Tool for productivity

At least now we can stand around drinking beer and something will get done.
Bridgeport series 1 cnc retrofit with mach30 pc based controller. Lots to learn before we'll be making.

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Grant Hughes

Everyone is looking super productive in that photo.

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Andrew_Frick
Everyone is looking super productive in that photo.

Yeah, that was a 9:30 after we finally got it into the shop. Glad we went 1.5 hours earlier than originally planned to pick it up. Everyone had told wives/sgnificant others we'd be done at 6:30 or so. Thing weighs like 3000 pounds and is slightly unwieldy. Came with decent amount of collets and a few end mills so we can start playing with stuff. Need to find a decent CAD/CAM software. Probably machine a radial adapter to use AP Racing calipers I have with the JVAB front disc hats since I already have all the dimensions and such I need for that and it's pretty simple.
We will know after PRI a few details for some other projects that will be using this machine to help build parts for and hopefully start generating parts/revenue soon!

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Grant Hughes

I wonder if there would be any demand for something like DesignCrowd for machinists. Seems like there are a ton of hobbyist machinists and start up shops that could use that to make a little extra income and engineering students could have an outlet for getting their junk design made into a paper weight.

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Grant Hughes

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NoCoast
I wonder if there would be any demand for something like DesignCrowd for machinists. Seems like there are a ton of hobbyist machinists and start up shops that could use that to make a little extra income and engineering students could have an outlet for getting their junk design made into a paper weight.

What's DesignCrowd?

As far as getting extra work for CNC stuff, check out rfqwork.com or CNCzone.com I have posted requests for getting parts made and have tons of people send me bids to make them. Prices are usually super cheap compared to other places.

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johnhuebbe
What's DesignCrowd?

As far as getting extra work for CNC stuff, check out rfqwork.com or CNCzone.com I have posted requests for getting parts made and have tons of people send me bids to make them. Prices are usually super cheap compared to other places.

Design crowd is basically crowd sourced design work. Want a logo, create a project on there and designers can bid or design for you. Never used it as I just hire a local friend who's done great work for us so far.
RFQwork.com is what I was thinking. Cool.

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Grant Hughes

or you could spend 3k on a alphacam suite and a monkey could run it

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Ask, listen-read, research, learn, weigh, execute, then let er rip

Grant, if you have any cnc or machining questions I can probably help out a bit. I've spent hundreds of hours running older Fadal cnc machines and bridgeport cnc mills.
Learning g-code is pretty straight forward, especially for a machine like that.
I would start every job by running it on plastic or wood first. It will save you a TON on broken tooling.
Avoid carbide unless you absolutely have to, since aluminum and carbide don't work well together. I also like just using compressed air for coolant (if I can't use a flood system).

Find a bootleg copy of mastercam, or solidworks with a cam package, or catia with a cam pacakge or similar and use that until they force you to buy a copy. If you can find a software that has a lot of tutorials or youtube videos, that is really helpful. I'm using one now that has ZERO online support videos.

I've primarily used edgeCAM, which is very similar to alphaCAM (both owned by Vera software), and I would suggest against using those.

dont see why alphacam wouldnt be a good easy solution i learned to use it in one day. solidworks on the otherhand really need to take a intensive course. i use both,and for what your doing i would say they both use a dxf file for design to add tool paths to then convert to nc for machine to run.
the main thing is understand materials and tooling for example a bit likes to run a certain speed for a certain material so lets say the rpm is 16k for optimal cutting and the chip for the bit is .007chip being how much material is removed optimally in one revolution
the formula would be rpm 16000xchip .007=feed rate 112 inches per minute
then dont forget there is also down feed which is much slower

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Ask, listen-read, research, learn, weigh, execute, then let er rip

My main beef with edgeCAM is its inability to find geometry consistently. The selection snaps are terrible and inconsistent, leading to the operator selecting the wrong geometry (especially easy with holes).

MasterCAM. Everyone uses it.

never seen that problem on alpha

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Ask, listen-read, research, learn, weigh, execute, then let er rip

Engineer friend already has MasterCam.

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Grant Hughes

Supply him and steady stream of pabst and that Colorado green.

Wait, that might not bring the best results.

In the same vein, we just bought a Leadwell MCV-760 CR CNC mill and Leadwell T6 CNC lathe. I've been working in Solidworks and am pretty proficient. Just bought a copy of Gibbs to write the code. Hopefully bringing some of our machine work in-house will help us next year. I know prototyping will be less painful.

I've had a manual mill and a toolroom lathe at home, and a smaller lathe here at work. But the move to CNC equipment is a big deal for me.

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Jason McDaniel

Nice! That will be a good addition!
We have some decent resources in our rally friends to help us get up and running. Just orders a kit to hold parts on the table. First job is machining the Merkur crank pulley for the 36-1 trigger wheel. Pretty easy from a mill standpoint so a decent first project.
I think a CNC plasma might be more useful for the kind of work we are doing. But like I told the guys the other day, between the CNC mill and tire mount/balance machines you have the equipment to make money no matter what happens.

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Grant Hughes