CNC Avenue

Thanks for your replies guys. Looking forward to meeting you both. I’m going to the open house tonight to get a my fob for access. I’m fairly open for time so let me know when you’re going to the makerspace next. I’ve found the post processor for linuxcnc but need to get the details of the machine for fusion360. I have too many questions to ask here so be prepared 😀 I also have material (aluminum plate, wood etc) to donate so we can talk about that too. I was in the middle of modifying my corexy printer and building another cnc router when we sold our house so everything is in storage 😞. Very excited to get building again!

Thanks again guys!

Rod

Hi Rod! Great to hear from you, looking forward to seeing some of your creations come to life on this mill.

I do a lot of work with Fusion 360 on a professional basis myself, mostly on the design side.

From my understanding we will still used Fusion 360 to generate the tool paths and include the work holding items. Once that is done a post-process conversion to Linux CNC is used, and then all the cutting operations are done within the linux CNC on the CNC computer itself.

This should work well for you to take your designs in Fusion and create all the toothpaths in the same software.

I hope to create a library of tools and presets for the machine at the space, unfortunately I'd been sidelined the past few months.

Hello Rod: I’ve rewired the vertical mill and am slowly getting acquainted with the program. The motors are driven by gecko drives g320 through a parallel board connected to the computer. The software used is called linuxcnc. I’ve using the software to do manual movements and very simple cuts. I only have youtube experience with this equipment so I am very much in a cautious learning mode. I am happy to meet up with you at the space and share everything I know. My experience/strength is more with electrical and controls and am working on installing safety end stops to prevent the machine from running past safe limits.

hi everyone, I'm a new member here at the makerspace and i have a few questions about the vertical mill and cnc router.

what program is used to run these tools? what boards are used? i use fusion 360 for design and have a corexy 3d printer and smaller cnc router capable of cutting aluminum. both are run with duet3 and duet2 respectively so i understand how to use user interface etc(i built and programmed both) but ive never used the more common cnc milling programs such as mach3. i would love to be shown how to use both of the cnc machines and also to offer any assistance i can to do any maintenance or whatever on this equipment (laser too!) im a 40 plus years retired automotive technician who loves to tinker but no place to do it!

thanks!

Rod

Jason and I were getting the CNC Mill back up and running yesterday.

There was a plastic container full of tooling for this machine under the workbench in the shop, but we could not find it. I suspect that maybe during the cleanup this got moves elsewhere...

Does anybody know where this box of tooling went?

I started going down a rabbit hole on this mil this morning, a couple resources:

CNC Cookbook write up on the manual version.

3D model 3D model to drop into CAD.

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Questions on how to use the forum? Want to learn about 3D Design or 3D printing? Please ask me!

So the automation portion is in fact running.

The outstanding items I see are:

- Need to check the X-axis ballnut as Hunter and I may have set it too tight. We also never properly centered the jack screw prior to retightening the ballnut support.

- Need to align/square the bed on all axes

- As far as cooling fluid, what I have learned from machining channels is that you need it if you are doing high speed cuts. On a hobby machine I have only seen lubricant application with a brush prior to cutting.

- As far as tooling I suggest:

- Set of machinist's thin parallels (to hold the piece square and high enough on the vise jaws)

- soft faced hammer (for setting the pieces on the vise)

- facing cutter (for cutting surfaces square)

- edge finding tool

- R8 Shank Keyless drill chuck

As far as instruction I am following a youtuber called Quinn Dunki who has an excellent tutorial on operating both lathe and mill tables. It is Called BlondiHacks. Highly recommend this to anyone who wants to learn about machining.

Hey all, checking in on the status of the CNC Mill.

I'd heard it was running but needs cooling fluid to do any real metal work.

Is there any tooling required? Any outstanding issues?

For posterity I've attached a manual that I had downloaded some time back.