Before I go much further, let me
introduce you to some of my ongoing projects.
CNC Router
Over the last several months I've been
collection various bits and pieces for a CNC router. I've already
built a Dremmel based “hardware store” model a few years ago, but
it turned out to be largely worthless for what I wanted to use it, so
this time I decided to go all in and build the machine to be as rigid
as possible, capable of cutting sheet aluminum among other things.
The machine will be a “moving gantry” style and will have overall
footprint of 27”x27” with 4-6” of vertical travel. Since I have
a working mini mill and a lathe, I decided to go with heavy duty
aluminum for the construction.
DRO for the mini mill
About a year ago I got a Harbor Freight
mini mill (Sieg X2). I went with HF, since it uses R8 spindle, so
when time comes to get something more rigid I will be able to keep my
tooling. It didn't take much time to realize that I REALLY wanted to
have a DRO. Initially I was planning to buy a Shumatech DRO-550, but
then I figured that making one would be much more fun, so I ended up
ordering three IGagings scales from Grizzly for at total cost of
$105. These are not calipers, but rather a two-piece scales, so for
some time I used them without the DRO box, since I've been busy at
school, but the project finally got underway this winter. Again, true
to my principle of “if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing”, I
went slightly overboard, and decided to add BlueTooth, so I can send
simpel G-code directly to the DRO. At this point I have a working
“proof of concept” for the hardware, but I will go into details
in one of the future posts.
CNC router controller
The common approach to a DIY CNC
machine control is to have an old PC running EMC or Mach3, but where
is the fun in that? Instead of doing what the common sense tells me
to do, I decided to make an embedded controller for the router that
can receive the G-Code over the network or BlueTooth. While the
interpreter won't be as full-featured as EMS, interpreting G-Code
isn't all that complicated, and microcontroller-based system should
cope with the task very well. A few weeks ago I received a
development board from ST Microelectronics (STM32F4Discovery) and the
little beasty comes with ARM Cortex MCU, floating point unit and a
DSP. In my estimation it should have no problem running the mill at
all.
Various mill and lathe mods
I've had the mini mill and a 9x20
Harbor Freight lathe for a bit under a year. Those of you who own HF
tools probably know that what HF sells isn't exactly top of the line
equipment. While both tools have been indispensable, they have a lot
of “room for improvement”. Lathe would definitely benefit from
the tail stock being coaxial with the spindle and having right angle
between the X and Y movements on the mini mill won't hurt either. In
addition to the standard “finishing”, I want to add some mods and
gadgets. In the near future I'm planning to convert the mill to a
belt drive, add the DRO box (the scales are starting to drive me
nuts... they turn off after 1 minute or so), replace the gibs with
either brass or Delrin AF (or Torcite), convert the lathe to DC
drive, add motorized power feed to the mill and the lathe. Again, as
things develop, I will post pictures and details
There is more small stuff I'm tinkering
with, but chances are you will see much more about each of the
projects I've mentioned.
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