First project is getting close...

The aluminum sign came out just perfect. Once coolant was applied to the cutting tool everything went smoothly. Next up is clear coating the aluminum and putting stand offs for installation.

Also working on these oval patterns, but too many nails in the wood are keeping me from finishing this project... :(

Coolant required

After destroying a $25 single flute endmill by letting the aluminum get too hot and melt, I figured it'd be wise to put some coolant on there next time!

 

All these need to be cut into ovals.

Chips ahoy!

Finally material is cut and chips are flying! I've got a few projects now, and I'm getting lots of practice.
Rough cutting a circle from birch.

 

 The final pass.

 

 Without a metal working lathe I cannot replace this wornout bearing cup, so the next best thing is JB Weld!

 Just a practice run. The same cut will be made of 0.090" 6061 alloy aluminum on Monday!s

 Along with this milestone in progress for my machine also came an equally significant failure in safety. While I was vacuuming the dust from the finished part around midnight, I accidentally bumped my right hand into the razor sharp cutting tool which was stopped and still in the router from earlier, looks like this.

The result is a laceration which needed 4 stitches, seen HERE
Time to update safety protocol!


Thanks for reading!

It's been three months and I've only made one sign... :-)

Success at last!

Plenty of practice drawing circles and not using the e-stop

First I'll cover the wiring reconfigure. I decided to let my OCD kick in and get me replace 70% of the wiring on the machine since it was last running. $80 was a small bite in order to have the correct gauge wire everywhere and have nice connectors installed for easy assembly/disassembly. Oh yeah and two days of work on that.

 We call these "Lobster tails." They keep the wires nice and happy while the machine is moving about.

FINALLY after hours and hours of fixing squeaks, tuning motor resonance, setting up the limit switches, setting soft limits, setting up coordinate system and origin, and learning some G-code it was time to practice drawing some circles. Sadly this is the part where I was given the opportunity to try out my Emergency stop button, which I failed miserably. For one reason or another I had disabled the Estop and forgotten about it. Oops :-/ Just a tiny scratch really, but also a broken router bit :-( One of many failures to come I'm sure. Hopefully all minor ones like this ;-D