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

[routercnc]

Black it is then !

The contrasting text looks nice. When you machine each part is there a reference block or fixture so after anodising it can go back on the CNC in the right place to engrave the letters ?
What engraving tool are you using and to what depth ?
Great work by the way.

[Zeeflyboy]

Cheers.

To etch the lettering I'm chucking it in the CO2 laser - because it's a Glowforge it's a bit of an unusual one for zeroing a part. You can drag stuff directly where you want it using the top down camera but that's not quite perfect yet, so I tend to burn some reference marks into a piece of card/paper and line the part up with that if I need accurate alignment.

[routercnc]

I forgot you were that tooled up!

I wondered how you got such crisp edges and maybe the anodising was helping but laser makes sense now.

Don’t forget to make something on the new machine and not just more parts for it (!)

[Zeeflyboy]

Technically its the wife's ;)

You are assuming I ever finish... seems along way away. Fun journey though!

I've been busy anodising some the Z-axis parts... all that's left to do are the big front plate and the side plates (for which I need to cook up a clever way of holding them in the tub).


Top and bottom plate:






Here's my Dye tub (30L) and immersion heater with thermostat




And my big steel hotpot that fits most stuff for sealing:




Largest part so far - the back plate. This one ran at 10 amps and is the first time I've actually observed the anodising bath increase in temp during a run. Only by a degree or so but noticeable.






Too big for my hot pot, so I found a steel ash container and sealed it with silicon to make it watertight.




Final parts after a quick light buff with some automotive polish that helps remove some the haze I'm getting on the surface after sealing with the nickel acetate:





Hope to get the last few bits done in the next few days and then I can assemble and see how it looks. Might do a touch more laser etching too because it's addictive....

[AlexDoran]

Looking great as usual

[Zeeflyboy]

Good to know - thanks for the info!

So I needed to make a little doo-hickey out of titanium to allow me to rack the side panels (note, titanium screws too!)






Parts degreased and after a quick etch and Desmut:




Dyed and laser etched... I did two different etches here, the honeycomb was at a higher speed and lower power which has given it a nice grey effect that looks better in real life than on the camera. Was a bit worried after doing this that it was too bold and in your face, but having assembled it I really like the look as part of the overall assembly.




That done, I put together the bulk of the Z-axis after the anodising. Only the big front plate left to do but I need to figure out how I'm going to seal it as the only suitably large vessel I have to boil it in is a 60L drum which will take a loooong time to get to the boil with a 1.5kw heater.

[Chaz]

Fcking amazing work as ever.