can you post a screenshot of your bit parameters, where you set the RPM and IPM. I don't remember now what I set to, but maybe Roman can provide some tips.
The IPM and the pass depth (or something like that that specifies how deep the bit goes in one pass) determines how fast the job will be completed. The RPM will depend on the bit thickness and length. for a short 1/4" bit, you can go with a pretty high RPM.
I had a few hours sunday to get the dust collector hooked up, dust shoe on and start installing the spoil board. Its mounted and the slots for the t-track are in and the dog holes are in. I need to cut a tad deeper on the 3/4" dog holes. It took 15 mins to cut the dog holes and 26 mins to cut the track slots I should be able to make those Paulk work benches very quickly. I want to make one for an outfeed table for the tablesaw.
I want to add another layer on top of this spoil board. It will overlap the ttrack slightly so it cant pull up. Then ill have nearly 3/4" to surface over the years! Im not certain if i will cut the pieces myself or through up another panel and mill that out.
2nd layer of mdf isnt sitting flush. I need to remove it and verify the screws arent mushroom out and lifting the top layer up.
I noticed the machine has enough enertia to move on the fast cuts. So i am going to add 3/4 ply to the outsides and i bought some brackets and 2x6 lumber to join the legs together in a few more spots. Ill also make use the lumber for braces alot the bottom and put a sheet of ply there as well.
I didnt like the dust collection hose getting caught so i made a bracket while the machine was cutting the top spoilboard. The green pipe is cheap and if you use a heat gun you can expand or contract it to fit the odd sized dust collection hose.
Roman, what feed and feeds do you use for you amana surfacing bit.
Thats pretty sweet! Nice work. I made some progress the spoilboard is back mounted and its laying flat. I painted the dust collection and mount. Now the hose shouldnt get caught on the motor anymore.
Im mounting 3/4 ply along the sides to make it a bit more ridgid and add mass. Ill get the other side mounted tomorrow and have a neighbor help me slide it into its home position turning it 90 degrees and against the wall. I should be able to squeeze down between the wall and the unit but itnwill be tight. It will open up alot of workspace in my garage.
Green pvc for drainage and ply for the mount. The paint is okay its marking paint color with clear on top. I made a jig that can shrink and expand it using a series of circle cutouts. You heat it with a heat gun until you can mush it in then jam it into the jig until it cools itself. A 10" section was 11 bucks. Vs like 5 bucks per dust collector fitting that likely wont fit anything properly.
More organizing of my garage was done this weekend. I turned the cnc 90 degrees and it saved alot of room on my french cleat wall. I added 3/4 ply sheet to the outside and some 2x4s and brackets to use as storage. Im going to move the electronics back and mount the pc on the cnc then wall mount my monitor. It will help be more efficient.
The new location closer to dust collector and the pc / table are no longer there.
Here is one side i covered. Ill do the same to the other side and secure the electronics to it.
This is the 2x6 and 2x6 bracing and believe it or not the ply and bracing is helping it come more ridgid i can feel a difference.
In our workshop, they did something similar - wood planks connecting the legs, but also built shelves and use it to store spare wood, etc, which also add to the mass. but despite whatever you do, there is still a violent lurching, whenever the cnc changes direction
Does your cnc have nema 34's? Ill see how it goes and get all my sheetgoods put in it. That should add 200-300 pounds. I probably have 3-4 sheets of ply/mdf and a bunch of offcuts and hardwood left over.
Moved my cnc machine around again and wrapoed the sides of the machine is plywood. I reorganized the wires. I mounted my furnace but still need to run the gas line, dig a trench, run another 20amp 110v outlet to the next cnc location, i also installed a drop down ladder to get up into the rafters for storage easily. I also need to install the pc and monitor. Not certain if i should install it on the cnc or on the wall behind it.
Hey mike, does your garage heater have a vent out of the roof? I am also planning on getting my garage heated. Also, looks like there is no insulation in the roof, do you use the heater throughout winter or just on and off?
The heater isnt plumbed in at the moment. I will finish it soon. Its going out the roof with 4" bvent (double walled), running csst under ground to black steel pipe into the house and garage. I am going to add in the last 4 rows of r19 insulation to the rafters i was leaving room for my friend to get uo there and work. Im going to use a thermostat like your house and keep it to set to 50f all the time. I can turn it up if im out there and cold.
My friend has a 6 car garage with a 85k btu heater (detached and insulated the same way). He said it adds $27 extra per month to run his heater. A propane tank is $23 and lasts 2-3 days so its a huge savings. My garage is 19x19 internally and since im insulating the ceiling and not the room it will heat better (i have soffet vents so it would be a headache to insulate the roof. My furnace is 45k btu so it shoukd cost me less than my friends based on size and space.
Cnc is leveled, trammed and surfaced. Im still having issues with soft limits settings at times when i try to zero the z-axis, i just take off soft limits and it goes away. Its a really odd issue but at tjos point the machine is up and running. I made some clamps and got my first 3 customers. Its been a long process to say the least. Now i need to figure out all the tricks!
Tabs suck with plywood btw. Mdf is not too bad but ply splits easily with tabs when i used my chisel.
Usually use a jigsaw for cutting the tabs. In MDF can twist and snap by hand if the tabs are thin enough. Then use a flush trim router - tiny handheld one
Just upgraded to RhinoCam Expert. It hurts! Many more machining operations, including 4th axis rotary, 5 axis (not that I see 5 axis in the near future), Rhino Nest and Rhino Art.
Yeh, they came out perfectly flat too. The machining pattern looks cool too. Its like an optical illusion because the look wavy but when you put a strsight edge up to it there is zero light bleed through under it.
I've been interested in a cnc for a long time, and there are other projects around the house I could spread the cost across ... for someone that isn't all that great with computers, just how difficult is it learning how to operate/control one of these affordable machines to the point of being able to produce fairly complex speaker baffles and custom cabinet doors?
Everything here was done with basic tools, I would love to carve an outdoor theme (mosaic?) that carried out across the cabinets. Is that doable and just how difficult would that be?
It takes some time to learn the cad/toolpath software and the cnc software for operating the machine. There are people that you can have do a design for you for a modest fee. There is a few people overseas on the cnc fb groups thst will do a custom 3d design for like $60-100 depending on how detailed it is. Do you want full 3d or a 2d drawing style?
Its been a long 6-7 months for me. Including the 3 month wait for the parts to arrive. If i did have so many side projects it would go faster. I also change hobbies frequently and i go completely overboard when i get into a new hobby then lose interested in a few years lol.
Everything here was done with basic tools, I would love to carve an outdoor theme (mosaic?) that carried out across the cabinets. Is that doable and just how difficult would that be?
It's not difficult but takes a bit of getting use to. Indexing and holding the work is also something to be considered as learning curve. All tho, you have woodworking skills already so that makes practical CNC stage a lot easier. Instead of outsourcing 3D modeling to overseas my recommendation would be to hire a tutor if at all possible locally. College kids are great. They charge little and save a lot of time. Assistant teachers may also look for a part time gig, tutoring. Mosaic would be 2D work which is fairly simple. You can even go so far as to import a JPG in to the software and draw over it.
Work holding is proving to be a little irritating.
Roman, what clearances are you using for dadoes? I made mine pretty much exact size on this new project im working on. Lets say your workpiece mdf is 0.709" thick i cut the dadoes at 0.712-0.715. Is this cutting it too close?
Rcarpenter R-Carpenter said: It's not difficult but takes a bit of getting use to.
Indexing and holding the work is also something to be considered as learning curve. All tho, you have woodworking skills already so that makes practical CNC stage a lot easier. Instead of outsourcing 3D modeling to overseas my recommendation would be to hire a tutor if at all possible locally. College kids are great. They charge little and save a lot of time. Assistant teachers may also look for a part time gig, tutoring. Mosaic would be 2D work which is fairly simple. You can even go so far as to import a JPG in to the software and draw over it.
Comments
I am going to give them a try next time.
can you post a screenshot of your bit parameters, where you set the RPM and IPM. I don't remember now what I set to, but maybe Roman can provide some tips.
The IPM and the pass depth (or something like that that specifies how deep the bit goes in one pass) determines how fast the job will be completed. The RPM will depend on the bit thickness and length. for a short 1/4" bit, you can go with a pretty high RPM.
That bits are priced nicely plus you get 2-3 of them!
I want to add another layer on top of this spoil board. It will overlap the ttrack slightly so it cant pull up. Then ill have nearly 3/4" to surface over the years! Im not certain if i will cut the pieces myself or through up another panel and mill that out.
2nd layer of mdf isnt sitting flush. I need to remove it and verify the screws arent mushroom out and lifting the top layer up.
I noticed the machine has enough enertia to move on the fast cuts. So i am going to add 3/4 ply to the outsides and i bought some brackets and 2x6 lumber to join the legs together in a few more spots. Ill also make use the lumber for braces alot the bottom and put a sheet of ply there as well.
I didnt like the dust collection hose getting caught so i made a bracket while the machine was cutting the top spoilboard. The green pipe is cheap and if you use a heat gun you can expand or contract it to fit the odd sized dust collection hose.
Roman, what feed and feeds do you use for you amana surfacing bit.
Now the hose shouldnt get caught on the motor anymore.
Im mounting 3/4 ply along the sides to make it a bit more ridgid and add mass. Ill get the other side mounted tomorrow and have a neighbor help me slide it into its home position turning it 90 degrees and against the wall. I should be able to squeeze down between the wall and the unit but itnwill be tight. It will open up alot of workspace in my garage.
What did you make that red section of dust collection from?
The new location closer to dust collector and the pc / table are no longer there.
Here is one side i covered. Ill do the same to the other side and secure the electronics to it.
This is the 2x6 and 2x6 bracing and believe it or not the ply and bracing is helping it come more ridgid i can feel a difference.
In our workshop, they did something similar - wood planks connecting the legs, but also built shelves and use it to store spare wood, etc, which also add to the mass. but despite whatever you do, there is still a violent lurching, whenever the cnc changes direction
My friend has a 6 car garage with a 85k btu heater (detached and insulated the same way). He said it adds $27 extra per month to run his heater. A propane tank is $23 and lasts 2-3 days so its a huge savings. My garage is 19x19 internally and since im insulating the ceiling and not the room it will heat better (i have soffet vents so it would be a headache to insulate the roof. My furnace is 45k btu so it shoukd cost me less than my friends based on size and space.
Tabs suck with plywood btw. Mdf is not too bad but ply splits easily with tabs when i used my chisel.
Many more machining operations, including 4th axis rotary, 5 axis (not that I see 5 axis in the near future), Rhino Nest and Rhino Art.
Everything here was done with basic tools, I would love to carve an outdoor theme (mosaic?) that carried out across the cabinets. Is that doable and just how difficult would that be?
Its been a long 6-7 months for me. Including the 3 month wait for the parts to arrive. If i did have so many side projects it would go faster. I also change hobbies frequently and i go completely overboard when i get into a new hobby then lose interested in a few years lol.
Indexing and holding the work is also something to be considered as learning curve. All tho, you have woodworking skills already so that makes practical CNC stage a lot easier.
Instead of outsourcing 3D modeling to overseas my recommendation would be to hire a tutor if at all possible locally. College kids are great. They charge little and save a lot of time. Assistant teachers may also look for a part time gig, tutoring.
Mosaic would be 2D work which is fairly simple.
You can even go so far as to import a JPG in to the software and draw over it.
Roman, what clearances are you using for dadoes? I made mine pretty much exact size on this new project im working on. Lets say your workpiece mdf is 0.709" thick i cut the dadoes at 0.712-0.715. Is this cutting it too close?
Rcarpenter R-Carpenter said: It's not difficult but takes a bit of getting use to.