What's on YOUR CNC right now?

[Tweaker]

Well I botched something as simple as a scarf cut. Today isn’t a good day to work with tools, all my wood will become trash!

Probably need to dial in the saw tomorrow and try again. I liked the scarf joint/cnc combo you did, saves a lot of wood.

EDIT: I think I can salvage my scarf cut on the neck blank. Somehow the cut doesn’t make a straight line across the board before the 12 degree angle, obviously saw/jig related. Rather than fight with the saw I’ll just put the pieces on the CNC and cut a straight 12 degree scarf. Not as fast, but it should at least salvage the blank.

 

[Ripthorn]

On my CNC I have my CNC...My old Dell desktop has given up the ghost for about the 5th time and I'm pretty tired of it, so I'm working on converting it over to GRBL on Arduino. I'll still use my breakout board and big stepper drivers (since I'm running big motors to move the thing, it is a milling machine after all). Found a great Arduino shield that breaks has a DB25 connector so I won't have to do any re-wiring of my control box. Now I can use a computer that is less than about 15 years old!

 

[pshupe]

Well I botched something as simple as a scarf cut. Today isn’t a good day to work with tools, all my wood will become trash!

Probably need to dial in the saw tomorrow and try again. I liked the scarf joint/cnc combo you did, saves a lot of wood.

EDIT: I think I can salvage my scarf cut on the neck blank. Somehow the cut doesn’t make a straight line across the board before the 12 degree angle, obviously saw/jig related. Rather than fight with the saw I’ll just put the pieces on the CNC and cut a straight 12 degree scarf. Not as fast, but it should at least salvage the blank.

I generally cut my scarf joint on my bandsaw in a jig I made up. Here is my neck through Firebird in the jig. It's funny. This scarf joint in the neck is purely cosmetic. I cut it and laminted the same laminations perpendicular then glued it back together and cut the head stock angle.

Sometimes it is off slightly. I try and cut with lots of extra on each end. That way I can joint or hand plane the angle perfectly square.

Cheers Peter.

 

[ihavenofish]

On my CNC I have my CNC...My old Dell desktop has given up the ghost for about the 5th time and I'm pretty tired of it, so I'm working on converting it over to GRBL on Arduino. I'll still use my breakout board and big stepper drivers (since I'm running big motors to move the thing, it is a milling machine after all). Found a great Arduino shield that breaks has a DB25 connector so I won't have to do any re-wiring of my control box. Now I can use a computer that is less than about 15 years old!

YAY!

I want to know how well grbl works. I gave up on mach3 ages ago. Too sketchy. Ruined alot of work pieces. I use linuxcnc now, with mesa cards. but those cost a fair bit of money, and linuxcnc isn't the cutting enge of tech either.

Always looking to see what else is working.

 

[ihavenofish]

Built an enclosure box, and printed the neck in PETG. Worked perfectly, no warping, lifting, or cracking. The neck is waaay more flexy than the PLA one. I need to put the reinforcing rod in and see if its a problem. I'm worried more about twisting. Might need to print it thicker.

 

[Tweaker]

OK, so I managed to salvage the hack scarf cuts I made. I modeled a 12 degree scarf cut and cut it on the machine. I think I used a .01" stepover, which eliminated the need for sanding. I planed down the headstock piece to the correct thickness and ran the next scarf cut:

It's embarrassing how bad I am at using jigs and power tools to make these kinds of cuts. I'm way better with CNC. Anyways, I glued the pieces together (which sucked, I thought I blew it, but it ended up working out) and threw it on the machine. Below you can see the "fixture" to get the neck up off the table so the headstock would clear. I cut the truss rod channel this afternoon, quick easy operation:

You can see a pretty nice tight glue line in the channel, even though it's a little iffy up on the fretboard side of the neck. Since it will be covered by the fretboard I don't really care. You can also see the little cuts to allow the stewmac hot rod truss rod nut end to fit into the channel, without having to ream anything out. Not really the correct way to do it, but it works for me:

I'll use the indexing holes to position the neck correctly tomorrow. I forgot to measure the headstock angle before I glued the pieces together, so while it was on the machine I took a couple measurements. Looks good to me.

 

[pshupe]

A few necks. Fresh off the CNC. Bartlett specs. I did a couple with two TIm Horton's card offsets, so they would be considered thicker necks. Worked out quite well.

3 one - piece and 2 laminates all Honduran. 4 Les Paul styles and one Futura.

Cheers Peter.

 

[fretman_2]

I'm running GRBL. My setup is bCNC on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ to an Arduino Uno to the individual drivers...the two Y axis drivers share the single Y axis port off the Arduino.

On my CNC I have my CNC...My old Dell desktop has given up the ghost for about the 5th time and I'm pretty tired of it, so I'm working on converting it over to GRBL on Arduino. I'll still use my breakout board and big stepper drivers (since I'm running big motors to move the thing, it is a milling machine after all). Found a great Arduino shield that breaks has a DB25 connector so I won't have to do any re-wiring of my control box. Now I can use a computer that is less than about 15 years old!

 

[Tweaker]

I love Raspberry Pi’s! They can do everything, it’s amazing. My dad and I used them for a long time to control our reef aquariums.

I’m running Mach3 on a little mini PC, with Leadshine MX4660 drivers and an Ethernet smoothstepper. No more parallel port. I have yet to encounter any Mach3 issues with this setup and everything is remarkably precise! I dig the smoothstepper because I don’t have to worry about parallel ports and can run Mach3 on Windows 10.

 

[Tweaker]

Another pic heavy post, sorry guys. I'd rather post it here than start a thread, since its all CNC related anyways. I cut the Les Paul body over the weekend. Somehow I accidentally set the DOC to 1/16" so it took FOREVER, but it worked out. I wanted to try adaptive clearing but I'd rather test on scraps first and fine tune that operation before going for it on a nice LP body.

I sanded the top carve this morning, but not all the way to the edges, since I want to get the binding in first before I finish sanding the top. I also avoided the neck angle area. And probably the sides too, now that I think of it. So, next step: install binding. It's the Bartlett binding so it's really beefy Anyways, here's what the top looks like. Not bookmatched and very subtle figure:

I also spent some time with the neck fit this morning...so far it's very tight, I just need to get a little bit of material off the bottom of the neck tenon. I cut the angle into the sides of the neck on the machine and only had to use a chisel to square up the round inside corners. The fit looks good to me!

Here you can see the binding channel that I programmed the machine to cut. Very clean. I took it in 1/16" depth increments to avoid tearout.

You can also see each stepdown from routing the body profile. Last time I cut the body I left .02" of stock and did one final cleanup pass at full depth to remove these, but I got some weird tearout and surface finish, so I figured I'd just sand this out instead. Gotta get my hands dirty at some point!

So far I'm pleased with the progress!

 

[Ripthorn]

I got my milling machine converted over to running GRBL. Still using my drivers and breakout board, but using a Raspberry Pi 3B+, arduino uno, and an uno-to-DB25 converter board. Works great! I used it to make a couple of templates last night. Next, I need to test on some more detailed items. The computer is now so quiet, small, and works much more reliably than my old clunker.

 

[ihavenofish]

woot
now make something
ive been sidetracked with other stuff for a bit. ill get back to my machines soon.

 

[fretman_2]

I've been side tracked myself. Getting everything arranged to get some instructor time for my biennial flight review. Getting back into private pilot flying after a long layoff.

 

[ihavenofish]

my new Z axis and bits for my large machine are done. yay!
anyone got a shop to put them in?

Im tempted to see if i can sell the machine to someone local - build it for them, teach them to use it. but... i also want to keep just it. haha

 

[pshupe]

some necks - started out like this -

ended up like this -

Cheers Peter.

 

[fretman_2]

My CNC machine is piled high with junk right now as I have to turn my attention to making Christmas gifts on my wood lathe. I'll be making bowls and pens...and contemplating my next guitar build!

 

[ihavenofish]

I just mock assembled my new and improved XZero predator.

...and now i cant move it. its almost 500lbs.

Almost at the part where i need to wire up the X and Z axis to temporary 110v and start the control work.

What is everyone using for dust shoes and chip collection?

I uses a basic shoe and shop vac before, but it was mostly useless. it was at a fixed height and never generated enough suction to collect anything but finer dust.

 

[pshupe]

I just mock assembled my new and improved XZero predator.

...and now i cant move it. its almost 500lbs.

Almost at the part where i need to wire up the X and Z axis to temporary 110v and start the control work.

What is everyone using for dust shoes and chip collection?

I uses a basic shoe and shop vac before, but it was mostly useless. it was at a fixed height and never generated enough suction to collect anything but finer dust.

Wow - that is quite the beast.

That is also something I'd like to look into a bit more. My dust shoe came with the machine and I do not like it very much. The clamp needs a wrench and an allen key and it is inside the shoe. It does have a quick release for the dust collector hose attachment but the bristles are constantly falling out and it is in a static location.

This is my old one, which was slightly better.

I would like to look at one that moves up and down related to the work piece. TBH I haven't been using it much recently because I have been doing a lot of "first" runs where I watch the spindle very closely. It's tricky to find something that works with machining at different heights. I think they are basically designed to ride at one locaiton like when cutting flat stock. I do have a dedicated 1 HP dust collector and it seems to be powerful enough but combined with the poor design I would rate it as a passable solution.

Regards Peter.

 

[ihavenofish]

The fancy machines have one on a stick that's programmable (air with a lead screw controlling the stop?)

So the program sets the height, and then it can retract up as well.

I wonder how hard it is to make something like that. my spindle has a 100mm round x 100mm long nose, then the tool collet face is 45mm down, so, theres some room for movement.

The trick is to be able to generate suction, which can be hard on work pieces that aren't just flat sheets.

I'm less worried about the large shavings, and mostly about the medium to fine dust that goes everywhere and ruins all the bearings.

 

[Josh Young]

So far, all that's on my CNC is a couple of reference lines in the spoil board, but my enclosure is finished, and dust collection is connected, so I'm hoping to start cutting some parts this weekend. This machine is a serious upgrade over my last one.