CNC Milling ABS plastic (and outstanding issues)

Posted on 16 August 201120 August 2011 by tom.larkworthy

Sacrificial wood clamps the piece so the cutter doesn't hit the steel vice. We have a new cutting lubricant in the bottom of the photo. A bottle of red helps the time pass.

Maria and I were working last week fabricating four identical complex pieces out of ABS plastic. Initially we though a lowish feed rate combined with a fast cutting speed would give the best results but actually that’s not true. ABS suffers from the material melting and reattaching tangental to the circular cutter, so the effect is that when you cut, you end up drawing frayed lines over the surface. This is particularly noticeable on 90 degree corners and in deep pockets (concave regions). The first fix we tried was running the same program a second time. This did improve the situation but not enough to give it a finished look.

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CNC working again

Posted on 24 July 201124 July 2011 by tom.larkworthy

New Oldham couplings for the Z and Y axis have been fitted. The X axis has not been replaced but it has also never been broken. We have the bits to fit the X axis, we can do it next round of breakages :p Slop and backlash have been greatly reduced, and the machine sounds Read more about CNC working again[…]

Raft Race Report

Posted on 10 July 2011 by peterj

It was Saturday morning, following a late night of raft assembly and a tight fit into the transport the Edinburgh Hacklab raft was at the canal ready for racing. During some pre-race testing there was a capsize with the two occupants going for a swim. We went in the first heat against a very impressive Read more about Raft Race Report[…]

RepRap pen test

Posted on 4 May 2011 by Martin

Here’s the machine from March’s RepRap build party, still lacking its extruder but joining our collection of robotic devices writing ‘hacklab’ at the lab. The machine belongs to Edinburgh University, but we’re helping to get it up and running so it can print a set of parts for the Hacklab’s own RepRap Mendel.

First CNC-controlled cuts on the mill

Posted on 16 April 201117 April 2011 by Martin

For those of you not following on the mailing list, this was the first live cutting done by our CNC mill conversion a couple of weeks back. Now we just need to complete the automation of the Z-axis, which is in progress.

Speaker Cabinet Progress

Posted on 2 April 20119 April 2011 by gde

Made good progress on the speaker cabinet at the Hacklab last night, ably assisted by @tinyblob. Unfortunately, the screws I bought for the back panel are a few mm too short so I need to do some shopping. Getting close now, though. I still need to chisel out pockets for handles on the accompanying 4U Read more about Speaker Cabinet Progress[…]

Mill->CNC project

Posted on 22 March 201122 March 2011 by tom.larkworthy

Martin and I worked more on the Mill->CNC project. “We tried to get the Linux-based CNC software EMC2 running with the mill. The initial idea had been to use Jay’s ITX machine for this, but it turns out this won’t run the necessary realtime kernel due to not having a working local APIC. We had a dig through the Read more about Mill->CNC project[…]

Milling to 3 axis CNC project

Posted on 26 February 201127 February 2011 by tom.larkworthy

This project has been a long term project nearly since Edinburgh Hacklab’s formation. The goal was to take the broken RepRap, and use its 3 axis stepper motors and electronic and fit them to a basic milling machine (Clarke CMD10 Micro Milling Machine). So far we have successfully made new motor mounts for the X and Y Read more about Milling to 3 axis CNC project[…]