New Pen mount is working great. A sharpie barley fits but works well. I added the .stl file to the resources tab if any one else wants to do some pen plotting with there C-beam machine..

 

Had a little bit of fun doing my first real bit of cutting on the C-beam Machine this evening. The idea in my head started out as a coffee mug coaster and ended up as a tea kettle trivet. haha This is so much fun! No clue what I am really doing yet but having a blast doing it!!

C-Beam CNC Machine
1/2" MDF
Dewalt DWP611
16,000 rpm ( lowest setting on 611 )
1/8 Carbide Flat Nose Endmill
50ipm cutting speed
0.028" depth of cut per pass

 

that means you are losing steps, reduce accleration and /or max speed for the Z axis, and/or increase the power to the motor.
if you are running at 16x microstepping on a 8x8 leadscrew, you can reduce that to 4x microstepping. much more power and more accuracy, and you still get 0.01mm per step.

 

Chomping away on some 1/4" 6061 Aluminium plate. @Mark Carew and the crew hit the nail on the head with this little c-beam machine. I now really need to build a enclosure and print my case for the power supply and electronics. For the enclosure, I think I am going to do something along the lines of what Winston Moy setup for his S3.

 

Thanks guys, Here is the Sketchup file I made for the key chain as well as a exported dxf.

Cut settings were.
16,000rpm
40ipm
0.015" depth of cut
40% Step over

Endmill used was.
1/8" flat nose single flute upcut carbide.

Sadly, while it started off great. towards the end it decided to veer off course and ruin the piece and break my endmill. Not sure if g-code issue ( sketchup file and sketchucam ) or hardware / communication. ( X-pro / GRBL Panel )

 

Ouch!!!
It was going soooo well
Let us know what happened please.
Gray

 

@Kyo Thank you for the videos and the bit information. Going to buy some from Amazon as there is no way to get them in Mexico.

-Ronald

 

@Michael Shore , Here is the .cnc gcode file feel free to rename to .nc or what ever you need. Also check the top of the file for the settings I used to work with your machine.

@dddman , That was my first thought as well. It was also suggested as chip loadup as I don't have any air or such to clear out the chips. I also checked my driver voltage this morning and it turns out they were putting out (or trying lol ) way to much current. The drv8825 is vref*2 they were all set to 2.00 (so 4amps?). I reset them to 1.00 so that should mean each steeper is now getting 2amps? The motors sound much more smooth now after the adjustment as well.

@Jimmybuckets , Yeah just a little interference ( I will snap a pic latter today). I think it is fine as is. I just made two little notches with the razor for clearance. The shim is working out perfect. It is keeping the dewalt mounted nice and secure within the OB mount.

@Ronald van Arkel , No problem glad to share. I had to grab mine from ebay / amazon as well. They came in quick.

 

Yes, well another version of the keychain. It seems to have helped a great deal. I adjusted my settings slightly and this time I held a vacuum hose close to the cut to help clear the chips. After a really quick sanding top and bottom to remove the scratches that came on the plate.



I am as happy as a kid in a candy store. On free candy day! I have a feeling this is going to be just as if not more addicting then my 3d printers...

New video. Towards the end of the clip I panic for a sec. I forgot to include the tabs to hold the part in when cutting so the part almost got flung right out by the endmill . The attempt below the one I am cutting in the shot, was with lubrication, It got all sorts of gummy.

 

the Gcode is good, but you do need to turn on ramping when cutting aluminum. this greatly reduces the stress on the bit. eyeball the angle on the end of the bit and ramp at a little less.
(oh, just watched the last video and see you do have ramping on now, but without limit. you will need a limit angle if you switch to a plunge hole as I mention below)

and for the hole, use a plunge hole. if a plunge hole is larger than the bit diameter, and ramping is on, it will cut as a helical spiral and never plunge straight down. one big advantage is that it will cut faster than an inside cut in a circle since it will maintain the ramp angle rather than strictly obey the multipass depth.

to change your drawing to use a plunge hole:
delete the inside cut
draw a vertical line through the middle of the circle, or add a centerpoint if you have that plugin
select the drawn circle and centerline and group it, this prevents any interference with the plunge hole
select the plunge hole tool
hold down SHIFT and click the center (blue dot when inferencing ) of the centerline
enter the diameter and press enter.

done

 

Thank you for the advice, I measured the angle as best I could and did a plunge cut. It definitely helped. This time it came out! A Little bit of hand file / sanding to clean up the tabs left after cutting.



I added it to the resource tab if anyone else wants to give it a try in the future. ( I figured after a few pages pass having it on the resource tab would be easier to find then digging for the file here )

 

GRBL understands only the most basic Gcode, no canned cycles etc, so you need to choose the postprocessor that gives you only
G0 G1 G2 G3 codes, and basic M3 (spindle on) at the start and M5 at the end to stop the spindle if you have spindle control, and finally a M30 for program end.