Spent all evening making the STL file usable & doing CAM, hopefully have time to cut it tomorrow. First time in 1/2", but am facing the part and OD contour area so max DOC is only .391. Still need to do the fixture/back chamfer CAM. Looks like I’ll get to bust out the ball mill for the other side!
I haven’t done any serious aluminum cutting since I want to do a mist system and haven’t gotten around to that yet, but you can add me to the steel club in the meantime! 3/16" steel from Lowes, not sure exactly what.
Used the settings out of Ryan’s video, .125 DOC .012 stepover adaptive rough. I spot drilled entries for all the pockets with a 90 deg v bit & then drilled them out with a 3/16" in a hand drill. I’d like to get a 1/4" shank stub drill to do this with the machine. The hex wasn’t quite large enough on my first cut (didn’t test…) so when I flipped the part I opened that up a little before I chamfered that side.
First spot drill, messed this up.
Most of the way through first setup.
First side done.
Fixing my hex dimension.
Done!
OMG!!! YESSSSS!!! You have just made my night!
That is sexy!
Beautiful
3/16"?!? Wow.
Thanks guys! I think she’ll suffer more, that piece was the only scrap steel I had laying around.
Wood dust, yuck.
First serious engraving run, came out pretty well. I have had the CAM & stock for this laying around for a while. Used a 30 deg v bit to minimize the effect of stock height variation on trace width. My outer contour was too close to the ring around the whole outside which is also supposed to be engraved, so I negative offset a finish contour a bit to get rid of it. Still needs a little cleanup, later. I think this would be cool in side lit acrylic.
Making parts for an AEROSPACE company on my $500 CNC!!!
(that’s what I’d title my video if I were a clickbait Youtuber)
Situation came up at work where we needed a piece for some tooling done ASAP and it takes forever to work through the correct bureaucratic channels and have it done in our tool room, I probably wouldn’t have had it for a couple weeks. So I went home and made it on my MPCNC instead J. Two hours later, a solution was designed, programmed & cut. I wish I were allowed to make more neat stuff, problem solving quick turnaround engineering/machining would be a dream job… Cut dry without air blast, chip clearing was no problem on this part and my air blast was dismantled while I turn it into a misting system
Aluminum plate for a handle used to pick up fixtures that go in something akin to an oven (won’t elaborate further). They get hot enough that the straight 3D printed version I tried was melting, so some metal was needed. Works great! The handle was printed on a Markforged Mark Two & reinforced with carbon fiber, it’s crazy stiff for a plastic part.
A little close for comfort, that was lucky!!
Finished part
Hooks nicely on the fixture
Great design and execution! If it’s anything like the place I used to work, you’ve got some “Cinderella money” coming at the end of the year. Probably a good time to request some new capital equipment in the form of a CNC machine and some spare parts :).
I just counted it as two hours of overtime and am moving on. I’d love to do stuff like this full time, but we are a union shop (I am salaried) and they are extremely protective of their work. I have a tiny Taig lathe in a storage room & even that is getting a lot of kickback.
It really sucks that we outsource a ton of production and tooling (industry is insanely busy right now and we don’t have the manpower/machines to keep up) and all that money goes to companies we have relation to but the moment I want to do something useful and help out I could get in trouble for it. I am the major proponent of 3D printing at my work & even that is becoming a gray area as I’m working printed fixtures/etc. into production areas.
/ranting, I just want to make stuff and be happy 
Union rules can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. I worked at the same company, two shops on was union one was not. Very very different attitudes. Honestly not sure which I preferred.
Another amazing part, you have got a lot of talent they are lucky to have you. Keep this sort of thing up and I am sure you will go far.
Thanks Ryan, that means a lot!
I support unions as a concept and am all about the individual over a corporation, it’s just a frustrating situation where I am and what I want to get out of working. There are a lot of great people in both sides of the company and none of the great ones on the floor give a shit about stuff like this because they know it’s no threat to them- but there’s crappy people who exist to fuss and bring everything down.
This is getting off topic, I’ll hang around another year or two at least (resume building, I’m only 1.5 years out of school) and if I don’t like it then, maybe I’ll move on.
In MPCNC related news, I have a couple good wood projects coming before Xmas but nothing in metal coming up 
gotta finish up my mister soon, I’ve been slacking so hard on that.
