Machine Shop
Perhaps it is time to return to machine shop activities. The making of real parts with brass and steel and aluminum. For that matter, any machinable materials.
I have been beating myself (mentally) with the Junque I make with plastic 3D printing. Some things need to be made with plastic. I will certainly keep making plastic parts.
Small mechanical things like live steam and gas engines can only be modeled in plastic. Not made operational.
Fall season is returning to Texas USA and the weather will cool.
My shop is in an unconditioned attached garage and subject to the extreme air temperatures. Working in a 100 degree shop is unbearable to an old dude like me. I have fans to move the air around. I really need an (air) conditioned workshop. Both for heating and cooling.
If I ever move from here, there are certain conditions that will have to be satisfied. A conditioned workspace for the machine shop and a conditioned space for my amateur radio “ham shack”. Could be tied together but the radio-electronics area will have to be a separate area or room.
Pipe dreams for now but dreams are allowed.
Where does all the time go? Oh yeah, smokin’ that dream pipe.
Suffering Con-Fusion360
The Autodesk Fusion 360 seems to be suffering an identity crisis. It is acting like it no longer wants to be the choice of hobbyists. Fusion 360 is abandoning its “Hobbyist” license and is calling what remains a “One Year Personal Use” license. No indication that can be renewed on a year-to-year basis.
To me this “Cool Hand Luke” failure to communicate is a flashing beacon in the fog. “You hobbyists can play another year, but after that you better “pony-up” for one of our revenue stream licenses,” Is the message I read.
Could be they discovered too many “professional” users claiming hobbyist status.
That is not a problem for me to solve.
I must decide what is best for the 3D CAD drawing that I do. I have many other paid-up options. That means I already own them. Rhino 6 and Vectric Aspire to name the two main ones. I also own Pixologic Z-Brush which is not exactly a CAD but does produce quality 3D drawings and models.
I love working with Fusion 360. It is the more commercial Machine Tool CAD and has the built-in CAM for machine tool operations. Of course, it does far more than just machine part drawing.
I have decided to wait and see what Autodesk has done to F360 for the “Personal Use” license. It has been dumbed down and the number of “Open Projects” has been limited to ten. What that actually means is yet to be revealed. I never work with many “open projects”. I work on one at a time.
If it means I must store closed projects on my computer rather than accessible in their cloud server, that is perfectly fine with me. That is my preference and always has been. I do not need a cloud server to… Continue reading
Micro-milling Wax
Perhaps not worthy of a VMC but wax milling is a good job for a mill like the Taig. That implies the Taig is an excellent machine for the job.
As shown elsewhere in this blog, I have converted the standard Taig (not ball-screw) to a water-cooled spindle capable of 25,000 rpm.
The spindle is overpowered for wax milling. It just loafs along at near idle power. I turned off the water flow and let the mill run for an hour without water flow. The spindle became warm, but no where near hot. A lot cooler than the Taig standard CNC spindle motor doing the same work.
I have said wax milling is very low load, so this doesn’t surprise me. It tells me my cooling system is certainly far over engineered. Water flow is slow enough that wastewater (down the drain) cooling is certainly feasible for short to perhaps medium milling. The flow rate needs to be the smallest trickle. I would suggest collecting the (clean) water for plant watering or other uses.
Continue readingTaig Micro-Mill with HS Spindle
A video of my Taig mill with HS water cooled spindle running at 15,000 RPM milling wax double sided master for lost wax casting. Sorry about vertical format. I know better but filmed this originally for quick share with a friend on iPhone Messenger. Right click on image and open in new window for larger size and audio.
Tormach xsTECH Router
A first impression. My impression. NOT a user report.
Note well: It called a ROUTER not micro-mill. Or any type of mill. Routers and mills are cousins, but don’t live in the same family group.
I was extremely excited when I saw this tool for the first time. I like Tormach equipment and I especially like their Linux based PathPilot controller software. This little baby OH router, the Tormach xsTECH actually runs full strength PathPilot!
It’s also a complete, full house, tools and all, everything one needs to get up and running — 3-axis micro overhead router. WOW! Continue reading