Hey Tim, quick tip: try to minimize the number of setups you use. Every time you remove the part from the vice you introduce error. All the best, cheers
I’ve been machining for 10 years and I’m now a full time programmer for a large job shop who does a ton of work for companies like CAT and John Deere. I do parts ranging from small to very large and I can tell you that a real machinist knows that if something works it works. A common idiom is “there are several ways to skin a cat.” You have to work with what you got and that’s the difference between a good machinist and a great machinist. Keep it up looks great.
as a person who built their own CNC machine, there's a few things i'll say 1)Protect your leadscrews, even if they are up and out of the way, they will still collect dust and chips. Trust me, that stuff gets everywhere. They make telescoping covers for ballscrews / leadscrews. use them. 2) To prevent chips from loading up on your linear rails, get some "way covers" or make your own if you have some sheet metal, and a metal break. don't get the cheap little accordion style, they only prevent directly deposited chips. get the telescoping sheet metal type, or as i said, make your own. 3) Use "jobber" drills, and Spot drills to help with your drilling operations. Also, use "peck drilling" to reduce the chances of chip weld, and drill walking. 3) Leave the hole in the bottom of the machine open, you can put some drawer slides under there, and attach a bin so that you can easily remove chips from the machine without constantly needing the use a vacuum. 4) Get and install a coolant misting solution. a Fog Buster is by far your best option, the cheap little Chinese knockoffs, or "venturi misters" don't really work well. 5) If you don't already have one, get a large air compressor. being able to blow chips off of parts, as well as add pneumatic tool changers, and other accessories to your machine later makes a compressor an indispensable addition to the machine. 6) You should use, and rely on your end stops. If the only reason you can't reach the table with your tools is the fact that you're afraid of crashing the spindle into the table, you've already lost the battle. Limit switches on BOTH ends of travel are a good thing, it will help you more than harm you. On top of that, for the Z axis, the lower end-stop can be wired as an emergency stop to prevent you from crashing into the table. 7
Machinist here! Been watching you for years and loved your videos, especially the air power engined airplane. You've always made me feel out of depth with all of your builds and it's nice for once to know more than you about something haha Very impressed with the build, and yes would highly recommend making covers and adding a lubricant option.
To cover the ways, you could use a bellows type cover or I have always thought of a kind of sprung roller (like a sprung window blind) as the bed moves away it unrolls and as it moves back it rolls it up again, if you used a blind it's a) cheap b) takes up little room c) if the roller is on the underside, as it rolls up the chips (hopefully) would drop off the end (a bit like a conveyor belt)
Its good practice to never side mill past the cutting edge of an end-mill. Most of end mills are straight shank, so you have zero clearance between the shank and the work. This means that any bur left from the cutting will push the shank away from the work, tapering that part as you get deeper. This is twice as bad when you are cutting a slot or hole as you have even more contact area on the shank. Also you basically guarantee that you will snap the tool as soon as it wears the cutting edge.
When you're clamping two pieces in the vise (drill or mill), put a piece of copper wire between the objects and the moving jaw. This will make up for the inevitable small difference in size between the objects (no matter how hard you try to make them identical, there will be some difference), and provide good clamping force on them.
Love your videos Tom. As others have stated, I highly recommend using a center drill or a spot drill before you drill a hole with a high speed steel drill. A high speed drill will flex and "walk" without a spot to get them started.
Absolutely. Depends on size and material though. For soft materials or very large drills, they tend to walk less. My spot drill only goes to 3/8" so usually for aluminum if it's over that I don't spot drill and in steel or stainless I don't usually spot drill over about 3/4" unless it's one I need to pre drill smaller and then drill out.
@@Soundpost-f2l Agreed, you can get away with no spot if you have a tool with a large diameter to length ratio and very machinable material. ALSO you don't need a spot drill if you are using a carbide drill and have a nice flat surface you are drilling into.
Great build, great machine! For mounting the vise, I would consider to buy one of the standard a sets with clamps meant to be used with the T-slots of metal mill tables. They are cheap and will probably be handy for direct mounting of stock to the table, too.
You need to get the bolt hole covers for the linear rails. The way it is right now chips are going to fall into the screw holes and then are going to end up in your bearings.
Even the mill vice should really have a block on the other side when you are clamping a small part that sticks out the side. Might be better than your drill vice but still the same problem can happen. Nice to see the machine making some good chips though.
Have you considered helicoils for your holes? Aluminium is pretty soft and the threads may become damaged with use especially the ones youare goingtouse all the time. a good helicoil can usually mitigate the damage.
the accuracy of your device is quite impressive. This is the real part that show us how many hours you spend on this and how smart you handle it. The most awesome project you have done. Thanks.
Hey Tom! The CNC is looking great. A tip for when you're touching off tools to the workpiece; if you use a piece of known thickness shim stock between the tool and part it can save you from any tool breakage and scratches.
Great video! Got a few notes for you, I recommend doing you facing OP first that way you have a Z datum to work off of. I also recommend getting yourself a “wiggle” edge finder, they are stupid simple and make for a good backup for when your probe inevitably fails. Using oil may actually be detrimental in your application because it’s causing chips to build up on or in the tool-path, heat really shouldn’t be much of an issue but chip evacuation will be critical. You may need to terrace down on the full contact mill cuts to provide adequate clearance for the endmill to not recut chips. You’ll also want a lower profile vice, with the limited Z travel you’re going to need something as low to your table as possible. I’m excited to see how you put your machine to use!
Hey Tom, Just a quick tip for your future setups during milling processes. Try to zero your tooling off the back "fixed" jaw of your vise. This will help limit the number of times you have to find zero. It may mean you have to work in a different quadrant when generating your tool paths. Best of luck on your future milling projects!
Tom from the looks of it you're not set up for flood coolant system, so you should look into a Mist Coolant system, you can get them fairly cheap or make them yourself easily. Also you can use Rubbing Alcohol/Isopropyl Alcohol as a coolant/lubricant for machining Aluminum too. 👍👍
the thing you're going to want to change with those clamps you're prototyping is that you don't want a ramp that loosens the part (or vice in this case) if it shifts. you're putting a heavy point load on the corner of whatever you're holding potentially damaging it, and if there is plastic deformation at all anywhere in the clamp surface or on the part at that point load, it will just turn it loose. Modify your clamp design to clamp on the faces, not the corners.
While I am barely a machinist, the one advice I keep hearing from pretty much everyone better than me is: don't go for cheap tooling, especially in the beginning! Springing for some higher quality endmills now will make the learning process a lot less painful.
🙏 Thank you, Tim, for your incredible video on building this CNC machine from scratch! Your detailed approach and clear explanations made it so easy to understand the process. I really appreciate the effort you put into sharing your knowledge. Can't wait to see what you create next! Keep inspiring us! 🚀
They make flexible way covers that might work for covering your linear rails and ball screw. I would also recommend an edge finder. They mount in your collet and help you get x and y setup with a bit less wory about smashing an endmill.
You should look into an edge finder. There are many different kinds. The simplest ones are just the split ones that step over once you are on the edge. There are also the dial ones that are much more expensive. Awesome build!
The hole on the bottom of the machine seems to be a perfect feature, to make cleaning it up easier. I would rather add a box / drawer below and you have some of the cleaning work done, haha! Great vid!
You need to center drill first before drill in metal with that type of drill bit. You can buy drill bits that don’t need it but with a less ridged setup it is almost always a must. For the spindle torque issue peck drill.
I do agree that it is good practice to spot drill, as it helps start the drill in the right spot, but depending on the required accuracy it is not always strictly required.
@@2testtest2 its not strictly required, but you dont drill holes with a drill bit at high speeds unless you want to dull the drill bit quickly. Plunging an end mill would have been more effective if he just wanted a hole. You live and you learn I guess.
1:32 you should cover the electrical contacts too. 10:38 even with a machine vice you have to support the other side with something to prevent bending the vice jaws.
Very nice job mate, one thing i learned on my cnc journey is to buy rennie tools as they are cheap and very good quality, they arrive next day with first class, the other thing is to get a printers magnifier, its easy to check the sharpness of the end of the tool, even before they start cutting poorly
Dont know if you are planning to and im not a machinist but use ultrasonic and laser welders. You should install some accordion covers for your table to help cover the threads and slidetables below so they dont get clogged up with chips and dust.
For the endmills, I have a good source of cheap end mills that absolutely rock it in aluminium and give really good surface finish they are from ali-express from the brand dreanique, I only use those now, and it makes day and night difference. For the cooling, I don't use any lubricant as it only creates a mess that is more difficult to clean up, dry aluminium chips are much easier to vacuum away. I and most of us semi hobby machinist use cheap end mills, that when get blunt are cheaply replaced and on our machines we usually don't take ultra crazy cuts that it truly requires cooling ( in my opinion at least but you will have to figure that out yourself) my advise would be ditch the wd-40, buy the endmills from above and have fun, cheers!
Haha these are dreanique endmills! I've never used them before, but I found them on aliexpress and thought they were worth a try. Very impressed so far!
For the chips on the y axis, you can get cheap but custom sized and shaped way covers from a bunch of seller on aliexpress which are perfect for this issue, ive used them myself and they are great. And for a probe, V6 anti-roll 3D Touch Probe is a cheap but nice and acurate one perfect for a diy machine
They make edge finders which you can use to touch the sides of the stock to set the origin point. They are cheap and are spring loaded so they won't break if you accidentally push them into the material a little to far
I got hold of an old Renishaw ruby probe end that I was going to make fit on my CNC-ised mill/lathe but that probe you have looks like a very elegant premade solution and I will be very intrigued to see how well it works!
Making your own fixture holes in the bed, as first cuts on the machine is insaaaaane. Glad it worked out. Do you have any long-term plans for coolant? I think you could end up eating your own chips for most cuts without some kind of fluid solution.
Inspiring work and love the clear and detailed explanation of the design. That's a beautiful machine you have made. I made one with a stacked XYZ I wish I had split it to just have the XZ (YZ?) on a fixed gantry.
Also an "accordion" style material is a good way to keep chips off the ways and the leadscrew. It will squish and stretch as the bed moves back and forward and always keeps the ways and the lead screw covered, where as chips will work their way through brush material as the bed moves back and forward.
Regarding the "chip falling on ball screw"-issue usually they use something that is called "Bedway cover" you could do them out of sheet metal for the hight issue.. :D
The issue you are having with the drill bit flexing is pretty well known. The most common way to solve it is by first drilling with a center or spot drill. This will give the normal drill bit the ability to center itself on the right spot.
For the bed you can install some kind of accordion style fabric or whatever, attached to the bed and the walls of the enclosure, I think you can see something similar on other cnc machines. If not accordian then something which has layers of sheets that can slide on top of each other like an iris shutter
There are shorter drill bits known as "screw machine" drills which are much more rigid. Also, using a centering drill before the drill bit will help a ton as well. .02
7:08 Probe would be good obviously. But for cheapness, an edge finder or wobbler would be good too. Another trick is spin the spindle in reverse and use a rizla to see when the end mill is touching the workpiece (not risking damaging the end mill by touching the workpiece) it’s around 0.02mm thick to account for after touching on the side with it.
For setting X and Y, if you fit a peice of silver steel of a known diameter in a collet, and then use a set of feeler guages. gently moving the feeler guages back and forward, and slowly moving the axis using the pendant until the feeler guage binds. (you can slso use cigarette papers).
Nice seeing the machine taking cuts! Your spindle plate/z-axis plate is also mounted using standoffs if I remember correctly? That's a lot of lost rigidity right there, you should consider rebuilding that part to get rid of the standoffs. Also what is the cost of your machine thus far?
The probe is an exceedingly useful piece of kit for a CNC, however, I'd strongly advise buying some spare tips as they bend very easily and once bent are pretty useless. I buy my tips in batches of 6 !!
expensive probe need only if scanner old parts etc. lot better tool zeroing have touch plate, and lot cheapen accurate system zeroing part corner ets bit height.
@mattivirta I prefer the probe and a touch plate which covers 99% of the type of CNC work I do. But the probe tip are very easy to bend, especially if you are using the pendant and make a mistake. As I said, once they are bent, they are useless.
Nice machine! By the way, are the ballnuts preloaded single ones? I had normal clearance single ones and replced them by dual nuts and it made a difference at least in steel milling.. I also had plastic motor mounts that got replaced by aluminum ones (and the screw bearings that were not 0-clearance got replaced at the same time). Keep up the good work!
Not necessarily, if you've already cut to the same depth in a pass above then so long as the cutting edges of the flutes are ground flush to the dame diameter as the shank then it should be fine
About protecting the rails and ball screw - You should look at industrial grade mills. Those use a cover similar to the gas spring cover in office chairs. It would be possible to be 3d printed.
Before you finish the probe which will be great, you should just get an edge finder. One step ahead of using an endmill but not as precise or convenient as a probe
7:09 you can spin up the spindle to zero your work piece more precisely by hearing when it slightly scratches. I'm also an engineer hobby diy machinist.
I don't know what control system you're using, but see if it has "Velocity Mode" for the pendant and put it on the coarsest setting. This mode makes the axis move as fast as you spin the jog wheel and stops when you stop. It's easy to crash the mill in incremental mode cause once you command the axis to go somewhere, it's not turning back until it reaches it's target, usually taking an endmill or a probe with it! 🤣
«Chamfers are what separate us from the animals»
I was just going to add this!
Ha ha
Came here to say this.
And facing is as tradition
yahtzee!
Hey Tim, quick tip: try to minimize the number of setups you use. Every time you remove the part from the vice you introduce error. All the best, cheers
Isn’t it still Tom ?
@@lucienwerner No, this is Tim Station. Who is this Tom you are referring to?
@ Tom Stanton
His main channel
@@lucienwerner You're thinking of his twin.
I’ve been machining for 10 years and I’m now a full time programmer for a large job shop who does a ton of work for companies like CAT and John Deere. I do parts ranging from small to very large and I can tell you that a real machinist knows that if something works it works. A common idiom is “there are several ways to skin a cat.” You have to work with what you got and that’s the difference between a good machinist and a great machinist. Keep it up looks great.
And how many ways to skin a Deere?
@@jongmasseyat least one.
as a person who built their own CNC machine, there's a few things i'll say
1)Protect your leadscrews, even if they are up and out of the way, they will still collect dust and chips. Trust me, that stuff gets everywhere. They make telescoping covers for ballscrews / leadscrews. use them.
2) To prevent chips from loading up on your linear rails, get some "way covers" or make your own if you have some sheet metal, and a metal break. don't get the cheap little accordion style, they only prevent directly deposited chips. get the telescoping sheet metal type, or as i said, make your own.
3) Use "jobber" drills, and Spot drills to help with your drilling operations. Also, use "peck drilling" to reduce the chances of chip weld, and drill walking.
3) Leave the hole in the bottom of the machine open, you can put some drawer slides under there, and attach a bin so that you can easily remove chips from the machine without constantly needing the use a vacuum.
4) Get and install a coolant misting solution. a Fog Buster is by far your best option, the cheap little Chinese knockoffs, or "venturi misters" don't really work well.
5) If you don't already have one, get a large air compressor. being able to blow chips off of parts, as well as add pneumatic tool changers, and other accessories to your machine later makes a compressor an indispensable addition to the machine.
6) You should use, and rely on your end stops. If the only reason you can't reach the table with your tools is the fact that you're afraid of crashing the spindle into the table, you've already lost the battle. Limit switches on BOTH ends of travel are a good thing, it will help you more than harm you. On top of that, for the Z axis, the lower end-stop can be wired as an emergency stop to prevent you from crashing into the table.
7
Machinist here!
Been watching you for years and loved your videos, especially the air power engined airplane. You've always made me feel out of depth with all of your builds and it's nice for once to know more than you about something haha
Very impressed with the build, and yes would highly recommend making covers and adding a lubricant option.
To cover the ways, you could use a bellows type cover or I have always thought of a kind of sprung roller (like a sprung window blind) as the bed moves away it unrolls and as it moves back it rolls it up again, if you used a blind it's a) cheap b) takes up little room c) if the roller is on the underside, as it rolls up the chips (hopefully) would drop off the end (a bit like a conveyor belt)
good tips WarGrade!
I second this suggestion. You see them on professional mills and they work perfectly.
Absolutely, just buy some way covers.
Its good practice to never side mill past the cutting edge of an end-mill. Most of end mills are straight shank, so you have zero clearance between the shank and the work. This means that any bur left from the cutting will push the shank away from the work, tapering that part as you get deeper. This is twice as bad when you are cutting a slot or hole as you have even more contact area on the shank. Also you basically guarantee that you will snap the tool as soon as it wears the cutting edge.
come on, own up, weve all wasted an hour turning down the shank of an endmill out of desperation at least once
When you're clamping two pieces in the vise (drill or mill), put a piece of copper wire between the objects and the moving jaw. This will make up for the inevitable small difference in size between the objects (no matter how hard you try to make them identical, there will be some difference), and provide good clamping force on them.
Good advice, I prefer a sheet of copper/brass shim, or even just a piece of paper.
@@AdmitthatijustdiditX They all work.
Love your videos Tom. As others have stated, I highly recommend using a center drill or a spot drill before you drill a hole with a high speed steel drill. A high speed drill will flex and "walk" without a spot to get them started.
Absolutely. Depends on size and material though. For soft materials or very large drills, they tend to walk less. My spot drill only goes to 3/8" so usually for aluminum if it's over that I don't spot drill and in steel or stainless I don't usually spot drill over about 3/4" unless it's one I need to pre drill smaller and then drill out.
@@Soundpost-f2l Agreed, you can get away with no spot if you have a tool with a large diameter to length ratio and very machinable material. ALSO you don't need a spot drill if you are using a carbide drill and have a nice flat surface you are drilling into.
Machinist here. It's an er20 collet. Get a half inch end mill for facing and corners and features that don't require a smaller size.
Great build, great machine!
For mounting the vise, I would consider to buy one of the standard a sets with clamps meant to be used with the T-slots of metal mill tables. They are cheap and will probably be handy for direct mounting of stock to the table, too.
You need to get the bolt hole covers for the linear rails. The way it is right now chips are going to fall into the screw holes and then are going to end up in your bearings.
Or use real way covers. You can just buy them.
Using the machine to finish the machine is A+ work! Kudos!
Even the mill vice should really have a block on the other side when you are clamping a small part that sticks out the side. Might be better than your drill vice but still the same problem can happen. Nice to see the machine making some good chips though.
Very, very impressive! Well done Tom.
Have you considered helicoils for your holes? Aluminium is pretty soft and the threads may become damaged with use especially the ones youare goingtouse all the time. a good helicoil can usually mitigate the damage.
the accuracy of your device is quite impressive. This is the real part that show us how many hours you spend on this and how smart you handle it. The most awesome project you have done. Thanks.
Hey Tom! The CNC is looking great. A tip for when you're touching off tools to the workpiece; if you use a piece of known thickness shim stock between the tool and part it can save you from any tool breakage and scratches.
Great video! Got a few notes for you, I recommend doing you facing OP first that way you have a Z datum to work off of. I also recommend getting yourself a “wiggle” edge finder, they are stupid simple and make for a good backup for when your probe inevitably fails. Using oil may actually be detrimental in your application because it’s causing chips to build up on or in the tool-path, heat really shouldn’t be much of an issue but chip evacuation will be critical. You may need to terrace down on the full contact mill cuts to provide adequate clearance for the endmill to not recut chips. You’ll also want a lower profile vice, with the limited Z travel you’re going to need something as low to your table as possible. I’m excited to see how you put your machine to use!
Hey Tom,
Just a quick tip for your future setups during milling processes. Try to zero your tooling off the back "fixed" jaw of your vise. This will help limit the number of times you have to find zero. It may mean you have to work in a different quadrant when generating your tool paths. Best of luck on your future milling projects!
Tom from the looks of it you're not set up for flood coolant system, so you should look into a Mist Coolant system, you can get them fairly cheap or make them yourself easily.
Also you can use Rubbing Alcohol/Isopropyl Alcohol as a coolant/lubricant for machining Aluminum too. 👍👍
"I could have sworn I subscribed years ago."
"Oh Tim, totally different guy. Seems just as interesting as that Tom fella." 👍
the thing you're going to want to change with those clamps you're prototyping is that you don't want a ramp that loosens the part (or vice in this case) if it shifts. you're putting a heavy point load on the corner of whatever you're holding potentially damaging it, and if there is plastic deformation at all anywhere in the clamp surface or on the part at that point load, it will just turn it loose. Modify your clamp design to clamp on the faces, not the corners.
While I am barely a machinist, the one advice I keep hearing from pretty much everyone better than me is: don't go for cheap tooling, especially in the beginning! Springing for some higher quality endmills now will make the learning process a lot less painful.
🙏 Thank you, Tim, for your incredible video on building this CNC machine from scratch! Your detailed approach and clear explanations made it so easy to understand the process. I really appreciate the effort you put into sharing your knowledge. Can't wait to see what you create next! Keep inspiring us! 🚀
Next upgrade is to machine aone 45 degree gusset plates for the collums 😊 that should dramatically help you alot. Beautiful machine, great work!
They make flexible way covers that might work for covering your linear rails and ball screw. I would also recommend an edge finder. They mount in your collet and help you get x and y setup with a bit less wory about smashing an endmill.
It‘s always a good day, when you post a video! Keep it up!👍
You should look into an edge finder.
There are many different kinds. The simplest ones are just the split ones that step over once you are on the edge.
There are also the dial ones that are much more expensive.
Awesome build!
He bought a probe.
Can't wait to see all the project you're going to do with this CNC !
Great build! And not to shabby machining either, brother. It will be cool to see you progress in your machining as well.
Well done there Stan Thompson 👍
The hole on the bottom of the machine seems to be a perfect feature, to make cleaning it up easier. I would rather add a box / drawer below and you have some of the cleaning work done, haha! Great vid!
You need to center drill first before drill in metal with that type of drill bit. You can buy drill bits that don’t need it but with a less ridged setup it is almost always a must. For the spindle torque issue peck drill.
He's not foolin' when he admits he's not a machinist
I do agree that it is good practice to spot drill, as it helps start the drill in the right spot, but depending on the required accuracy it is not always strictly required.
Using a 6mm stub drill would be a better option. No center drill required.
@@2testtest2 its not strictly required, but you dont drill holes with a drill bit at high speeds unless you want to dull the drill bit quickly. Plunging an end mill would have been more effective if he just wanted a hole. You live and you learn I guess.
Yooooooooo, was waiting for this for sooo long
Finally..... 🎉🎉
P. S. I am an engineering students (college) and I love your videos.
Love from India❤
1:32 you should cover the electrical contacts too.
10:38 even with a machine vice you have to support the other side with something to prevent bending the vice jaws.
I just love that it is helping build itself.
Congratulations on your first cuts, i'm looking forward to some great projects. Thanks for sharing.
Very nice job mate, one thing i learned on my cnc journey is to buy rennie tools as they are cheap and very good quality, they arrive next day with first class, the other thing is to get a printers magnifier, its easy to check the sharpness of the end of the tool, even before they start cutting poorly
This will definitely work in cutting the parts for the red bike I will build for you 😅
Nice video man
Dont know if you are planning to and im not a machinist but use ultrasonic and laser welders. You should install some accordion covers for your table to help cover the threads and slidetables below so they dont get clogged up with chips and dust.
Great looking build. Appreciate the details about your journey to getting up and running. Cheers!
For the endmills, I have a good source of cheap end mills that absolutely rock it in aluminium and give really good surface finish they are from ali-express from the brand dreanique, I only use those now, and it makes day and night difference. For the cooling, I don't use any lubricant as it only creates a mess that is more difficult to clean up, dry aluminium chips are much easier to vacuum away. I and most of us semi hobby machinist use cheap end mills, that when get blunt are cheaply replaced and on our machines we usually don't take ultra crazy cuts that it truly requires cooling ( in my opinion at least but you will have to figure that out yourself) my advise would be ditch the wd-40, buy the endmills from above and have fun, cheers!
Haha these are dreanique endmills! I've never used them before, but I found them on aliexpress and thought they were worth a try. Very impressed so far!
@TimStation oh really haha, I always get the ones with the trippy DLC coating, single flute
2:36 the duck and cover 😂😂😂
9:19 Engineering = minimum viable product
Graconol is an alcohol based coolant for aluminium, it evaporates without leaving residues behind and doesnt gunk up the chips, highly recommended!
Nice job, you can get some accordion style mill shields to block chips from the bottom
For the chips on the y axis, you can get cheap but custom sized and shaped way covers from a bunch of seller on aliexpress which are perfect for this issue, ive used them myself and they are great. And for a probe, V6 anti-roll 3D Touch Probe is a cheap but nice and acurate one perfect for a diy machine
This is an amazing series
They make edge finders which you can use to touch the sides of the stock to set the origin point. They are cheap and are spring loaded so they won't break if you accidentally push them into the material a little to far
He bought a probe
I got hold of an old Renishaw ruby probe end that I was going to make fit on my CNC-ised mill/lathe but that probe you have looks like a very elegant premade solution and I will be very intrigued to see how well it works!
Making your own fixture holes in the bed, as first cuts on the machine is insaaaaane. Glad it worked out.
Do you have any long-term plans for coolant? I think you could end up eating your own chips for most cuts without some kind of fluid solution.
Quite impressive!! Nice damn work
Inspiring work and love the clear and detailed explanation of the design. That's a beautiful machine you have made. I made one with a stacked XYZ I wish I had split it to just have the XZ (YZ?) on a fixed gantry.
Also an "accordion" style material is a good way to keep chips off the ways and the leadscrew. It will squish and stretch as the bed moves back and forward and always keeps the ways and the lead screw covered, where as chips will work their way through brush material as the bed moves back and forward.
spring loaded roller blinds might work in pinch for the way covers Tim, i doubt your gonna be cutting red hot chips so would work
Regarding the "chip falling on ball screw"-issue usually they use something that is called "Bedway cover" you could do them out of sheet metal for the hight issue.. :D
The issue you are having with the drill bit flexing is pretty well known. The most common way to solve it is by first drilling with a center or spot drill. This will give the normal drill bit the ability to center itself on the right spot.
very cool, I didn't realize jog wheels were so cheap 👍
It's a beautiful thing - congratulations
For the bed you can install some kind of accordion style fabric or whatever, attached to the bed and the walls of the enclosure, I think you can see something similar on other cnc machines.
If not accordian then something which has layers of sheets that can slide on top of each other like an iris shutter
oh look, bill smithson (that jog wheel is really cool btw, might have to put one of those on my printer)
Impressive! It's one thing to understand that one can do this. A whole other thing to actually go through with it.
Have you considered rubber accordion bellows to cover the rails and leadscrew? Really enjoying the CNC content.
Magnets are great, and they are really good at denonstrating how much iron filings and the like you have loose around your workshop.
There are shorter drill bits known as "screw machine" drills which are much more rigid. Also, using a centering drill before the drill bit will help a ton as well. .02
4:50... If that is a Drill Bit then it seems to be spinning way too fast for Aluminium...
7:08
Probe would be good obviously.
But for cheapness, an edge finder or wobbler would be good too.
Another trick is spin the spindle in reverse and use a rizla to see when the end mill is touching the workpiece (not risking damaging the end mill by touching the workpiece) it’s around 0.02mm thick to account for after touching on the side with it.
Well done Tom 👍
Looks really good!
Hey, are you planning to provide a cost breakdown at the end of the project? I think that would be very interesting.
+ I really like this channel :D
For setting X and Y, if you fit a peice of silver steel of a known diameter in a collet, and then use a set of feeler guages. gently moving the feeler guages back and forward, and slowly moving the axis using the pendant until the feeler guage binds. (you can slso use cigarette papers).
Nice work mate! That didn't look like .1mm per rotation though ! I was surprised.
Nice seeing the machine taking cuts!
Your spindle plate/z-axis plate is also mounted using standoffs if I remember correctly? That's a lot of lost rigidity right there, you should consider rebuilding that part to get rid of the standoffs.
Also what is the cost of your machine thus far?
12:42 - sheet metal sliding cover from multiple pieces (single big one for rails and screw)
Good job Tim.
You can just skim the build plate down .1 of a mm with a fly cutter or something to level it out
The probe is an exceedingly useful piece of kit for a CNC, however, I'd strongly advise buying some spare tips as they bend very easily and once bent are pretty useless. I buy my tips in batches of 6 !!
expensive probe need only if scanner old parts etc. lot better tool zeroing have touch plate, and lot cheapen accurate system zeroing part corner ets bit height.
@mattivirta I prefer the probe and a touch plate which covers 99% of the type of CNC work I do. But the probe tip are very easy to bend, especially if you are using the pendant and make a mistake. As I said, once they are bent, they are useless.
More feed to match the spindle speed
a way to flatten the bed even more is to use a big cutter to plane the entire bed in small passes until its flat relative to the motion system
Ideally I would, however the table is larger than the max cutting area, so it wouldn't be able to face the whole plate.
@@TimStation if you can fit a big fly cutter in the spindle it may work, but could chatter some bc its a small machine
Dude that's an awesome homemade cnc.
Nice machine!
By the way, are the ballnuts preloaded single ones? I had normal clearance single ones and replced them by dual nuts and it made a difference at least in steel milling.. I also had plastic motor mounts that got replaced by aluminum ones (and the screw bearings that were not 0-clearance got replaced at the same time).
Keep up the good work!
Waiting for the next part of the video ❤
You need to relieve the end mill if you are going to try cutting past the flutes
Not necessarily, if you've already cut to the same depth in a pass above then so long as the cutting edges of the flutes are ground flush to the dame diameter as the shank then it should be fine
@woopdeedoodaa you'll always get rubbing if you have no clearance. It was plainly visible on Tim's cuts
@@wktodd yeah you're right, fair enough. Could see it on a rewatch for the last 2 passes at 11:27
you would be surprised how well the tape and glue fixtures work
Use isopropyl alcohol for the aluminum. After it evaporates it won't leave a residue.
aluminium need use alcohol liguid sure.
might want to work out some wipers for the linear rails those chips will find their way in anywhere
For the vise, I use a low profile vise from precision engineerd I think, it is absolutely great and would really recommend it!
I'd just level the bed with a fly cutter, then u know it's alligned is the rest of the axis are Ok.
A small handle/hole with pressure sensor on each axis would be nice so you can push/pull I with your finger - the harder you pull the faster it moves.
About protecting the rails and ball screw - You should look at industrial grade mills. Those use a cover similar to the gas spring cover in office chairs. It would be possible to be 3d printed.
Great job ❤
Look at that beautiful new table, how long before the first mistake....
Before you finish the probe which will be great, you should just get an edge finder. One step ahead of using an endmill but not as precise or convenient as a probe
Re keeping chips out of the rails and ballscrew, consider using some bellows that are often used to protect lathe ways.
add strain relief support for the cables going to the screen - it would be super easy to tug on that usb cable and break the usb port
Linear rail bellows would do a good job of keeping chips out of the Y axis.
7:09 you can spin up the spindle to zero your work piece more precisely by hearing when it slightly scratches. I'm also an engineer hobby diy machinist.
I don't know what control system you're using, but see if it has "Velocity Mode" for the pendant and put it on the coarsest setting. This mode makes the axis move as fast as you spin the jog wheel and stops when you stop. It's easy to crash the mill in incremental mode cause once you command the axis to go somewhere, it's not turning back until it reaches it's target, usually taking an endmill or a probe with it! 🤣
I didn't see you mentioning it anywhere in the video, but did you consider surfacing your build plate so that it was dead on zeroed to the spindle?
That’s what most seem to do. Use a fly cutter to take a very light pass on the plate.
wooooooooow i was waiting for this, love your vids