It's begun....

[Washout]

Lol - I'll have a crack at the Aztec calendar soon I promise :-)

You're right the sound is a little disconcerting - was even louder than my bloody noisy compressor ;-)

[Jonathan]

If the coolant doesn't help then take a picture / video and that should make things more obvious...

[Washout]

Evening all:

A big milestone tonight, thanks again and as ever to Dean and Jonathan (I would be really struggling without you guys).

Firstly, the talk of slack Alices and tight chuffs had me checking over the machine for loose stuff and I found a couple of bolts that hold the Y Axis ballnut housing to the Z-Axis that needed tightening, so that helped as I think there was some play in the Z-Axis "rolling" about the Z Axis if that makes sense.

I also hooked up a bottle of PC coolant to the airbrush "mister" (will look at something less expensive for the future) and although its a bit vicious compared with a true mist i.e. almost flood I figured too much was better than nothing.

So I ran a roughing job for an aluminium catch in the normal 6082 using 12000rpm and 1200 mm/min and a DoC of 1mm. This ran, but I need to refine my toolpaths or how I'm generating them in Vectric, as the machine romped through the initial slot, but I had neglected to notice the toolpath was using alternate climb and conventional along the Y-Axis.

Whilst there was no mishap like last time, the difference between a conventional path compared to a climb was night and day i.e. the climb milling threw the chips out (and this time the chips looked like nice shiny chips rather than welds :) ). The conventional paths didn't throw the chips as well but the machine grumbled through the material, in fact the "grumbling" was vibrating the whole workbench

I also have some strangeness in the toolpath where some long cuts were stepping along rather than smoothly running and resulted in not so much chatter marks but waves.....weird.

Here's some pics of my first completed run in aluminium - I would have videoed, but I was hovering over the feedhold and e-stop :-) Also bear in mind this is a roughing pass and the "chatters" you can see are where the conventional milling occurred. The gouge you can see at one end of the oval was the "weld" and crap from the previous attempt.

Anyway, I am going to play with the strategies in Vectric to see which one does the most climb milling, as that was just eating through the material with nearly no "noise" at all.

I also have a finishing pass to run on the job shown as well as the other side - I hope the tabs hold up.....

More to come



Chris

[m.marino]

Chris you can set climb as an option in CUT3D. I use Vectric (VCarvePro, CUT3D, PhotoVCarve and also CamBam [Not Vectric]). Why I use the different ones, is a horses for courses item and I could not afford Aspire at that time (the ones I got hurt the budget enough though they are help increase earning a good bit). Drop me a message and will gladly help as able on Vectric. CamBam has some very useful ability if you are doing isolated 2.5/3D type work (I use it to help make chromatic harmonica combs and they are complex planes on the interior). I am very sound sensitive and Dean is correct in that once you get used to it you will know what sounds right.

It is looking really nice. If you are looking for vacuum tables I would look at Sorotec out of Germany as they are selling a really nice model from a US firm and they are well made. I am finishing building a wooden one that will do the job I need and be fit to my work area. If looking for a vacuum set up let me know. -Micheal

[Washout]

Hi Michael,

I thought I had tried everything to get CUT3D to do climb only. Can you let me know where the setting is?

I use CUT2D for standard work like signs etc. and know that has a setting.

I've also just downloaded a trial of BOBCAD, but that is crashing on my machine and likely something in my models it doesn't like.

I don't think I'll be looking at a vacuum table just yet, but if you're build logging that I'll definitely keep an eye on it. I'm happy enough with toe clamps and t-slot nuts and bolts so far and I also have a decent machining vice from ArcEuroTrade, which I've yet to try out.

Cheers


Chris

[Washout]

Hi guys,

Thought I'd post an update, although this is becoming more of a "learning machining" thread than a build log as such.....

I've still not found the climb vs. conventional setting in Cut3D, so have been persevering with the alternating raster strategy that get's output. This has been OK and in fact after running over the whole machine and torqueing everything down, it seems to be making less of a noise about it.

Roughing passes seem to be OK, but I'm not too impressed with the Vectric Cut3D finishing passes, which when using a ball nose cutter are not coming out very smooth (i.e. I have ridge lines), so I probably have a setting wrong somewhere. In the meantime I think I'll be using Jonathan's advise and leaving 0.1mm+ clearance and then run another pass to finish (both using the roughing strategy).

I've also tried my first 2 sided part, which cut fine apart from my bolts must have moved a few tenths of a mm, as I had an nice offset step in it.....doh. Anyway I also then tried the same part using the precision vice from ArcEuro, which is a great bit of kit. I also had some "fun" here, when my z axis zero to touch plate worked great and then I got cocky and tried the zero wizard (I'm using the 2010 screenset). This resulted in the tool sailing through my touch plate and leaving half of it lying on the bed when it hit the workpiece and continued on....at least I can use the shank as a new touch tool I guess (need to watch the tutorial video again to see what I did wrong there).

I think it was one of Dean's posts where he reckons more time is spent working out work holding than actual milling and I think I'm finding that to be very true.

Also I have been using APT for my 2 flute cutters, but I am need of some 3mm end mills which have a 3mm shank rather than APT's normal fatter shanked variant. Any suggestions for suppliers are more than welcome (also need to try 1 flute cutters).

Still on my to do list are wire up my limit switches, wire up and get the MACH3 spindle control plugin working and also look into a better misting solution than my airbrush, as that's not very elegant (anyone know where you can get misting nozzles and the rest of the stuff required).

I did however, manage to use some spare sheet Perspex/plexi-glass with some case making extrusions and build a bit of a "fish tank" affair for the machine a. to keep some of the swarf at bay and b. retain the excess "misting coolant".

I'll try and get some video up again soon, but I will likely be busy with a new lathe this week if all goes well.

Later


Chris