Thanks for the responses guys, very much appreciated

Makes a great deal of sense actually .................. the 'pendulum effect' ! no doubt I'll have to experiment with various setups when I finally get my WorkBee assembled. I have downloaded Ryan's excellent WorkBee assembly PDF manual, and as far as I can ascertain at this time, I can definitely take advantage of the 'space' under the spoiler board in-between the spoiler board supports, to position my part further down, inside my cnc machine if you like.

Unlike most of you guys I'm not machining flat work pieces, nor am I making or carving signs in wood .................... I intend to profile ABS plastic headlight parts ( cutting out the holes ), so only the top of the part needs to be exposed.

Long end mills would certainly be an advantage, any idea where I could find some in the UK ?



TURK

 

Thought I would post back my findings .................... and answer my own question !

For you guys in the UK, maybe this will be of some interest to you. Just found this on the Net > Carbide End Mills Associated Production Tools They also stock the long and extra long series of end mills. Question is, as I'm machining plastics, are the less flutes the better for soft materials ?

Will end mills designed for aluminium ( which is the actual correct spelling for you guys in the US, thought I would pop that in there ! ), work just as well on plastics ?



TURK

 

I've never milled aluminium , but I do use the same end mills for aluminum and acrylic. (I even use the same feeds/speeds.) It works OK for me.

 

Yeah, kind of a strange story how they come to finally naming it 'Aluminium' ............... originally known as 'Alumium' by error ! then corrected to 'Aluminum' and then renamed correctly in 1812 to 'Aluminium' as it coincided with other elements such as 'Potassium', 'Sodium', and 'Magnesium', ..... 'ium' following the general rule of the periodic table of elements.

Anyway chaps, call it what you like ................. but I'll stick to aluminium

Good info about the speed rates Scotty, I hadn't even considered that




TURK

 

I do need a bit more air to move the chips with acrylic. I probably should slow it down a bit, but I'm a bit lazy.....

 

D'you mean by that Scotty that you've got some sort of blower set up ?
At least you're getting 'chips' ! .............. far better than my current set up, whenever I try to machine 3mm ABS ( or HIPS and PETG ) the plastic tends to either fuse itself back together behind the cut or simply melts to a horrible jagged edge


TURK

 

I have a vacuum attached to the mill all the time, and that is sufficient for wood and aluminum. I have a small hand blower that I had to use when milling acrylic. I'm not sure if it's static that holds it down or maybe it's too hot. (I don't think it's melting - it doesn't fuse to the piece and the chips don't fuse to each other. They just don't get sucked up by the vacuum. And the edges of the cut look great.)

 

Thanks for the tips guys also, what are you guys using as blowers ? Vacuum is easy enough as I'll simply use my shop vac that I use for my router table. Would an aquarium pump be powerful enough to shift chips ?

@ Ryan - No worries mate, glad it'll help. I was going to buy the end mill starter kit from your online shop until I realised they were only imperial sizes, as my collets are metric, they're no good to me. At least APT do metric sizes, and the prices are quite reasonable.

It's also very nice to see that I'm in the 'WorkBee Que' being prepared ! .................. I like the fact that I can keep an eye on the progress of my order, wish other suppliers would do that !

I've already made room for it eagerly awaiting my new toy !



TURK

 

Well mine is now alive. Still got some final tweaking to do and get a spoiler board sorted but I'm getting there.
Just wish the weather would warm up a bit so I can spend a bit more time tinkering with it.

 

Hi,

Have you try to use the workbee with a chinese 1.5kw er16 water cooling 80mm spindle like this one
Weight 4.6kg
I've have nema23 - 270oz, is it strong enough

Bertrand

 

Hi All,
Totally new to CNC, and we have purchased a 1.5. x 1.5m Workbee, received it in November. Due to other work commitments we didn't assemble it until mid December. We had few stumbling blocks (newbie errors!) but got it working 1st week back after the break.

We are having one issue though and Ryan (poor bloke) has responded to every query including this particular one, but we are still experiencing this rather annoying issue.
We are planning to use our Workbee to produce various parts which are used in furnaces. The material is a high temperature insulation board, easy to cut/machine etc. The first proper cut was 28 pieces as shown in the pic. Each part has 4 holes of 60mm diameter but the holes have a slight flat on four sides. Ryan has suggested the spindles could be loose or not located on the flats of the motor shaft - checked all three and are secure and correctly located. He has also suggested the wheels on each carriage be loosened - tried this also but no improvement.

I am sure the issue is user error (as all our other maladies have been eh Ryan?) but not sure which one of us to shoot (LOL). As Ryan has suggested, the pattern of the flats would point to the spindles being loose, but they appear to be secure (the Y axis ones being particularly difficult to check, but check them I did).

Any ideas guys?

 

Thanks Rick,

I was wondering, as the 1.5m x 1.5m is all belt driven, whether we have the tension set up correctly. My thinking being if there is too much 'slack' then it is likely that in each direction (X & Y) then it would manifest itself here. I have tried cutting a larger diameter and the flats are less noticeable, but then they would be wouldn't they?

 

Hi Ryan

I will take a look this morning.

Just to clarify, belt tension - how do you mean 'lifted out of the backside of the extrusion'?

Wheels - loosen by an 1/8th turn or enough to free up the movement on the rails?

 

I presum Ryan is referring to the the current setting pots on the CNC xPro. Turn them to full then back off by 1/8th of a turn for optimum position.

When i set like this I also found it was pretty much spot on.

 

Aha! ok

 

Well, I checked the carriage movements on both X & Y axis, adjusted the wheels slightly to free up movement a little. Checked the tension of the belts, one Y belt was tighter than it's opposite number so adjusted it out slightly. I then turned the xPro pots back by one 1/8th and the result is much improved, happy days!

Thanks All for your replies.

 

When I ordered my machine I also ordered 1/4, 1/8 and 1/16 standard reach square end mills along with an engraver bit from ooznest. I am wanting to buy some longer bits as the length of these is on the limit of the material thickness I am machining. Am I correct in saying only the 1/8 and 1/16 are available in extended reach as the bit length shown in the table for the extended reach is the same for all the other diameters as the standard reach other than 1/8 and 1/16?

 

I just received my email confirmation from Ryan Lock @ Ooznest informing me that my WorkBee is on it's way, and an email from FedEx International indicating that it will be delivered tomorrow ........ many many thanks Ryan

I doubt that I will be getting much sleep tonight, yeah, I know, like a kid at Christmas !

Just to make sure that I'm going down the right track though folks ................ I've installed 'SketchUp Make 2017' on my main desktop PC running Windows 7 Ultimate, I'll also install 'SketchUCAM' on same computer. What I'm planning on doing is, design my part in SketchUp Make, generate the GCode with SketchUCAM, save the GCode file to a USB thumb Drive, then take that thumb Drive to my workshop where my WorkBee will be installed, and where I'll be running a cheap laptop running Windows XP Pro. Would I be right in saying that the only piece of software required on the laptop will be 'Universal GCode Sender' ?

Have I missed anything ?

Also, while I'm here .............. would it be possible to get this 'WorkBee' thread 'Stickied' please ? the C-Beam XL, OX CNC and the MiniMill are. I think the popularity of the 'WorkBee' will only increase so rightly should have it's own little niche


TURK

 

My setup is over a network, I use Illustrator to make my vectors. Then I import into Aspire. I use aspire to save a .tap gcode file. I then access this file from my workshop laptop and run it through universal G-code sender.

 

@T4Concepts
Yes, "Sneaker net" works to move your files back and forth. Your tool chain sounds appropriate to me, though I've not used Sketchup with Sketchucam, there are plenty others on the forum that have that can jump in. I'm planning a build that is Fusion360 to Universal G-Code Sender or Chilipepper (if I can get it to run offline).