New mini RGB build

[RGbee]

It makes sense to have the mill set in the collet with the shortest path. The end mills came direct from Proxxon (for that particular model) so it stands to good reason they should fit properly. I'll double check tonight

Cheers

[dar303]

Good advice above! I want to add that if not using specialized flood cooling liquids (messy for home use!) use alcohol based fluids for cutting aluminium and oilbased for cuting and tapping ferrous materials.
I usually have a flower spray bottle with about 50% each red spirit or isopropanol and 50% water and it works great for alu on my CNC. Sometimes I also cut dry on both manual mill and CNC but only on "good" hard and easy to machine alu, front panels and 19" rack material is usually crappy anf gummy so moore cooling and attention to feed and speeds there. Compressed air or vacum is also good if possible.

[RGbee]

Double checked last night and can confirm that that is indeed the furthest the mill bit sit in the collet. To be fair, i was cutting agressively (speed wise). What spindle speed does everyone else for aluminium with a 5mm 2 flute end mill?

[chad]

Hi RGbee,

First I want to say I am sorry. I didn't intend to sound negative. I am happy to help anyone who wants to build things, period.
My first error was assuming that the little proxcon was cnc (I had it stuck in my head that it was). There is a difference between machining manually and cnc and how you treat feeds and speeds.
In cnc the goal is to take out as much heat in the chip as possible as fast as possible. Yesterday I was roughing 6061 aluminum at 180 inches per minute with a 3/4" carbide two flute end mill at 10000 rpm. Aluminum is just shooting off in the mist of coolant. 100% load on a 20hp machine. It's actually kinda scary
So any way, how does this relate to how you are cutting on your machine? Well, I figure out what I can do for the material, the feed(how fast to move the stock when cutting), the spindle speed and how much power I have... You are doing the same thing, just scaled smaller. After you use your machine for a while you will get a feel for how to do things and a feel for the right feed and depth of cut. That machine is really little so it isn't going to be really rigid, and When you are using spinning metal to remove more metal, rigidity is a good thing.
When things are good and solid and feed and speed are correct it shouldn't shudder or chatter, remember, smooth.
But keep it up. It won't be long until you want a bigger machine. Just like lasers it is a money pit

chad

[andy_con]

as Chad has said just keep playing and you wil soon know what the machine can and cant do.

i think it took me 6 months to really understand my first mill and learning about all the different tooling and what it all does.

[planters]

One suggestion I think you will benefit a lot from. No matter how small your mill, the next investment should be a DRO or Digital Read Out for at least the X/Y axis. This will greatly improve your productivity, accuracy and even compensates for most of the play that is present in the machine. I can not imagine working with out one.

[RGbee]

Despite my original intention of fabricating the box, i managed to source some extruded aluminium panels that looked like they would do the trick. Yesterday i received the components for the enclosure.

As expected, the assembled box is a bit too narrow in width for the base plate. You can see it collides with the position of the mounting holes in the pic below, so action had to be taken.
Last night i milled the section in between, leaving 10mm for the screws to go. Once i've cut out the same 10mm on all corners of the base plate it should slot right in





Seing as the guts of the projector are 'self contained' i may well at some point make a sheet steel enclosure from scratch, as doing it this way adds a mighty 13.6mm to the overall width, which is 'unacceptable'

[jjspike]

Great thread indeed! I am glued.

[hakzaw1]

Great thread indeed! I am glued.

Me too-
Im ready also to see some beams and abstracts.

Very nice that your are sharing this with us and all the great help that has been coming..

[RGbee]

Ok, so i spent most of the weekend in the garage sawing, sanding and drilling. Came to bolt everything together and have found the scan set (specifically the cable entry block) is 5mm too high



I now have several choices:
1. Remove more metal from the baseplate in an effort to try and get it to fit
2. fabricate a box from sheet steel (my original intention)
3. Start again but with a new 8mm optics deck (instead of 10mm) and 5mm base plate (instead of 8mm)

Suggestions?