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So if I've read through that Guerrilla Guide to CNC and have looked at different machines and know what I'd eventually like to buy, but i'm not quite ready to actually commit to buying anything yet- where else can I go for now? Just familiarize myself with a CAD program and do the tutorials and try making some simple parts? What programs do yall use? Is there any point in looking at CAM software yet if I can't do anything with it? e: So I can manage my expectations, if I were inclined to want to machine something really funky like a sinusoidal stake (they're usually forged, for the record), which I'm not particularly but is one of the weirder-geometry applications up my alley I can think of, how fiddly and terrible a job would it be without a fourth axis? 
Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Aug 28, 2014 |
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Aug 28, 2014 15:52
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Thanks, dude. Yeah, I don't plan on going the Super Budget Route for this; I've been eyeballing a Taig (undecided if I'd just shell out for the finished CNC mill or build one myself from the CNC-ready model), mostly because it seems like the beefiest machine in my price range (which will matter if I plan on primarily working in steel), has a decently-sized working envelope, and, well, they know how to pitch a product to somebody who makes poo poo. Also seem like a popular choice in general, so fellow hobbyist support n troubleshooting will be easier.
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Aug 28, 2014 19:41
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sirbeefalot posted:I'm looking to purchase my first CNC mini mill, mostly for making flat jewelry and prototyping stuff. Mostly I'll want to be cutting aluminum, brass, silver, MDF, and plastics. I haven't actually Taken The Dive yet so maybe don't listen to me, but I intend to work almost exclusively in metal including steel and very quickly settled on a turnkey Taig micro-mill/CNC kit, because they're by far the sturdiest entry-level set-ups, from everything I've read here and elsewhere. I know brass and silver et al are much easier and other machines can handle them without too much trouble, but if you wanna make jewellery (milling things from silver will get extraordinarily expensive extraordinarily fast compared to more typical fabrication routes) you might find that you wanna make pieces outside of the mill, and being able to make steel tooling as per your exact needs would be an enormous asset. Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Apr 22, 2015 |
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Apr 22, 2015 20:30
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So I know I want a Taig mill, I'm just not sure who I wanna buy it from. Things I'm interested in- - working primarily in steel and aluminium - TURNKEY and as close to ready-to-go as possible, barring normal assembly or stuff you can be handheld through. hobby electronics are extremely confusing to me because i have the mind of a little child, and I'm more interested in the mill as a means to an end than as the hobby in itself -I'm interested in making fairly small conforming/silhouette dies and simple tooling so I don't think I'll ever need a 4th axis Right now I'm looking at the setups offered by Deepgroove1 ( http://deepgroove1.com/cncmill.htm ), Soigeneris ( http://www.soigeneris.com/taig_cnc_mill_packages-details.aspx ) and Microproto's DSLS3000 ( http://www.microproto.com/MMDSLS.htm ). There's a price gap between the Deepgroove and the DSLS of almost $1000 and I'm not sure why- from reading up on dedicated hobby CNC forums the DSLS has some neat software trick that'll help prevent things from going weird and wrecking projects you're working on, and marginally stronger stepper motors than the soigeneris package, but that doesn't seem to justify the extra grand. And the cheapest Deepgroove package has the strongest stepper motors of all (how much will this matter for my purposes?), plus a Gecko G540 controller which people seem to think pretty highly of. Anybody hear anything about any of these companies/mill setups, or see any package that's particularly well-suited to my needs?
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Aug 23, 2015 19:20
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I have a very strong incompetence/learned helplessness when it comes to anything involving electricity if it's got more to it than a single circuit. Even the Keling handholding parts kits come with, like, wiring diagrams and resistors and stuff. Those aren't even real things humans can build or interact with, robots have to do it, I'm reasonably sure. I'd -like- to build it myself in principle, but if it's not the kind of thing that takes well to being hammered true with a ball-peen then down that way lies sadness and lots of hair being pulled out.
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Sep 13, 2015 07:28
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rotor posted:This is super-old and stuff but I'll answer it anyway. It's useful anyways, thanks.
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Oct 16, 2015 22:08
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I'm just about ready to buy my Taig eeeeeeeeeee I'm gonna go with the Soigeneris package based on what people here have said- http://www.soigeneris.com/taig_cnc_mill_packages-details.aspx Is it worth springing for the starter kit? It has- Taig Mill Starter Kit A All items in the Basic Kit Taig 1159 belt (spare) Taig 2228 edge finder Taig 1310 Spindle Wrenches (2) Taig 1140ER drill chuck adapter Taig 1090-1/4” Jacobs chuck (industrial) Taig Line filter kit Set of 8 A2Z Tuff-Nuts (T-nuts) A2Z T-slot cleaner A2Z WHMCS (small short) toggle clamp A2Z TRS10-32 stud kit for clamps CamBam License For an extra $231, and supposedly saves you about a hundred instead of buying that stuff separately. Idk how useful that stuff will end up being to me, though, I don't have much frame of reference. And I remember reading about Jacobs chucks being "really kind of lovely" for substantive and accurate work, should I also get a proper set of collets/end mill holders? Also, how are their prices for end mills n bits? http://www.soigeneris.com/end_mills-list.aspx I'm in Canada and the shipping on this thing is already gonna be really painful, so if I can get everything I need to start doing at least basic learning stuff all at once that'd be preferable. Alternately, an acceptably-affordable Canadian source for little bits n cutting tools would be great. Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 20:00
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Newer Taigs come with ER16 spindles, which seem pretty easy to find collets for. Lee Valley has a tiny weird variety of Taig mill parts, like wee small two-sided HSS end mill sets and fly cutters, which is good to know. I figure I'll just get a collet set from Soigeneris so I can get going on things sooner rather than later.
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Jan 16, 2016 20:36
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So: bits. I'm thinking i'll just pick up a cheapie set of HSS miniature double end mills and fart around with those until I'm done breaking bits doing dumb poo poo and understand the limits of what I can do without more specialized cutting tools.I know I'll need ball end mills and probably engraving + other specialized bits eventually for what I'm interested in, but I'm not worrying about those yet. I take it that carbide bits aren't worth shelling out for at this point even though I intend to work mostly in metal b/c goof-ups will claim bits faster than wear, right? And- measurement tools. This is where I'm kind of totally in the dark, all the metalworking I've ever done has never needed anything more than a steel rule and vernier calipers and yer mark I eyeball. What's a bare-minimum tool suite to get the machine set up properly and allow me to do most basic work? Edge/center finders + dial test indicator + machinist's blocks, something like that?
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Jan 21, 2016 01:38
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mill purchased. The Pact Is Sealed
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Feb 3, 2016 22:58
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How important is chip-clearing for milling metal? I see a lot of hobbyists with compressed air setups to blow stuff free, which makes sense, but I'd think that'd require a pretty decent compressor to be working at 100% duty for hours at a time. e: The DTI I'm looking at has a magnetic base but no holder for the spindle. Is that the kind of thing I can throw together or make for myself or do I not strictly need one at all for setting up?
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Feb 4, 2016 03:18
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The CNC cookbook guy rams home how important accurately calculating feeds n speeds is, which isn't super surprising 'cause he sells calculators for just that. Practically speaking, how important is it for hobbyist work? If I'm in the ballpark for acceptable spindle/travel speed n flute count for the material and particular task, I wouldn't think the difference in tool life/working speed would even be noticeable if I'm not running the mill all the dang time and not making basic mistakes like running everything super-slow or plowing the bit into the table at full tilt or whatever.
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Feb 19, 2016 06:59
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Sagebrush posted:The calculators you find online are meant for production facilities where you need to optimize both cycle time and tool life because they affect your bottom line. I think the former -is- a legit concern I'll have eventually. Down the road, when I can do more than extrude different sizes of cylinder in Solidworks, I wanna do fancy 3D profile stuff for conforming dies and the like, and everything I've seen of Taigs doing stuff like that involve ridiculously long run times even in machining wax or foam. But I really don't see it mattering for the time being as long as I'm ballpark, yeah.
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Feb 21, 2016 00:33
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rawrr posted:I'm thinking about a CNC purchase sometime down the road. I've heard nothing but good things about the Taig, but how does it compare to something like http://www.omiocnc.com/x4-800l-3a/ , which is a gantry design with linear guides? That gantry machine site is all over the place- they say it's fine on non-ferrous metals, listing stainless steel as one of them, and then including carbon steel parts and brass mislabelled as copper in the machining examples. Poorly-translated and inconsistent copy does not inspire confidence.
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Feb 21, 2016 23:09
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1 AM thoughts: reading about how working with really low feed rates can cause cutters to burnish work instead of making chips is making me wonder: does non-subtractive tooling for conventionally-subtractive machine tools exist, beyond measurement tools like edge-finders? I don't think people do much burnishing any more, but
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Mar 7, 2016 18:56
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I've burnished a lot of pewter by hand too, I just assume that it's fallen by the wayside in most modern applications outside of tumble-burnishing. Lathe-burnishing makes a lot of sense tho, yeah
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Mar 8, 2016 03:33
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If you wanna cast aluminium, at least try to start with non-can feedstock- like other people said, cans are so thin that they can easily oxidize right through if not totally compacted, and the coatings on both sides of the container make a ton of dross. You'll have a much easier time melting down an old extension ladder or whatever.
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Mar 23, 2016 14:43
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Taig mini mill should be able to deal with that kind of thing just fine, albeit slowly (he said, his still-unassembled CNC kit glaring at him from the shipping box where it's sat for months while the shop gets put together)
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Apr 21, 2016 23:59
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Hu Fa Ted posted:Sounds like a baleful and expensive glare. I'm looking forward to the photo expose as you put it together. Yeah, I'm hype- I'm carving a dedicated (and soundproofed) shop for it and some other toys out of the corner of my folks' unfinished basement so I'm gonna dive in literally as soon as the floor is in and the table for it gets built. just kinda jumped the gun on actually buying the thing.
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Apr 22, 2016 17:47
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hvqb6IBrKgw am I CNCing yet Real question- how do I set hard limits on axis movement in mach 3? I wanna futz around with test gcode but the first little program I plugged it hit the table's physical X-axis limit (had my hand on the Big Red Button so it only made an Ugly And Bad Machine Noise for a fraction of a second, phew). I think 'soft limits' might be it but those seem to only hold valid until you re-zero the axes. e: It would appear that I am interested in something called "end switches" but fellow Taig users say running out of travel won't hurt the steppers or the machine but will make you lose position. Good enough for me?? Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Aug 16, 2016 |
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Aug 16, 2016 23:29
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Good to know- wouldn't actually know how to set it up because it's more complicated than "plug some cables into clearly-labelled ports", but I'm starting to grasp what this "ports" and "pins" n so on business is, so maybe I'll be comfortable with that down the road. I'd strongly prefer a more physical solution like they had on the bandsaw at the blacksmith's shop- a forged arm shaped to physically flip the off switch once the saw had almost fully dropped- but the e-stop ain't positioned right  (actually I could 100% make a physical arm to at least shut the spindle off if the headstock drops past some pretermined point, the switch is mounted to the vertical column so it'd be easy, hmmmm...) I'm gonna need to build myself an enclosure before I do much, anybody got any tips or useful links in that regard? Cost and the ability to dissassemble it (mill's gonna get moved within the house once or twice in the next year) are concerns, my inclination is to roll with MDF for the back and sides and get some plexiglass for the front and use aluminium extrusions for the frame. Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Aug 17, 2016 |
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Aug 17, 2016 20:45
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CarForumPoster posted:Seems like you could use this: Oh I like this. I've also been wondering if I can adapt my mill to transfer intricate patterns onto sheet metal more efficiently for doing repousse projects, and the spring holder would let me draw onto warped post-annealed sheet no problem.
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Aug 18, 2016 23:24
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What's the best material to futz around with that'll map acceptably onto metal? I've done some stuff with plywood and the like so far, but there's way too much tearout and you can't learn anything about, say, achieving a good finish. Is machinable wax worth making n playing with if I don't intend to do any lost-wax casting with the end result? Should I just spend some cash on a bunch of aluminum offcuts?
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Aug 30, 2016 02:43
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How are you doing the melt? I see people use second-hand deep fryers and the like but I don't have anything like that, and I'm leery of putting a bunch of plastic and wax in the oven that I cook with.
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Aug 30, 2016 21:41
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Right now I'm mostly trying to avoid tool breakage while being able to practice most of the usual machining processes without having to stress about feeds n speeds, but I'd get over it pretty fast if I just snap up like 5 3/16" double end mills the next time they're on sale and learn from my mistakes, I figure.
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Aug 31, 2016 21:23
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Acid Reflux posted:Ambrose, have you used any feed/speed calculation software? I looked at a bunch of commercial packages, and then found FSWizard. Online, free, and has been invaluable for cutting bit preservation. I have a largely unsuitable, extremely high minimum RPM wood router as the spindle for my X-Carve right now, and FSW does a really great job of estimating the right cutting depths and speeds for a given material and cutter. I pretty much only break bits due to straight up operator error these days. I'd tried a couple and didn't find any of them super-useful, but daaaang thanks for pointing me to that one, it's really good for free n in-browser. The roll-over explanations for everything take the learning curve out, too. Brekelefuw posted:Check banggood. I seem to remember seeing packs of small Dia. end mills for under $10. No tears if you snap a handful for that price. Ordering some now, less than a dollar per 1/8" ball end mill, yep, I'm severely on board. Shame all the Chinese import places mostly stick to metric sizing, as great as metric is it's real inconvenient if you're in north america
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Sep 1, 2016 18:23
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Anyone know of a Canuck source for a fly cutter with a smaller-than-1/2" shank? that Cross Border Shipping Struggle means the price will more than double if I gotta buy from littlemachineshop or micromark
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Sep 2, 2016 14:40
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No lathe unfort. Sherline fly cutter from atlas is probably the ticket.
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Sep 3, 2016 00:08
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Never even thought to check amazon.ca because it's typically so thoroughly useless for this kind of thing, huh. Thanks~ New problem- I'm futzing around with engraving but Mach3 isn't reading my gcode properly. Cambam displays the text to be engraved properly, online gcode simulators display it exactly as I intended, mach renders it as hundreds or thousands of extremely-oversized overlapping loops and spirals. It seems to be mangling the generated G02/03 arc commands but I don't understand them well enough to fix it. e: hmm, it handles imported images just fine, for whatever reason it chokes on Cambam-added text. If I write the text in Paint and import it and split the Z-layers to pull the outlines for engraving, it's fine; Cambam text, mach3 does something weird and distorts + stacks all the arcs over a single point. Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Sep 7, 2016 |
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Sep 6, 2016 21:53
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started my tool and die program. my taig is suddenly making me feel extremely inadequate
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Sep 9, 2016 15:53
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I'm still thinking about getting a Taig lathe, even though I can't really do meaningful turning with one, b/c 1) I wanna do a whole bunch of wacky things with it that the design is well-suited for, like doing very clean twists in small stock (disconnect the belt and clamp a handwheel-type thing to the spindle pulley) and experimenting with weird 1/4" tubing hot spinforming poo poo and etc, and 2) my current "shop" is in half a living room i'm renting so its genuinely the beefiest tool i dare introduce
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Oct 23, 2016 22:36
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now, if someone were to moment-of-truth their mill by writing a program to profile a 1-inch boss in a piece of wood so they could put the micrometer on it to see how bang-on everything is, and the resultant boss comes out to 1.125" no matter what you do, and you futz with the step count and every setting you can think of and it won't cut a dang inch like you keep telling it. if they were to look long and hard at the 1/8" endmill they've been using, and think just a little bit more, adn then go back and see if the program factors for cutter radius. well, if that person had forgotten to factor for cutter radius, this hypothetical person would have some bigtime egg on their face, is my thinking
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Nov 9, 2016 04:08
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The general consensus seems to be that the stock Taig leadscrews are pretty good given the machine's cost, and (looking into how people are liking the ballscrew thing) are difficult to improve upon without spending a lot of money for very negligible gains.
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Nov 15, 2016 19:59
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If it's just dudes on a drill press there's a very good chance it's down to user error and getting better bits won't do a ton. Small drills in particular are highly consumable if you're not controlling as many working parameters as is possible like you can with CNC, it's just inevitable that people are going to get lazy setting the right spindle speed or get impatient and push that lil 3/64" bit harder than intended. I wouldn't expect even very nice small fractional drills to last a year with regular use.
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Nov 16, 2016 15:29
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fixturing thin sheet metal that's gonna have a couple hundred holes drilled in it- what's a good compromise between holding ability and removability? I figure double-sided tape or hot glue on a Masonite spoilboard is the way to go, but I'd have to track down good tape whereas I deffo have hot glue sticks knocking around. Just worried about mangling the sheet trying to get it off the glue, even with a heat gun to help it along. Any solvents work well on hot glue?
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Dec 7, 2016 20:23
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So I wanna make male and female matched semicylindrical dies. the kind of thing you'd use to press a piece of sheet metal into a U shape. Small dies, maybe 2x2x1" in size per half. The female part is dead simple, just do a couple passes with a ballnose mill, but the male part is gonna be trickier. My approach to this, with my experience, would be to: 1. subtract the metal thickness from the female die cutter radius to get the male die radius 2. mill a slot with the smaller cutter down to the radius depth to get a half-round slot 3. buy some tool steel drill rod of that thickness 4. using a normal endmill narrower than the drill rod, cut a couple slots through the bottom of the round slot all the way through the steel, or just drill a bunch of holes with a good ol jobber drill 5. clamp the poo poo out of the round rod in the half-round slot to form the male die profile, weld in place with plug welds through the slots from the back but i don't have any experience welding alloy steel so I don't wanna bank on that, and I don't really wanna source the special electrodes I'd need for that and etc. Would it be easier to just rough out the die and then do a real fine waterline finishing pass with a ballnose mill? Also something I've never done but at least have the stuff on hand to attempt?
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Dec 17, 2016 21:00
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unrelated: it turns out that just winging a slotting cut with a 1/16" cutter without calculating speeds is a bad idea, and doing it twice without stopping t othink about a single goddamn thing beyond "just slow it down by half this time, thatll definitely work out fine" is an even worse idea how the hell does any work get done with like 1/64" endmills
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Dec 17, 2016 21:03
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It'd be a hot-forging die struck with a hammer, at least for now, so an epoxy wouldn't hold up to that or else I'd default to something like that, yeah. distortion's def a thing I didnt consider too hard though
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Dec 18, 2016 02:42
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Any mechanical fasteners are liable to get mashed or distorted over time so if anything loosened up i wouldn't be able to fix it easily. I'll just take a crack at machining it as one piece, see how it goes with an aluminium trial run. Different question- do folks make much use of MPG handwheels/pendants at the hobby level? Having one available seems smart if I've got simple tasks that aren't worth putting a model/gcode together for, but I'm seeing grievances online about wireless USB pendants being useless for actual machining (as opposed to just jogging or whatever) because there's too much latency. Would a hardwired pendant or handwheel/s be suitable as a substitute for manual machining-style control, and have people found it was worth setting up? Also, if it's a simpler MPG (just bare wire leads, no USB dongles or software nonsense), how does that interface with my mill? The documentation for the affordable Aliexpress picks are atrocious, naturally. Would it be bypassing Mach3 and all that and sending pulses directly to the steppers or would it need configuration n compatibility wrangling? Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Dec 22, 2016 |
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Dec 22, 2016 21:43
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Yeah, I suspected the lack of feedback might kind of hobble it, the difference between a clicky wheel and an arrow key isn't going to be that groundbreaking. I've already got a big ol physical E-stop built into my controller so the main appeal would be the feed override. Might still be worth it if I've already got the controller and I can get the pendant for $50-75 shipped. e: definitely no feedrate override in anything on aliexpress, though. welp Ambrose Burnside fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Dec 24, 2016 |
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Dec 23, 2016 22:09
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