I'll forward you the directions.

There will be a demo 3 axis dremel tool running Mach3, a CNC lathe and CNC mill. This is being setup as a BBQ, so if you are interested in attending, plan on bringing something to cook or drink.

See you there-
Keith

I figured I'd start my own thread instead of continually hijacking this one -
but for those of you who have subscribed to this thread, here is the link to the new thread:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?p=417251#post417251

NEATman