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  1. #21
    Phew... been a busy couple of months there..

    If anyone is around the Lemington Spa area, the beast (must be 400kgs... F.heavy!) is on display and making large bits smaller at the model engineering exhibition from Thursday through Sunday, 16th to 19th October.

    If you are going, come and say hello.. Full tours available! :-)

    EDIT:
    Forgot to mention there is at least one other CNC there, CNC lathe and I understand some 3d printers and laser cutters too... During a brief wander around earlier I also spotted some reasonably priced end mills and nice chunks of alloy I shall be revisiting. :-)
    Last edited by sweetdream; 16-10-2014 at 01:32 AM.

  2. #22
    Hi sweetdream, thanks for mentioning exhibition at LS. I have just booked tickets on line for tomorrow, so will probably see you there. G.

  3. #23
    Clive S's Avatar
    Lives in Marple Stockport, United Kingdom. Last Activity: 14 Hours Ago Forum Superstar, has done so much to help others, they deserve a medal. Has been a member for 9-10 years. Has a total post count of 3,333. Received thanks 618 times, giving thanks to others 78 times. Made a monetary donation to the upkeep of the community. Is a beta tester for Machinists Network features.
    + one ..Clive

  4. #24
    hi guys, it was heaving in there today... you couldn't get near some of the stuff on show. They were 3 deep most of the day!

    I did meet a couple of lurkers from here, (you know who you are! lol...) They'd read this thread and were going anyway. Thanks for stopping by and saying hello, really nice to chat and thank you for the kind words gents.

    As always, there's lots of interesting people who want to talk CNC stop by and one or two luddites who don't get it. One of the more eclectic conversations this morning was with an old boy who recounted that when he was an apprentice, his boss thought that no apprentice should be allowed to use "powered" machinery until they had done 6 months on a treadle powered one! LOL, brilliant....

    Clive, Geoffrey, look forward to meeting you.

  5. #25
    I had intended to add something to this log after each day at the show, but lack of sleep and a duff Mac software update killed that idea! (don't load the 10.9.5 Mavericks update, it killed my machine sufficiently to provoke reinstalling OSX!)

    Back to the show;
    A HUGE thank you to Graeme, an extremely talented and helpful guy who was kind enough to spend a lot of his time helping me on Saturday, (I should have that item and the plans in the post to you on Wednesday).

    Also to Tim, who got collared into manning the stand with me and hung around till the end of Sunday to help me load the beast back in the car while explaining the vulgarities of making casement windows on the CNC! lol. Big, big thanks to you both!

    Met up with Clive and Geoffrey and got nothing done while we chatted. lol. Geoffrey that is an incredible bit of work you did, you should put the pics up! Clive, thanks for passing on the message. Great to meet you both and glad you enjoyed the day.

    I was surprised at how many Lurkers came to say hello, there must have been 30 or so. That's only the ones who mentioned seeing this build log! I heard about some great ideas and some amazing gear but was surprised to hear the reasons why they were lurking rather than posting. There was a surprising number of team builds too, where a couple of people got together to build a CNC.

    Rob and Rob... thanks for the kind words, yes, it is a beast of a design. :-) I like the principal of building it stronger than the hardest material you want to cut. Yours sounds fine for doing wood but throw a pic or two up here and get the "illuminati" to take a look if you still have concerns.

    There were a couple of commercial CNC designers I spoke to who were also building their own machines, but even if its your first machine, there's lots of ways you can help or inspire others to build theirs.

    Sweet Dreams seemed to act as the focal point for anyone with an interest in CNC at the show and what I found nice was seeing groups of people by the stand chatting to each other about their own CNC or their plans for one. Thankfully(?) no one came up with any improvements to the design of Sweet Dreams, so I don't have to build a second one! lol.. Thanks to everyone who took the time to come and say hello and chat about their CNC or ask about Sweet dreams. I had a great time at the show, learned from some generous and amazing people and had conversations with experts about subjects I knew little about!

    Going to one of these shows is highly recommended if you want to talk engineering and see some incredible work. Very inspiring.

    Here's some images of workmanship to drool over;

    Image 1: musical box!
    Image 2: is the modified 3020 from Society of mechanical and Experimental Engineers, running on a Raspberry pi!
    Image 3:scratch build radial aero engine...
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    Last edited by sweetdream; 22-10-2014 at 11:21 AM.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by sweetdream View Post
    I heard about some great ideas and some amazing gear but was surprised to hear the reasons why they were lurking rather than posting.
    Come on then enlighten us to why.?

    Sorry couldn't make it like I hoped to but just too busy and after speaking with Clive about the journey(4hrs to get home) that just doomed any chance.!!
    Sounds like the space ship took off well again and we will meet up one day.! Don't know where, don't when but I know we'll meet again.!! . . .Opp's went War time on ya then. . Lol
    Coming down your way in not too distant future so will drop you a line and maybe meet up then.?

  7. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by sweetdream View Post
    I heard about some great ideas and some amazing gear but was surprised to hear the reasons why they were lurking rather than posting.
    That's a real shame. I'm sure the complete novices on here, myself included, would value more feedback on our posts. So come on you lurkers, I'm almost certain if you all became active members the forum would be a much richer place for it. Don't be shy now.

  8. #28
    Hi Sweetdreams,

    I'd missed this post so was surprised to come across your machine at the Engineering Show. Your colleague gave me an overview, plus mentioned that it was out of action following a suspected break out board failure. Hope you get that sorted soon.

    Machine looked good anyway.

    Thanks
    Building a CNC machine to make a better one since 2010 . . .
    MK1 (1st photo), MK2, MK3, MK4

  9. #29
    @ RouterCNC
    Sorry I missed you! We either caught the cable by squeezing past it, (it was tight around the back of the stand), or might even have been pulling the dust covers off it but somehow managed to rip the connection socket out of the board.. works great in the workshop but shifting it in and out of cars and around at shows, it needs to be a bit more resilient to hanger rash. :-)
    Last edited by sweetdream; 22-10-2014 at 03:29 PM.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by IanS1 View Post
    That's a real shame. I'm sure the complete novices on here, myself included, would value more feedback on our posts. So come on you lurkers, I'm almost certain if you all became active members the forum would be a much richer place for it. Don't be shy now.
    It's an interesting point. The problem might be that there are a few very experienced machine builders who contribute, and who can talk from their experience. There are others with deep theoretical knowledge (and some practical skills as well, but that's not the point) who can offer a different insight into problems or questions. It's worth a beginner listening to all of them. Then there is a small number (fortunately very small, and possibly near zero at the moment) who claim to know a lot but it's just what they've read somewhere else. Usually not adding much to the discussion and sometimes just misleading or wrong. Then there's the other 98% of us. So, specific example - I built a CNC router to the JGRO design 2-3 years ago. Hadn't found this forum at that time, and it seemed like a good idea. Taught me a lot, mainly how not to do it, but little of that is worth repeating. I did electronic engineering at university, and can find my way around the problems of interconnecting the various bits of electronics needed to make a machine work. I understand the difference between n/o and n/c proximity switches, for example. But with my Mk1 machine, and the Mk2 currently being built. I only have experience of one particular kind of PC/BOB/driver, etc, combination. Ditto mechanical engineering - I've been a model engineer for nearly 40 years, with a decent workshop and set of machines and tools. I've worked in the IT business for most of my working life (and now retired) but have only used LinuxCNC and a limited range of CAD and CAM software. So, as happened a little while back, I was able to help someone who lives nearby configure and make work a machine he had bought (including learning Mach3 basics during our tea break!) but that's not anything like the range of experience that others have.

    So, where I can speak specifically from my own certain knowledge and/or experience, I might pop in a comment, but frankly I feel that there are others better qualified in almost any topic. And that may be why there are so many lurkers. Not forgetting, of course, that any attempt to stick your head over the parapet and give an opinion could result in getting your head blown off! It's only too easy to write something that was meant to be polite and innocuous but puts someone's back up quite inadvertently. I'm sure that this post will upset someone, somewhere, even though I have no desire to do so. You need a hide like a rhinoceros to participate in online discussions...

    I'm curious whether my thinking out loud mirrors any of the comments received at the exhibition referred to.

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