Laser / CNC Entry Level CNC Machine Advice needed.

[ghostfather]

Very nice enclosure. Been considering making something myself, but just to place over the Shapeoko (mostly for noise and dust), which shares a table with my drill press and sander.
I especially like the built-in lighting. I have a wheeled shopvac with cyclone dust collector, so I would just need to connect it to the hose on top.

 

[BryRocket]

Very nice enclosure. Been considering making something myself, but just to place over the Shapeoko (mostly for noise and dust), which shares a table with my drill press and sander.
I especially like the built-in lighting. I have a wheeled shopvac with cyclone dust collector, so I would just need to connect it to the hose on top.

It does make the noise and dust much more manageable. I’m thinking of enclosing the bottom as well because now the shopvac is the loudest culprit.
The lighting was easy and cheap. I also made the top part of the enclosure separate from the bottom so if needed, I can lift off the top for access to the back of the machine. Seems to work so far.

 

[ghostfather]

My shop-vac on wheels is a closed cabinet because of the noise. It exhausts through the floor of the cabinet through two layers of baffles to cut down the noise, and I use sound-absorbing foam in the cabinet where the shop-vac lives as well.
Using the CNC for a job taking several hours, I've at least cut down the shop-vac noise, now I need to use something similar for the Shapeoko CNC.

Got the idea online from this sort of video:

 

[FMarvinS]

Hi,

Your fins look very good. I'm very interested in learning how you plan to bevel the fins symmetrically on both sides. Are you doing a 15 or smaller degree bevel and what router bits are you using. Also, what technique are you using to symmetrically place the "flipped" fin in position to produce a symmetrical and corresponding bevel. Currently, I cut on an X-carve and bevel using a router table, I'd love to be able to do all on the CNC only.

Thanks,
Fred

 

[BryRocket]

Hi,

Your fins look very good. I'm very interested in learning how you plan to bevel the fins symmetrically on both sides. Are you doing a 15 or smaller degree bevel and what router bits are you using. Also, what technique are you using to symmetrically place the "flipped" fin in position to produce a symmetrical and corresponding bevel. Currently, I cut on an X-carve and bevel using a router table, I'd love to be able to do all on the CNC only.

Thanks,
Fred

So I just sacrificed a few G10 fins trying to bevel with a router table. They just look horrible. If I can’t figure out this CNC beveling I’ll have to go back to the drawing board on that.

I’d like to first point out I haven’t done this yet. I plan to give it a go in the next week or so.

My plan is to:
Clamp down tightly a 14” x 12” piece of 0.50” MDF. Then zero XYZ in the front left corner with a 1/4” flat endmill. Surface that board down 1.5mm or so to try and square it all with the machine.

Then switch to a 1/8” flat endmill, rezero XYZ in the lower corner, run a gcode that pockets out the fin perimeter at a depth 1/2 the fin thickness for each side of the fins.
Place the fins into the pockets(I’m currently working on a hole down solution that doesn’t involve tape so I can maintain the accuracy of the pocket-fin interface) Switch to a 1/8” ball endmill, zero Z ONLY on the fin and run a contour gcode to do the beveling. Then I can switch the two fins and run it again.

I have actually made two separate gcodes now, one for each fin, so that I can just do one if I want and rezero Z on that fin.

I will report back my experiences and result. Thanks again to @KC3KNM for pointing me in this direction.

 

[dhbarr]

What did the fence on your router look like?

 

[BryRocket]

What did the fence on your router look like?

I'll take a picture later and post it. I had to 3D print my own because the fence that came with the router didn't look perfectly straight or all that robust.

 

[FMarvinS]

Thanks for the reply, I look forward to your update.

Fred

 

[BryRocket]

Thanks for the reply, I look forward to your update.

Fred

Well I was able to pull it off. I'm not going to say its the best way to bevel fins, but they turned out as good as I could have hoped for. They seem perfect to my eyes and calipers. I am happy to detail how I did it. Maybe I should create a seperate thread for that (Scratch Built vs this forum?)?

 

[FMarvinS]

They look very good! I'd enjoy seeing the details here on the forum.

Thanks,
Fred

 

[BryRocket]

They look very good! I'd enjoy seeing the details here on the forum.

Thanks,
Fred

https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/cnc-router-fin-beveling.166199/#post-2135137

 

[mtnmanak]

ha. yes, I've had to find creative ways to stretch Carbide Create. In this case, CC allows you to drop an image onto the canvas. I drew a circle from the middle and then dropped an image of an old school protractor to get my screw holes to perfectly align in the right positions. I've also used this trick to design cuts in other applications and then drop the image into CC for tracing. A pretty simple hack.

View attachment 453180

View attachment 453181

Today I was drawing out a thrust plate to work with an Aeropack flange retainer and realized there is a pretty simple way to space things evenly around a circle in Carbide Create without scaling an image: Use the polygon shape.

Make your circle for the diameter you need and then create a polygon with the same diameter and the number of side you need for holes. In the case of the 98mm retainer I was designing for, I needed 12 evenly spaced holes, so I made a 12 sided polygon. Align your circle and polygon centered on each other and the points of the polygon should intersect your circle precisely. Create small circles for the holes you need and snap the center point of each small circle to each intersection point of the polygon. Using this method, I got it perfect the first time in less than a minute or two with no scaling involved.

Hope this helps!