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  1. #201
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    My next little machine is going to be dubbed my "Black Magic" version.

    It's going to aim for a bit more of a bulletproof assembly and use a few
    things out of the ordinary.

    As these little machines are all about smaller and more precise work, I have
    a 3/8-16 brass screw that I'm going to use as the leadscrew. That has
    a few advantages, I'm thinking.

    One, there's little reason to use acme on a small machine that doesn't get
    the extreme forces that acme was designed for. The brass is easy to polish
    and will look good. The common tap needed can be purchased anywhere
    for cheap...(acme taps are $$$$!)....which means an owner of the machine
    is not dependent on someone else for the longevity of his machine. The user
    made Delrin nut develops too much backlash....just make another in a few minutes.
    Make different nuts on demand.

    As the nuts are plastic, brass or steel would make no difference.

    I'm thinking the common threads on the brass may even work a little better
    than the acme, as there's no thread valley to shift on direction change....
    should-be meaning, that it's easier to make a more backlash free nut.

    But it's a wait & see. The finer pitch of the screw is another small plus....
    assuming the point of it is to do finer work at the expense of high speed rapids.

    There's a few other details to work into it, and I've already started on it.
    Maybe a week or so to gather all the parts...along with the needed time to
    do it all.

    I think it's going to be a really nice little machine....


    John



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    This isn't what would be called a high resolution photo. What's very interesting
    is that even the jpeg artifacts are being machined. And it's doing them correctly....


    John



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    Some of the example cuts side by side. They seem to look cooler when
    they're all lined up next to each other.

    A **Great!** lampshade could be made of different family photos....


    John



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    Finally! A commission!....

    From my wife.....but hey, that counts!


    Got to redo it....I didn't notice the bubbles in the scrap piece of plastic
    I used.


    John



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    Video....

    http://www.microcarve.com/zone6/BMmillhead.wmv


    Newest BlackMagic machine running prototype milling head.

    Mill head is cast & machined urethane block with spindle for 1/4"
    bits. Bearings are some I picked up years ago for replacement
    in a well pump motor...IIRC.....

    The milling head uses a sewing machine motor with cast & machined
    pulley. The motor actually runs very cool. The bearing temp ran
    at about 100F for this job making a lithophane.

    The *Huge* advantage this thing has, is, it doesn't throw dust
    into the air, and I'd surely expect it to run a lot quieter if I wasn't
    using a homemade coupler for the motor pulley....

    ...which means dust collection doesn't appear to be a huge problem,
    and it could be run in a place where loud noise would be a concern.

    I doubt it'd be good for really heavy duty stuff, but that appears
    to be more of a limitation with the small sewing motor.

    It's run for a total of about 4 hrs with zero glitches.

    It's still highly experimental, but it sure looks good and useful right
    now....



    John



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    That's the extent of the mess it all made.

    I still need to make a decent set of pulleys to up the speed a bit, but
    this carving came out excellent.

    If it works this well with the half-fast cobbling together of it, it
    has great promise.


    John



  7. #207
    Gold Member Mr.Chips's Avatar
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    Ahhhh Haaaaa

    So this is what you've been up to. Looks like a good plan. Urethane for a milling head, is it rigid enough, well your testing will tell. Like the looks of it. Do you think it is rigid enough for cutting wood.

    Thanks for the post

    Hager

    Last edited by Mr.Chips; 09-09-2010 at 12:23 AM. Reason: Spelling correction


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    Hi Hager....and Thanks!



    It's been a busy time....

    Yep, it's very rigid. I think it'll support a motor maybe 4 times what
    a sewing motor is, so that brings it into the 1/2 horse range.

    Now that it seems to work so well, I'd like to make one with an ER
    collet extension in it. I expect that'd take a few trial & errors, but I
    *think* it may work pretty well.

    LIke I mentioned before, I tried several new things on this "BlackMagic"
    version of the machine. The brass leadscrew I mentioned....

    I liked it very much and it's dead simple to make backlash free delrin
    nuts. It totally matters not if it's ACME thread. That means anyone could
    use an affordable and readily available tap to make nuts as and when
    needed.

    The drawback to brass is, they're not handled as carefully as I'd like where
    they come from. They're not intended as leadscrews so they get banged
    around a bit...unless someone is willing to pay $$$ for special ones.
    (which BTW....brass is used for leadscrews due to it's nonmagnetic properties.)

    Also, for the extra cost of them being brass, it's not worth the extra investment.
    What is important....to me anyway...is that a high quality regular/normal
    common UNC thread will work every bit as well as any ACME, and it's easy
    and cheap to make high quality delrin nuts. So, I need to get some steel
    ones.

    Only other drawback is they're not multi start, but I want finer pitches for
    finer work anyway.








    The other thing that's kept me busy was making a means of having the X & Z
    assembly on the machines a dead simple drop-in bolt-on single assembly.
    That makes adjustment of a machine an easy task here and makes it
    easier for someone to do an asembling of one of my machines, or, use
    parts for their own design.







    Getting back to milling heads & spindles.....Yes I do think it'll cut wood
    just fine. Right now it's only geared basically 2:1 so it's puny as far
    as any power goes. It's got some weight to it, but not what
    a mini mill head is.....so there's some good possibilities.

    It is more rigid than I expected, and I have a different motor I'll try
    later. It's well within capabilities of the machines components and
    power.


    John

    Last edited by microcarve; 09-09-2010 at 03:03 AM.


  9. #209
    Gold Member Mr.Chips's Avatar
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    I thought when I saw the photos the lead screw looked to be a finer pitch than acme. You say they use brass threaded rod because it is non magnetic, why in non magnetic important? You say the brass threads are nicked up some, then you could run a die over it to clean it up once and for all.

    On my first machine I tapped delrin making drive nuts using a piece of 1-10 Acme rod. Put a taper on it and machined three flats turning it into a kind of tap tool, it worked OK but the friction from one nut to another varied. But if you'r making nuts on a regular basis an acme tap is justified.

    Could you mold a nut out of urethane, or wouldn't it flow in tight enough against the threads?

    It looks like the X/Y bushings are urethane, or is that just the brass bushing holder?

    I used my CNC today to cut a couple of 35" birch plywood disks, making a lazy Susan for a friend and one for us. Probably be the last thing I make before we move. Moving to Phoenix around the end of the month so busy packing. One good thing is that the new house has a 3 car garage and an attached workshop, it 8' x 24' long and narrow, no way to get everything in there but a lot of the table top things as it has a built in bench the full 24'. Looking to expand it another 8' out into the patio, but lots of other things to do first. I made do with a 3 car garage here in Tucson for 6 years so more space is a plus. Been thinking about taking my 1st machine apart and making a bench model out of it more like your size.



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    These are exceptionally practical machine sizes. Most anything works that
    you try without stressing parts & components.....but naturally, the cutting
    area is a bit small.

    Why do they use brass?....Lots of reasons that are well worth looking up
    on google....

    But yep, I did and always do run a die down them to smooth and deburr
    them. That also has a side benefit of making sure the threads are a bit
    more uniform.....you can tiny feel errors in the rolling process.
    (Though I'd expect screws that are made for power transmission to be more
    carefully made.....)

    Like you, I also make taps from the ends of a scrap of ACME.....and with a mill
    and lathe on hand, that's pretty easy to do. But, here's a slight problem.
    Multi start screws aren't made to any standards like most screws. That means
    that each maker of them makes them how they want to. They vary, and one nut
    may work perfectly with one makers screw, but then, again, they may not....and
    wear excessively.

    Even my single start ACME varies a bit. I guess it all depends on the machine
    operators weekend.....they don't pay enough attention some days....

    So, one batch of screws....(I'm small time, so my batches are small....) are
    slightly different. Which means making taps more than I'd like. And some are
    a little looser and have a little backlash, while some are too tight and need
    extra attention and time.

    Use of a thread die would make the threads easily more consistent as the
    rolled threads can be "corrected" well enough. So there are real advantages
    to regular common threaded rods.....like 1/2-13 for example.

    It's a little different once you try to reproduce anything in numbers. Making
    one of anything works pretty well as you can take a little time to modify
    parts as needed, but to make many of them, it's nearly impossible to get the
    sort of consistency someone will try to maintain......so as to make parts
    interchangeable.....which at these close tolerances is practically impossible
    without some very expensive tools & machines.

    Do-able....but not easy.....

    The bushings are now extended via PVC tubes which makes the travel/gliding
    smoother. The ideal position for something like an Oilite bearing/bushing is
    a square pattern....meaning if the rails are separated 3", then the bushings
    will work best when separated the same 3". Or more.

    1" less of travel, but it appears that it moves better and smoother now.
    3-4 more machines will decide if that change stays, but I 'm sure it will.

    Yes, you can cast nuts directly....and they will work fine for a while.
    Well enough to make a "better machine". Heat and friction will
    degrade the urethane fairly quickly, so I haven't used them for any
    long periods of time on any machine, but they have worked well
    when I have made them. They still do need a secondary tapping
    of them.


    It's a similar problem with polyethylene. The heat and friction
    of travel will degrade those quickly too. Best to use a material in
    that case that's intended for the job, such as Delrin.

    The heat/friction causes a chemical change that makes it possible
    for the threads themselves to eventually be pushed right out.
    That's happened a few times here. I stay clear of HDPE nuts now.


    Interesting questions, Hager!

    It's nice you're so observant....

    John

    John



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    Video....

    http://www.microcarve.com/zone6/acrylic/acrylic1.wmv

    Test cutting acrylic. The cut is made into the handle of one
    of my acrylic sanding sticks I make.

    I did make one major miscalculation on this one.....that was
    setting the zero top of the stock a little too deep for my good
    carbide cutter......which did have a tip that was about .004 or so.
    Now it's about .020"....

    But no problem....I'll just hone it back.

    What it did cause to happen though, is the gcode file has a stepover
    for the finer tip. With it broken off a bit right from the start, it
    was "overwriting" the lines already carved....as the tip was now
    wider.

    But it still did a very good job. And with very little mess.
    It would have been 10x cleaner and finer if I'd judged the situation
    a little better. Acrylic is hard and brittle, so trying to plunge right
    in to a depth of about .070" right away was a bad thing to do.
    The fragile carbide tip wasn't going to handle that, unless I slowed
    things down a lot more than the 24ipm.

    For a first try with acrylics though, it came out very well.
    The bit would....right now....lend itself to larger carvings very
    well, so I may just keep it as is and get another for the finer work.

    The slower milling head works great for solving the melting problems
    some plastics have. It sounds bad because the pulleys are still
    mismatched. Easily corrected, but it means disassembling it.
    Which, I'll get to after I play around with it a bit more. It's not
    going to hurt anything at this point....



    John



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    Video....

    http://www.microcarve.com/zone6/aluminum/aluminum1.wmv


    Aluminum cutting. I set Z at about .010 below the top surface so
    I could do the thing in a single run for a total depth of about .050"

    It ran at 12ipm for about 40 min or so, using one of Curt's 60 degree
    carbide cutters....

    http://www.cnctoybox.org/store/page27.html

    The milling head wanted to do it, but I decided to use the Bosch
    first to have a good one to make a comparison with later on. The
    mill head still really needs to have those pulleys done....

    It's really hard to take pictures of something like this because there's
    no way to light it from behind. I used the same gcode file I've been using
    also to make comparisons.

    I'd give it about an 8 on a 1-10 scale for a first shot at milling
    metal. I'd give the machine a solid 10. It's a bad-ass little machine.

    It's also running at 24VDC with motors set at 1.5A, so that tells
    a little something about how well it works.

    Pointless, but fun!


    John



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    BTW...the line in the picture is from using one of my versions
    of microcarve. It's the watermark line that goes away after it
    gets registered. I forgot about it when I made this file....





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    Sorry to ask you to repeat yourself but whta is the torque on the motors you are using with the small router and what drivers are you using?



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    This kit from Probotix.....

    http://www.probotix.com/index.php?vi...&product_id=88

    I got the "ready to run" kit. It costs as much to do all the wiring and gather up all the
    extra parts as it does to just let those guys wire it up for me. It's "Plug-n-Play"
    at it's most convenient.





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    Video....


    http://www.microcarve.com/zone6/aluminum/aluminum3.wmv


    This cuts much quicker as it's all vectors instead of individual scanlines.

    (design made in VCarve Pro.....I wouldn't want to be without it)

    It's also proof it takes a bit of trial & error to get the hang of milling
    metal.

    I chipped the bit when positioning it and sharpened it up by eye.
    So it's not as perfect as it should be. I also went a little too deep
    at about 60 thou on it, so I ran a second pass to smooth out the
    lines.....which is one really nice thing about cnc.....it goes back to
    the exact spot to do the second "clean-up" pass.

    I wish I hadn't chipped that bit. I think it would've been nearly
    perfect.

    Lesson learned is ---Practice!....and count on ruining at least one bit
    before getting the feel of what's going to happen.

    The machine handled it with ease....



    John



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    Also....I'm going to sell off this machine for $395 + shipping.
    It has the brass couplings, so that saves someone $$ right off.

    No motors, electronics, router, software or the milling head comes with it.
    Just the base mechanical machine.

    I have 2 more on the workbench in progress....

    I just like making machines.


    John



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    "WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!" I have just caught this thread and man they are great machines and the engraving is superb. Do you have a website and also do you make these CNC machines to order ? I would love something like this to cut out inlays for guitar fretboards. Also what is the software that you are using ? can this software be used to cut out inlays out of MOP or acrylic as well as the pockets to fit them in ? sure would love to see this.



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    Thanks Very Much!



    Theeeooorrrectically.....the software could be used for "some" inlays.

    Sometimes it'd be a lot more practical than others. For example if
    the inlay needed a type of "dimensional" quality to it.

    With a little creativity, possibilities for small parts with unusual shapes
    to them could be done. That'd be by just using different levels of grey
    in a design that would cut at different depths. Maybe intentionally setting
    the Z 0 at a few thou above a material surface before the job was run.

    It could be considered within the realm of "practical", because inlays
    for many jobs are small.

    The software does the same thing as the common "greyscale heightmap"
    software/generators. There are free ones, simple ones, complicated
    fancy ones available.

    microcarve.....the software.....

    http://www.microcarve.com/index.html

    was initially created mainly for my own personal use. The tool path it
    shows is why. It only shows the lines the path of the tool will take.
    No 3D simulation. I didn't need the 3D simulation because I like to
    have extremely fine control over where those tool paths lines are....
    and I needed to see them.

    Reason for that is....extremely minute changes can make a difference.
    Changing the Z depth just a very few thou can mean a particular bit will work
    well or it won't....but it takes some practice at it to understand why.

    Changing the stepover to match the very tip of a cutting bit can make
    a very noticeable difference as well.

    It takes a little practice and "test carvings" to make comparisons
    with to get the idea and reasoning behind the ultra-fine controlling
    of the tool path lines.

    I simply can do better controlled work if I can tell where those lines
    are. When used for cutting into metal molds....or plastics like I use,
    it's almost a necessity....for me anyway.

    All that said. VCarve Pro is the Ideal software for making inlay shapes,
    I believe. That will turn out Vectors....where microcarve is a simple
    raster scan software.

    (Raster scan meaning....as it is now....it basically does every pixel
    in an image. That can be time consuming, which isn't necessary for
    simple shapes and pocketing.)

    At any rate...anyone can play with it endlessly to see it it can work
    for their application. It'll generate gcode files. It just has a "watermark
    line" in it that goes away if someone gives it an activation code.

    There are no instructions for it....as really....anyone who'd be using
    such software should already know what is is they're trying to do and
    it should be obvious to them when and where to change any numbers
    in any input box.

    (I'll also mention....it should be tried first, because out of many-many
    thousands of downloads there have been 5-6 computers that it simply
    won't work on, and "why" hasn't been discovered yet.)

    I use it along with VCarve Pro. I couldn't do without either of them
    myself.



    The machines....

    I'm steadily making a few changes to the basic design to make reproducing
    them in numbers easier. That's mostly making the final fixtures and jigs
    that are the time consuming part.

    It's an exceptionally rigid machine that even does precision carvings
    hanging upside down and spinning around on a bungee cord.

    ...its heavy --so use a good thick bungee cord....

    http://www.microcarve.com/upsidedown/Up1.wmv

    The "finalized" version is about ready......and can be followed up on
    at a yahoo group I've set up. That's a place to sell off the prototypes
    and make updates and explain the machine and the reasoning
    behind it's design and construction. A very small group for now.

    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/microcarve/

    I'll have some new pictures and updates here soon....


    John



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    The Z axis I'm "finalizing"....(for lack of a better word....)

    Tiny little changes in how they're made can make reproducing them
    reliably a lot easier. Special jigs, fixtures & molds also make that
    do-able.

    They could be used as bolt-on Z's for lots of machines. They're
    just right for bolting onto a larger existing Z on a bigger machine to
    add in an "A" axis for some sideways or maybe slot-cutting tools.
    Lots of reasons to bolt on a 4th axis.

    They're surely built for heavy duty uses though....

    The real trick to getting them repeatedly reproducible...for me,
    as I have to work within capabilities and limitations of tools & machines
    I have.....is to make 4-5 of them and see what & where a problem
    will be. The idea is to get reject rates to better than about 85%.
    Sometimes some thing that just is going to be a problem works like
    a charm the first 2-3 of them, then a problem with making copies
    becomes apparent.

    Coming along nicely so far.


    John



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