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I did some research on that a couple years ago, and the short answer is no, it's not cheaper. The cans have a lot of crap on them, and you need to do a lot of work to make it into anything decent. You can probably save money by getting cheap scrap AL from a junkyard or whatever and casting that into a useable shape. But honestly it's like building a boat, if you want to get into casting, knock yourself out, if you just want to do machining, buy commercial.
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Mar 23, 2016 00:35
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Mister Sinewave posted:Guessing here but I think he's saying if you want to build a boat from scratch then yay build a boat. If you just WANT a boat then buy one because unlike eg cooking making your own from scratch will not in any way compare to a modern manufactured one. Yup, that exactly. Building a boat is really loving complicated, so if you want to sail, just buy a boat. If you want to build a boat for the experience of building a boat then the fact that it's hard is the point.
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Mar 23, 2016 10:15
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This is probably a less common source, but hard drive cases are a good stock as well. I suspect the platters are also a decent source, but I'm not sure what the exact composition is. Does anyone have access to an xrf meter to test some?
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Apr 12, 2016 23:40
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Parts Kit posted:Has anyone tried 4 pin XLR cables for their stepper motor wiring? The 3 pin ones are usually flexible and well shielded so it seems like a good idea for improving my lovely wiring. That and the locking jacks are easy to get and wire up so it could be a good option for a portable arduino & raspi control unit. I looked into when working on one at my local hackerspace, and it should be fine as long as you get ones with a sufficient current rating. Digikey has 4 pin xlrs up to 15 amps, and if you need more than that you should really take pics for this thread.
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Feb 10, 2017 18:30
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NPR Journalizard posted:ok, so im about to pull the trigger on buying this and I was wondering if anyone had experience with anything similar. I have also worked with one of these, and can confirm that they're steaming hot garbage. It's like it was engineered by someone who only had a vague idea of what a cnc machine should do, with a topping of Chinese build-as-cheap-as-possible syndrome. They're cheap, but not a good deal.
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Jul 18, 2017 23:04
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Karia posted:Haas machines are all closed-loop via encoders and servo based. I can't think of a single professional level (anybody better than Tormach) cnc manufacturer that uses steppers. They're smaller, better accuracy with the encoders, better torque/power curves, and much, much faster. Cost and tuning are really the downsides, but the performance improvement outweighs it. There are also closed loop steppers, thought I don't know of any cnc machines use them.
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Oct 3, 2017 02:17
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Mofabio posted:Yeah I'm learning to code on gcode and openscad and realize I'm probably not doing myself any favors... LinuxCNC has o-words though (not sure in FANUC etc does too?) and you can write nice(r) clean(er) lathe gcode that way. Jesus gently caress, don't do that to yourself, neither of those are real programming languages, not even kinda. If your goal is to learn to code, and you're teaching yourself, I'd strongly recommend python. If your goal is to machine stuff, then learn cad/cam. Fusion is good and free. Openscad is pretty cool, but it's hard to do any substantial projects with it.
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Dec 24, 2017 21:14
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Mofabio posted:Are there any FOSS lathe CAM packages for Linux? The only one I've found is NativeCAM for LinuxCNC, but in practice I usually just end up writing the code, or modifying a pre-written o-word subroutine. There are some poorly-maintained mill packages, last I checked, but not much for lathes. Ah, no, CAD/CAM is one of the last things I keep a windows box around for. All the linux ones I've tried have been hot garbage. Hopefully FreeCAD will become not-poo poo at some point, but the last time I tried it, it was still unusable compared to Fusion or Solidworks. I suppose if *all* you're doing is polyhedral primitives, then you're the exact one and only usecase OpenSCAD is worth a drat for. Learning to program is a pretty drat useful skill, even if it's just writing little python scripts to do little BS jobs for you.
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Dec 26, 2017 02:54
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You should also check out the LinuxCNC IRC (#linuxcnc on irc.freenode.net). They're super helpful and generally there are enough people on to answer pretty much any question you have. In the specific case of the difference between the PCI/e and Eth Mesa cards, the owner is on there pretty much all the time and is super helpful. I was building a large 3d printer with a mesa card and needed a custom bitstream for the FPGA. I emailed them and they got the modified bitstream to later the same day.
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Jan 12, 2018 19:01
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Roadkill vibes with CNC content is an interesting mix. My favorite things about roadkill were the semi-half-rear end jobs they'd do because they thought (usually correctly) they could get away with it, and the bonkers projects. I think half-assing CNC stuff would mix like oil and water, especially if you're going to resell the machines. Bonkers projects feel like a great fit though. You just have to make sure the machine has a useful niche when the project is over, or it'll just piss people off. Re: production value and content density, for my money RotarySMP has the best balance. His big project has been linuxcnc-ifying an old Shaublin lathe. Marco Reps is also great on that front. He's primarily electronics, but does a little CNC stuff.
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Mar 12, 2024 01:13
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Also enjoying it very much, just don't have anything to add.
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May 1, 2024 14:18
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