Aluminium CNC build (TEP mill converted) by Craynerd

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raynerd:
Hi guys, I`ve only had half hour sessions in my workshop recently due to commitments at work and home. But I`m just updating a few of my threads, starting with this one.

Here is the cnc machine as it now stands and I`m pretty chuffed with how it has turned out. I`ve now milled aluminium sheet, brass and of course soft plastics and wood. I`ve also purchased some wider angle engraving tips that have been cutting very well.

I have a big project planned for this machine but more on that in due course.

Here is the machine as it stands:

The flexible cable shield is very good. I must admit, I`ve got a cable I can`t fit through which is stuck to the top defeating the purpose of the shield but it works well and keep everything near:

Electronics are housed in an MDF case with a clear perspex top. Master on off switches for the machine and spindle with the pot also hooked up to the front perspex case.

Hall effect sensor with a collar and magnet on the spindle gives me what seems to be a fairly accurate reading of spindle speed in Mach3. Unfortunately, Mach3 does a very poor job of controlling the spindle directly even with my microcontroller pic controlling the PWM in line with the ESC. I have a dual boot system and EMC2 / linuxCNC has no issue at controlling my spindle speed directly from the software!! Unfortunately, I prefer Mach3 and so I am living with manually controlling the spindle speed but with Mach3 displaying the RPM from the hall effect sensor:

Thanks for looking and all the help I got from various people on this forum when building this machine. It is better than anything I had thought it would be capable of!

Chris

raynerd:
Hi guys,

Just wanted to show you my latest project. I was going to put it in the wood section but actually, I`ve done no woodworking skills to do this, it has all been CNC!!

I`m laying some parquet flooring in my porch. It is only a small 3m sq area and so I fancied making a little more special by adding some inlays. This is my first effort and more hopefully to come.

I just wanted something simple to try so I choose a star/compass with a N letter. It could be much more intricate but for now I wanted to just go with a single wood inlay. The parquet block is oak and the inlay is in maple.

Using VCarve, which I must say in my opinion is probably the best piece of software to match its quite complex function, that I`ve ever used! I created a vcarve path in the oak block. I then inverted the image and created a v carve path between my image vector and a rectangle I`d purposly added and drawn outside of the material boarder. This then cuts the material in the inverse and you get the image above the main timber level. This takes a lot longer as it has to remove all the extra.

Push the male into the female and glue.

Machine away the excess material and sand level:

OK, only a simple inlay but I couldn`t have even dreamed of doing this by hand. To get the "N" so well pronounced as well. I bet it would take a little more sanding and I would hope that would make the edges even sharper but I`ll leave this for now. I might use it, I might not...I`ll see how some more complex designs come out!

Chris

micktoon:
Hi Chris , that last project looks realy good :clap: , very nice edges between the two woods, like you say you would have to be very good to do that by hand.
Cheers Mick

raynerd:
Cheers Mick, got another more complex design on the way now. We`ll see how that turns out.

John Stevenson:
If you made them with an E for East instead of a N for North you could sell millions in Bradford and make a fortune.

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