Attempting Aluminum

Mostly Printed CNC - MPCNC Advice
1

Now that school’s out, I have time to attempt to cut some aluminum and maybe engrave some wood. I am moving my mpcnc 23.5mm down to the garage and lowering the z to about 2 inches travel. I may get around to that new leadscrew as well.
For CAM, how does one go about using Fusion 360 for it? I am an Autodesk user so I feel it will be more natural for me to pick up on. I know enough of the actual CAM, call me uninformed, but where does the “gcode” actually get uploaded? Repetier? Noob over here

Curious as to what other people do for aluminum. I ordered a dewalt 660 and a single flute carbide endmill. My vicious1 homework tells me that rigidity is key hence the 2" Z. My overall tube span is 20" Y and 30" Z.

A Tidbit I noticed with my current setup is that when I flex the gantry with my hands, it seems like the most “play” or lack of rigidity comes from my belts. When the steppers lock their position, most of the gantry movement is from my belt stretching with the axis accordingly. Probably have to tighten them.

I can’t wait to plunge into some milling, up til now I am just the 3d printing master.

2

If you have the LCD, then just put the gcode on it and run it from the LCD. Otherwise, yeah repetier works.

The belts shouldn’t be super tight. I don’t know if there’s a better guide to tightness, but I pluck them and they make a sound. The tone will vary with length and stuff, but if they are too loose, they don’t make really pluck.

For the CAM, there is a thread with the Autodesk plugin. But I wouldn’t skip the EstlCAM learning. It is much simpler, and it’s very full features. There are EstlCAM​ tutorials here, and there are some good videos by Christian on YouTube or EstlCAM’s website. Don’t forget that insulating foam is cheap and it won’t break bits. Anytime you’re trying something new, start with foam.