Going over to the dark (CNC) side!

[crueby]

No problem watching woodworking here (my avatar should prove that! ), though I may have to get you to make me up some wooden plane bodies!   

[Jasonb]

Before cleaning up the machine from cutting the brown stuff there was one other little item that I have had drawn out for a while. Originally intended to cut from some wood grain UPVC facia so that the lettering showed up white on the darker material but did not have any off cuts wide enough so I decided to make it from some 6mm melamine coated MDF.

Pleased with how it turned out particularly the engraving as it was the first time I had tried that and pleased with the "square" ends to the numbers rather than rounded that you often see, F360 works out the magic and lifts the 90deg vee tool at the ends though it did have a strange way of doing the rounded parts of the numbers such as 6 & 9 first?

I actually mucked up the first one having also entered the 5000rpm spindle speed as the feed rate giving 5000mm/min so the order of cutting is not really right. It should have been hole with the 6mm cutter then engrave and chamfer with the 90deg chamfer mill. Now I can get rid of the wooden rack the original 1-10 set cam in and the boxes from the ARC half mm and imperial ones.

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJAPIldGSB0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJAPIldGSB0</a>

[Alyn Foundry]

Oh dear, Jason. Perhaps you shouldn't have mentioned engraving??

How difficult would it be to knock something like this out at 1/4 the size?

Cheers Graham.

[Jasonb]

Way too difficult

What is the approx full size, one obvious thing is that the open/shut looks to be set well back from the horizontal part above. To cut around the letters would need a very small dia tool which usually does not have much reach so could be a problem getting in close enough without hitting the shank. Also would you be wanting a one off in brass or a pattern?

J

PS full set kinky ones done and a main cap

[kvom]

The lettering could be done on a separate material and the top and bottom attached.

But 3D printing would be better all around.

[Alyn Foundry]

Hi Jason.

Not to worry, it would have been nice to fit it to this engine....   

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNfzFZMWXQg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNfzFZMWXQg</a>

Cheers Graham.

[jadge]

Should be possible, albeit with some fiddling and depending upon the size needed. It would be tedious to reproduce the poorly defined fonts from the original casting though. In due course I'll let people know how the cover for my regulator goes:



The lettering is much tidier than the original casting. In model size the font is 2mm high and each letter is individually scaled to allow machining with a 0.5mm endmill. Currently my CAM is saying just over an hour in steel with the endmill running at 24000rpm and 100mm/min.

Andrew

[Jasonb]

In due course I'll let people know how the cover for my regulator goes:

Should be an open and shut case

Look forward to hearing how it goes. I think I may try an engraving bit as the tapered end will hopefully be a bit more durable than a straight shank cutter though with it's single cutting edge and my 5000rpm max it may take some time.

The way that F360 generated the path to square up the letters was being discussed on ME forum so I took a short video of the tool moving around to cut the number "1" which may also be of interest here. You can see how it ramps in and then lifts to ramp up the other side of each end. I will have to see if it does similar for raised letters which would give nice crisp internal corners.

Best watched full screen on Youtube

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvnde64xjcU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvnde64xjcU</a>

[Muzzer]

I made a couple of toolholder racks from MDF. I still use them but be aware they puff up at the slightest presence of coolant or WD40. In my case that was the excuse needed to buy some 16mm acetal and have another go.

Fusion 360 now has some pretty smart engraving / embossing functions that work on non planar surfaces. Your video is a great illustration of how they have implemented the engraving. That valve plate thing should be fairly quick and easy to do.

[steamer]

My fusiong 360 version on my 440

its to mounted to a 15 degree sloped enclosure....I have the tool paths....and can share the files

Made from a strip of cut off from a polypropylene cutting board....


Dave

[Jasonb]

Oh to have quick change tooling Murray, I thought you would have an auto changer to stack the tooling in by now

If anyone wants to make one like my ER16 rack then this will take you to theF360 file https://a360.co/2PXHrwF

I used the same melamine coated MDF to make a rack for my ER32 collets and that's still fine after a couple of years use.

Murray is that Emboss feature at the design stage? I still tend to draw in Alibre and just use F360 for CAM.

Have any of you used the tapered engraving cutters? Toby looks to have used them to good effect and I have been watching a few videos by a guy who also uses the Sorotec cutters on a rather nice home built epoxy framed machine.

Toby's results
http://www.modelenginemaker.com/index.php/topic,7050.msg156640.html#msg156640

Cutters
https://www.sorotec.de/shop/Zerspanungswerkzeuge/sorotec-werkzeuge/Gravurwerkzeuge/Gravierstichel
https://www.sorotec.de/shop/Zerspanungswerkzeuge/sorotec-werkzeuge/Gravurwerkzeuge/Gravierstichel--Standard-/

Sebastian End
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rep3HAdxfKU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rep3HAdxfKU</a>

[Muzzer]

Jason - yes I actually have an ATC for my machine but it's so big and cumbersome I can't bring myself to go to the bother of fitting it. I'd also need to come up with some form of controller to drive it from my system IO. I think I may ebay it or possibly strip out most of the dead weight to create a minimalist version.

Yes, the emboss functions are within the design space. Fitting text and features etc to non-planar faces used to involve all manner of workarounds but now it uses an "unwrap" process to project perpendicular to the surface and extrude cut a consistent distance. At some point you need to try out the design space. For one thing, it's really useful to be able to rapidly move between design and manufacture to finesse the part as you make it.

The emboss function also works well with chamfer to create the sharp vertices noted earlier in this thread.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAjhTFxi2_w" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAjhTFxi2_w</a>

[kvom]

I have a set of engraving cutters from Bits&Bits, all 1/8" shank and different tip widths.

So far I've used the one with .020" tip in brass to good effect.

[Jasonb]

Looks like I would need a 4th axis to make use of that emboss feature.

Think I may get a 0.5mm engraving cutter (0.020") and maybe a 0.3 to have a play with.

Still waiting for Graham to confirm sizes but I can't imagine that valve being any more than 2" dia on full size so that's only going to be 1/2" dia on the 1/4 scale model which makes for some very small writing

[Alyn Foundry]

Looks like I would need a 4th axis to make use of that emboss feature.

Think I may get a 0.5mm engraving cutter (0.020") and maybe a 0.3 to have a play with.

Still waiting for Graham to confirm sizes but I can't imagine that valve being any more than 2" dia on full size so that's only going to be 1/2" dia on the 1/4 scale model which makes for some very small writing

Oh, sorry Jason.

I was being a little facetious, for the few that looked at the video the nameplate was a casting and the pattern was done by a deep photo etching process. The Brass foundry had no problems in casting, as you can see.

Further patterns were going to be made until I decided to finally close the project due to the engines poor running performance.

Thanks for your indulgence.

Cheers Graham.