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
HB2 Stepper Heat Sinks in the Rough
HB2 Stepper heat-sinks CNC rough milled
These are the four spacer/heat-sinks I am milling for the HB2 router. All four heat-sinks are rough milled on both sides. I flipped two so both sides could be seen.
Total run time so far is about 1.5 hours each. So with setup and clean up and taking pictures, this is about a full days milling work.
I also spent as few extra hours in the morning with RhinoCad making some last minute adjustments for the final runs. Mostly to make sure I don’t get any of the early versions mixed in with the final edits. I was also to reduce some of the run time through better tuning.
The fin cutting is going to take about 4 hours per side, so there is at least four full days of work left to do.
Moving In
It’s done. I have moved most of the articles dealing with my hobby metal shop and other shop crafts here to “The Hobbyist’s Machine Shop” Blog. I may have some fine tuning to do when I see things that are not yet quite correct. All past members and readers of Ramblin’ Dan will have to re-join here. I could move a few of the regulars but it is a manual entry process so I would rather you do it for yourself. 🙂
I set the privileges a bit higher so (I think) you will be able to post your own messages, rather than just comment. So you can ask questions or post your own project. We’ll see if anyone is interested.
Finished the Flip Side
I was able to run the Taig CNC today to finish cut the motor side of my trial heat-sink. It has a few flaws here and there but fairly minor. They were caused by broken milling bits and having to start over several times.
Actually this is “good enough” for actual use if that term is acceptable. It is perfectly functional and ready for use.
I have four more to make so I will be well practiced by the time I do the last one. The time on this side to cut all the fins and a finish pass on the inside took almost five hours.
That doesn’t include the 1/4″ end mill time for cutting the center recess and the big hole. That is about 60 minutes more to do both sides.
The fact is it takes a LOOONG day to make one of these. OK for personal use but hardly worth doing for production. That is the time cost in making what is a fully machined prototype (or five). For volume production this would be best be a casting and then the only machining would be to set the desired inside thickness and create the flat heat sink contact area which is seen on this side.
All the fins on both sides have been cut using only one 3/32″ 2 flute solid carbide end mill. Looking at its cutting end and how it was performing when this side was done, I would say it still has a lot of linear feet left to travel.
BTW, the Taig mill is performing wonderfully spinning for many continuous hours at 10,600 RPM at the spindle; Which I must add, doesn’t even get warm.