computer
A Boring Weekend
I had a good weekend in the shop. I bored out some axle caps for use on a Harley motorcycle. I didn’t create them, but the owner updated his ride to a new machine and the caps would not fit the new bike. All I had to do was use the Lathemaster and bore the stainless steel caps to the correct I.D. Each was a different size.
Next I set up another HB2 heat sink on the Taig CNC and let it run for four hours. That got the motor side done on one blank. Then on Sunday I did the other side (another 3 hours) and I have a full heat sink complete. That’s three so far counting the test one. I actually have 3 and ½ finished at the moment, heading for five.
While the Taig was running and buzzing happily away over in the corner, I used the Wonderful little Proxxon PD400 to make 16 identical aluminum leg extensions for mount the HB2 heat sinks to the machine frame. I am going a lot fancier than the stock motor mounts.
The legs are ½ inch round aluminum 6061-T6 bar stock I cut to about 1.750 inches. I faced both ends to exact length; spot drilled both ends, drilled #24 holes for tapping, tapped both ends 10-24, and then chamfered the tapped holes. Repeat 16 times. Of course I had an assembly line type process for each step. The tapping was the most work.
I also did some computer work and filled a couple of orders and questions from the store. In all it kept me out of the bars this weekend! (As if I ever go to such places 🙂 )
Thankful
The HB2 heat sinks are milling just fine now. It just takes a lot of time. More time than it is worth to put them into production by milling alone. This is why prototypes cost so much. They prove the product but there are much cheaper ways to make things in quantity. That’s the challenge of home shop machining. I can make just about anything I can imagine, but not necessarily the using the most efficient and least expensive process.
Milling something from a billet of aluminum is no where as efficient as starting with a casting with most of the unnecessary metal not present. I don’t see enough of a market for these HB2 heat sinks. Heck, I haven’t even tested them yet. I do have one on the HB2 machine and sure does LOOK cool. Ha!
The mighty little Taig Micro-mill is working like a champ. It sets there running constantly for three to four hours just singing along. The little end mills and light cuts are just right for this machine. It shows fancy (expensive) screws and ball nuts are not required on small machines. The very light mist cooling keeps things cool, just a huge amount of slightly damp aluminum chips to sweep and vac away.
HB2 Brain Box
Bare Bones Asus Computer
I went into NewEgg and did a search for bare bones computers. That is a good start to build up an inexpensive computer. A bare bones computer usually includes the case, power supply and general purpose mother board. That’s an Asus bare bones case you see in the picture. The flat screen I already own.
I picked one that could use one of the dual processor AMD processors. Dual processors (on one chip) are the only way to go. I chose an AMD 64 Athalon X2 5000+ processor. The speed is 2.6 GHz. This is a faster processor than I have in my office computer I am using to write this post. It is also a bunch cheaper than I paid for my 4400+ a few years ago.
Inside the case. Note air intake on side panel.
Besides the case and the AMD processor, I also purchased 2 Gig of RAM. The mother board only holds two sticks and 2 Gig is more than plenty for a workshop CNC computer. The last Item I purchased was a CD (lightscribe) drive. I did not install a floppy. (What’s a floppy?)
I had a 60Gig hard drive, so no purchase there. I also had a copy of Windows XP Pro from a decommissioned computer I threw away. The sound and video is built in and are working just fine with Mach3.
Total out of pocket cost for what you see here is $270.00, not too shabby.
Let me tell ya, this little package runs faster and better than my office system. But it is not a super computer. The only cooling fans are on the processor heat sink and the power supply. Heat is NOT a problem. All fans are running on low speed… Continue reading
More Fun With CNC
Another carving done with a V bit on the CNC machine. It looks like the very old newspaper pictures that were screened before being printed. It is actually a very similar process. The Vectric software scans the picture for light and dark areas and that in turn sets the depth of the carving. Everything is adjustable by the user (me) so it takes some work to make it look just right.
That is only the computer part. The board is a piece of red oak and that needs some prep before carving. I sanded and applied two coats of shellac and sanded again. The board looks horrible after carving, so it takes more sanding and paint filling to get what you see here. Then a clear finish coat over everything.
The point is that I didn’t just push “GO” and out popped this print. There is a lot of work involved. But it is also a lot of fun to have a unique finished product at the end.
Missing RhinoCAM
I received the update to Rhinoceros 4.0 yesterday. It loaded into the MS Vista OS just fine. When first booted that worked fine. However, after clicking on a few axis quadrant displays (this is a 3D drawing program) there was an obvious problem. Various quadrant screens would black out. Ugh! I was sure this was a known problem and I expect first releases will usually have some bugs. Vista is certainly no easy beast to tame first time out. There were already two updates to Rhino version 4.0. A quick trip to the Rhino website and after what seemed like umpteen times asking me to enter my registration code, I obtained the updates.
A painless update install followed and I also updated Flamingo (update included with Rhino 4.0 package) to run with the new Rhino 4.0. Flamingo is a graphic ray tracing plug-in I purchased for Rhino 3.0. After a bit of work it makes drawn objects look real after rendering. I am glad I didn’t have to replace or pay to upgrade Flamingo.
Rhino 4.0 now starts quickly and flawlessly as compared to Rhino 3.0. The screen looks the same as my earlier version but perhaps the tool icons are a bit larger. Don’t know… It just seems “easier” to look at. That’s not very quantitative, but my impression. A tool you are going to use when drawing for hours on end needs to have a good “look” 🙂
I obtained the update through MecSoftat a very good discount. I also ordered and was to receive the update to RhinoCAM, another plug-in to run with Rhino 4.0. but for some reason the RhinoCAM update was not in the package. MecSoft is the producer of RhinoCAM (and Visual Mill) so I think they just forgot to put it… Continue reading