Hi - Thought some people might find my latest project helpful
I needed to machine some lightweight aluminium enclosures (Hammond 1455C801BK) to allow for some buttons and LED’s.
I knew the CNC head would not have enough grunt to handle the task so I bought a 500W Laminate Trimmer from Amazon and 3D printed a collar that I could bolt onto the Head Plate in place of the original (I leave the original CNC head connected but sat on the bench behind the snapmaker)
I built a simple jig to hold the workpiece (Aluminium and Custom wood) - need to do better than this next time, but it did the job.
For my Toolchain I used OnShape for my CAD, but added Kiri-Moto from the Onshape app store for the CNC Gcode generator. (For the machine choice I selected 'Any Generic Linux CNC, then changed the output extension from NGC to cnc - that’s it! Simple.
I found a quirk with the process - when I created the drawing as a sketch on top of the enclosure - Kiri_Moto insisted on trying to machine the edge of the enclosure rather than just the bit I wanted to cut out - there is probably a way of avoiding that but I found it easier to make a new drawing on a plate that is bigger that the enclosure - then move the origin to the middle and work from there. Snapmaker still tried to machine the boundary of the drawing - but since that is in fresh air it makes no difference to me (other than slowing things down a little)
Snapmaker pickedthe file up file from the USB without any issues and got on with the job. (See photo’s)
There are a few risks and issues involved - I used a 3mm endmill (don’t think anything smaller would have coped with the ‘wobble’ caused by using a grossly oversized motor for the frame) - Doubt I have done the machine any serious damage (seem to keep working ok after I finished) but I absolutely would not want to machine anything heavier than this (Need a purposed built machine for the next job)
I kept the step down at 0.5mm, stepover at 1.00mm and the feedrate down to 100mm/s (I will slow it down more than that next time)
I was surprised how easy it was once I got my head around Kiri-Moto (both that and OnShape are free BTW)
Links
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipO5MtVcL7emW9Y0LJKGFMArYOwr6LBlQGx6XFZL
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMzwNMYlGBTmxBaJMYQf6jTDohZRV39EuyDT1Ne
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipM5ujy9RsS6L-wQ5Rb9Od3wnRFdb5RWJsNVFgGk
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipODWpZhWl5P63xy-XbwRXG3D3I9NjMReu4YFRRU
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMiC57VI7c3RJiG5b6bHmVJqO45HCwcMZPxWkk7
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipN4mVGHdHWip6pLhLtBGFlM4yZ3Ir9iOU7uaxir
