El Beast - Initial design phase, comments and critique welcomed!

Great build. Looking forward to seeing the end results.

What CAD software do you use out of interest?

Also, where did you get the foam from? I'm thinking of doing the same for my garage / setup.

Thanks

Cheers,

Using Fusion 360, foam was from www.efoam.co.uk and I got the downcut router bits from www.cncroutershop.com

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

Cheers,

Using Fusion 360, foam was from www.efoam.co.uk and I got the downcut router bits from www.cncroutershop.com

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Many thanks. I assume you use a single flute or similar for the foam? What speeds / feeds please?

Thanks

I found the best cutters to be single flute down cut (I used cutters by Belin), up cut gives you a crappy top edge. Had good results from 3000mm/min and 18-24,000rpm depending on bit diameter. You must use conventional milling too, climb milling gives an awful edge....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zeeflyboy

I found the best cutters to be single flute down cut (I used cutters by Belin), up cut gives you a crappy top edge. Had good results from 3000mm/min and 18-24,000rpm depending on bit diameter. You must use conventional milling too, climb milling gives an awful edge....

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Thanks. Which of the foam option did you take? The 'firm' one?
I had found this whilst googling ...

http://www.polyformes.co.uk/azote_fo...densities.html

LD33, pretty middle of the road in density.

So been busy with work and doing stuff in the garden, but I have had time to re-do my coolant system... the previous was a bit ramshackle and I only had air cooling as I hadn't got around to re-installing the coolant side. It's now built into the table so I figured it was worth getting sorted before I did any serious machining as it works for both the current machine and the new one.

I'm using a sil-air compressor & tank, two electronic solenoids for air/coolant control, a pool filter for the coolant reservoir (with it's own regulator) and an air gun for free hand chip clearing and clean up.

I run the air at 20psi and the coolant is just pressurised to around 2psi as that's all that's needed to get it flowing out the end of the nozzle. Coolant wise I got some kool mist #77 which I'm looking forward to having a go with.


http://i.imgur.com/0r1QWHU.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/uCwaTVY.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gpurtN0.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7tfafDv.jpg

Right, finally a proper bit of machining to show... I did a small re-design on the face plates as they still weren't quite going to fit on my machine and I wanted a slightly wider stance. In order to keep the structural part as a single piece, I made the main piece slightly shorter and then added removable "wings" for the extension.

I've left the wings uncoloured to make them easier to see:

http://i.imgur.com/mYZSdkr.png

Made the front main face plate today:

Started with a jig plate made from SRBP - nothing fancy, just a plate I could machine flat and put some screw threads into, and a slab of 20mm eco-cast plate.

http://i.imgur.com/Rcy7bqW.jpg


After interior roughing, contouring and drilling ops:

http://i.imgur.com/12zJDwl.jpg


I drilled though the m8 screw holes with a 6.8mm into the jig plate and tapped them to allow me to then fix the plate down through those, which then allowed me to the remove the clamps and run the exterior ops:

http://i.imgur.com/XxUgbWy.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/mE37ZFO.jpg


Top side finished:

http://i.imgur.com/zEyLVN2.jpg


Then flipped it over and re-fastened to run the rear chamfer:

http://i.imgur.com/MiXXvKH.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/I93tOvm.jpg


And done:

http://i.imgur.com/2U4EsnG.jpg

Nice work. Looks like it will be a great machine.

I keep meaning to add a finish chamfer on my parts. But when all the other ops are done I end up with a quick run around with a deburing tool because I want to move onto the next part.
Anyway watching with interest.

Cheers, I certainly hope so!

Yeah I like a nice chamfer to finish things off, I don't find it adds a significant amount of time overall but then I am just doing this for fun so I can certainly afford the little extra time.

So whipped out the rear plate today... very similar so it's pretty much a wash, rinse, repeat job just with a few tweaks, so I won't bore you with lots of photos:

top side done:

http://i.imgur.com/d4gNHjX.jpg


Bottom side done:

http://i.imgur.com/o1bB8Qh.jpg


Fitted:

http://i.imgur.com/9bfo0oK.jpg


Bonus points:

mmmm, pointy confetti....

http://i.imgur.com/N716ox6.jpg