New EMC2 Live CD based on Ubuntu 10.04
 

Hello, this is my first post in the forums here, but I just wanted to let you know that there is a new release of EMC2 out. http://www.linuxcnc.org/content/view/21/4/

It's based on Ubuntu 10.04 and EMC 2.4.x

I'm currently building a desktop mill to "get a feel", but looking forward to building my own MM (in obligatory blue :D).

hello Russ,

I think EMC and Axis are quite awesome! I follow the development fairly close and I think the guys at EMC are doing a really nice job. So far, EMC didn't fail on me, and each time I start my old laptop, teh system works very smooth.

If you want to get a feel, but you are confident, why not build a MM from start, given that you want one ;) it's really not at all that hard, and with the help from all teh people on this forum we can tackle the problems.

Hi Russ,
I second Ries's suggestion, building a MM takes about the same work of any other "get a feel" machine.

I'd love to, except for 2 small things. Money and Time. I'm literally building this first "machine" with junk from the scrap pile. Old PC, pieces of bed rail for linear slides, etc... If you can find me a 26 hour day, I'll gladly take a case of them. :)

On the plus side, this first pile of junk can help me make money to make the next machine. Got to walk before you can run, eh?

hello!

I am looking for somebody in holland that can make me the belt reduction plates and may be also deliver the appropriate additional items like the belt and the pinions (forgot there names in English, timing belt?).

Anybody knows a person i can call or who can make these?

Cheers,
Ries

Hoi Ries,

Send you a pm.

Groet Polder

Not so active, but have been working on LibreCAD
 

Hey Guys,

I haven't been active for a while but picking up the project again.
I finally bagan testing and installing my Spindle and VFD, got my gas-spring and ordered some cable chains.

There are a bunch of reasons I wasn't active, new Job, new house, making some other higher priority items like a 2x2 dining table and benches are in progress.

One other project I have been working on is LibreCAD. LibreCAD is a fork of QCAD that will continue developing a open source version of QCAD. Two developers have been very active on on a day-by-day basis and they are doing a outstanding job.

I hope, I can continue adding CAM functions to it myself, and have been already doing some mayor work on it for profiling options in LibreCAD.
you can look at the project here: http://librecad.org/

Cheers,
Ries

Sinterklaas plankje + G-Code
 

hello,

I had to make something for Sinterklaas so I made something that's called a 'sinterklaas plankje' it's a mold to make cookies and who doesn't want to make cookies on a home made mold? Exactly!

Alls you need is a mechmade (or any CNC router capable of wood routing), a 6MM end mill and a 60 degrees vbit.

First use the file : speculaasplankje_6mm-endmill-1 this will make the pocket.
Then use the file : speculaasplankje_60deg-vbitl-2 this will make the details.

I hope speeds are set correctly for you.

Ries

Cool idea, thanks I will try it sometime.

Nice windmill Ries. Home sweet home. I definitely will make one for hanging on he wall in Taiwan. For the not dutch, or dutch related, this evening is Sinterklaas evening, and the kids have to unpack some presents

Lol, didn't know there were that much dutch people on this forum.

Ik dacht dat ik de enige was :)

No there are some more dutch, but I see that you are in Holland at this moment.
first thing I made, were some Dutch town name plates, but I still have to paint them. I live for 4 years in Taiwan, Are you living in equador?

Rik,

I still live in Ecuador indeed. My plan to use the mechmate for building part of the house we where planning to make didn't really go well. So, I have a nice Mechmate now making mostly little things once a while, very unfortunate..

I am planning to sell it somewhere next year if I can find a buyer to get some of the investment back.

But, as long as I have it, I do have good fun with it when I need to make something. I put new gears on them because my last set wasn't that good, and with the new spindle it now runs very smooth for whatever I need to make.

Hoi Ries, wat zijn de maten van de speculaas plankje
hi ries what are the dimentions of the sinterklaas plankje?

gr uit een besneeuwd - snowy NL
Hans

Hey Hans,

I totally missed your message my apologies. The size is about 75x95mm.

Hello ALl,

I just wanted to share my latest addition to my Mechmate. Last weekend I decided to use my spare motor and spare Gecko drive to make a little indexer, best decision ever!

Since I am not using the machine professionally, I kept the indexer as simple as possible. All I needed to buy is some nut's and bold, scape material and 4 ball bearings.

The plastic pinions where cut with a 3mm HS bit from something I got from my brother in law. The wood are 'tablones' in the size of 200mmx4mmx2000mm and cut to size.
The metal bar in the center is actually one of these 'screw' bars, sorry I don't know the correct english term. All was put together in 3 mornings in the weekend.

First thing I made was a mini baseball bat, sounded simple enough and turned (pun intended) just fine. Next I made a coffee tamper and a citrus reamer.

The design's where created in pro-engineer and then loaded into cut3d. The Y axis was set to 360mm and using a text editor I replaced Y for A to create angular dimensions for LinuxCNC and beable to control the 4th axis. This 'turned' it to work fine, but I rather have some software to understand a real 4th axis so it can 'keep turning' instead of going back and forth that slows down the process.

Anybody happen to know better software for controlling the 4th axis?

I am working on a little bit of software to 'wrap' the 4th's axis in a more smarter way, this is just not as easy as it sounds to do reliable.

Anyways, here is a youtroep video to show it in axis and 3 items I made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2KubSyjtNw

Ries

Ries, very nice.

Nicely done!
nice LinuxCNC screen too :)

Hey Ken and Nil,

Ken, I can send you my LinuxCNC config if you want. It's very simple but so far didn't let me down.

I am planning to add 'auto-y', so it will automatically find the center of the Y axis for the indexer. For the above 3 projects I just eye-balled it.
Auto-z works fine and it's centered on the indexer.

Have a look at this site for indexing wizards that some people use
for doing a bunch of indexing stuff.

Wizards by Rich

Ries,
Your work re-ignite my desire for a A-axis, would love to have a copy of your config file.

Thanks

Hey Ken,

the little indexer was very easy to make and specially if you only do small parts once a while it will do fine. The citrus reamer I made took my like, two hours? (start to finnish) not really something I want to do for a living, but if you need that special part for some larger project, then yes it will benefit.

If you want I can send you some more close up photo's.

Ken,

attached a copy of my config file.

Domino,
for the wizards are a tad expensive for what you get, so I haven't bought it.
Instead I am making my own little tool that can do what I need to do.
http://skitch.rvantwisk.nl/~rvt/xpla...013-164100.jpg

The idea is somewhat similar to Wizards by Rich, but since I wrote it myself I can whatever I need to do with it :)
At a minimum it will allow some general wizards, like making from round stock a square stock, it will do facing and wrapping, you can use it as a 'bin' to copy/paste your own G-Code in it so you don't have to keep them as separate files and thus organise them better. So, it will not be a tool 'just' for indexers but for general g-code.

At this moment it's project based and each project can have multiple operations and each operation can generate a g-code file, or if you have a ATC you can just create on large g-code with all operations. It can also manage your tools and tool numbers.

I am also planning to make it so that you can easily create your own wizards with input's and then generate some g-code out of that based on the groovy language.

This tool will work in Linux, Windows and OSX so it's multi-platform, just in case you prefer some OS better then a other OS, or when you want to run it on your CNC machine that runs MACH3 or Linuxcnc, it will all work.

If there is enough interest I will also combine it with OpenSCAM or at a minimum have it capable to view the generated toolpath for both indexers aswell as a XYZ table, that are just thought's and idea.
If I get enough 'developer' interest I will also open source this and have this tool available on github.

For now, I first want to create a stable version that can load/save data and have at least some wizards available. Current status is that the attached screens all work including a wizard that can create from a square stock of wood at make it round efficiently (shortest possible time), saving needs to be implemented still (that isn't very hard) and some form validation does need to be created still.

Hello everybody!

Unfortunately I have to sell the Mechmate :(

It's currently located in storage here in Holland (N.H.).
It's a complete 'standard' build Mechmate with motors, spindle+driver, driver's (gecko's Vampire 5 pieces) cables and everything to get going. The only think that's not in a great shape is the CPU, it currently run's LinuxCNC and I guess seems everybody is using mach3 I think that needs to be replaced. Apart from that, everything is in working condition and currently in a well stored location.

The reason I am selling it is when I moved to holland I was hoping to get a garage or workshop of some sort but unfortunately the house we bought doesn't have that and there is not enough space to build that out.

If you know somebody or perhaps you a re interested let me know and we can see how we can work thing's out.

Ries

Sorry that you must part with your #46, best of luck!
Mark

Same here, Ries.

zo te zien zitten we in het zelfde schuitje . .

Thank's for the kind words everybody!

Hey All,

I got a question from somebody and he asked:

Cutting 18mm multiplex in one pass, is that possible?

I always did cut that in two passes with a 10mm end mil and 2.2Kw spindle.

What sort of size (in Kw) Spindle would a person need to cut 18mm multiplex in one pass? I understand it depends what type of multiplex yada yada, but a ballpark estimate would be fine, jsut to give the guy and myself an idea. Properly a 20mm end mill but teh sort of Spindle, I am not sure.

From my experience that will need at a minimum a 5Kw spindle but a 7.5 or 10 would be better and yes a 20mm cutter would do it.

A compression bit does it in one pass, BUT, I'm not sure if a 2.2kw will push it. I've thought about buying a compression bit many times but never got around to it.

Why would you want to do that ?!
I finish pass is a usually the good practice....if "nice" finish is needed / call for anyway !!.

I think you would only cut things where you need speed and the finished edge doesn't matter, like case goods. I do know you need to have an excellent hold-down system or method in place because the side force is so great. There's a compression bit made by Vortex that the minimum feed rate is 650 ipm and cuts best around 1100 ipm in MDF:eek:, Lots of side force!

Do you really need that kind of speed ??!
DO the math, not worth it unless it's a daily need at over....say 75% of CNC time usage !!!:rolleyes:
Don't get "caught" in this....speed thing, just for the "sayk" of it....or to brag :rolleyes: ???
My 2ct :cool:

I completely agree Robert. These bits are used mostly by companies who need to cut 60 to 125 sheets of material daily. Quality over speed.

And they would be doing it on massively rigid big iron machines $$$$$...

...you mean....they also have MechMates :eek: !!....:D

I run a 10mm compression bit and cut my carcase material 16mm melamine on particle board, run the spindle at 12000rpm and feed rate at 5m/min. I find as long as scale the spindle rpm down to match the feed rate it's fine. The bit according to the manufacturer should be run 24000 rpm and minimum of 10m/min. Chip free cutting and no problems yet.

Just my 2c worth

Very interesting info!

When I worked with my machine I never had the luxury for such bit's, then again.. it was just hobby and I was fine with a couple of passes. :)

Hey Guys,

the Mechmate is sold!
I had a wonderful time here on the forum, even though I haven't been very active on the last few years. Although it sounds strange, one project that was the result of the Mechmate was LibreCAD. It's still a very active project and we have had over 1.3million downloads just on sf.net on the windows version. The project is still very active and we have a few maintainers that are working hard on LibreCAD version 2, they are great guys and deserve all the credit now on LibreCAD and it's development.

bye all!