Scratch Build – In Progress GET A LIFE - COMPLETED

This = gorgeous

Me = a fool for only finding it during MOTM. I voted for you before I read the log, that's how good this is.

 

Thanks a lot for your nice comments and your vote. hehe..I don't blame you for not finding it before as logs tend to come and go


*Progress update:
I am currently designing the foot that will also act as the I/0 backplate. Hopefully I get some time off tomorrow to start the machining of it.

 

Sounds awesome & I love this project .

 

Thanks a lot mate. Love your work aswell and gratz to the MOTM nomination

 

You too & for the record it is deserved to be in top spot, I mean DIY heatsink that works perfectly & 8-bit mushroom is just pure awesome .

 

One Heck of a SWEET job ya did !

Had to read this one twice one time to look at pic's and then had to go back and read it all Very nice.

After finding out that ya can start a pc with just them two posts it has been around 5 years or more no more switch around here . Use Pencil, Penny, Screw driver just any thing ya can find to make it power up.

It would be almost scary to have a silent pc and like your comment about did it start LOL We need them fans to let us know yep it is starting.

Great Job

 

Thanks a lot, your build is just as worthy

Its always nice to hear that there are people actually reading the log as I know it's very easy to just take a quick look at the pics.

Exactly, vandalresistant powerswitches is so 2005, paperclips is the new ****.

About the silence, luckily I will put in some LEDs to atleast be shure of when it's on or not. Im not shure of the placement thoug, sugestions are welcome.


A small progress update: I started milling the foot this weekend, I decided to make it out of steel instead of alu to get a bit more stability in the end. It turned out that somhow someone had mixed up the steel and stainless steel stacks. So I ended up thinking I had a piece of steel but instead it was stainless. However since I'm not used to milling in steel, I didn't notice it was stainless untill the end. No wonder I thought the milling was slow as hell. I was blaiming myself and thought I must be doing something wrong, never thought it was the most obvious, the material. However, I will probably end up remaking this part out of alu or normal steel since I have some milling left to do and doing that in stainless will take forever.

Anyway, I have some pics of it that maybe you wanna see.





In this pic, it actually looks like the piece have some rust on it but the brownish thing is only reflections from the ceiling. Here you can also see the new placement of the forth heatpipe.


After this, I HATE stainless, and I will probably remake this piece out of some normal steel.

 

Got to say, the result is still very nice!

 

And that, my friend, is why there is always a magnet present on the shelves where we have our steel, and stainless steel!
But yeah, when one get's used to aluminum, stainless is a pain!

 

that only helps if the stainless steel is austenitic.

 

Thanks, I have to say that one of the advantages with stainless that I like is that I don't have to worry about the part getting scratched that easy.

Yet another one of the machinists easy tricks that I will never forget. I actually wasn't shure with this part until I had left it in water for some time.

 

Gnu, keep the stainless! I love stainless...I use it at work when I need a part quick and don't have time for paint. I know it sucks to machine, but it is worth it. Just jitterbug it, passivate it, and your done

 

So Strange was looking at your Sig and checked your other project and see that we have same MIll/Drill got rid of mine a while back did its job saved a ton of money with a few parts that had to be made but after a full day on CNC who wants to get home and work on the Mill/Drill. LOL

Great little machine but boy cutting SS on it that was a work out for you. Just make sure to get the RPM down low with SS and it should be ok . So Slow that you can almost start to see the endmill turn 400 - 600 rpm range depending on endmill size. Feed around 2 - 5 ipm should get you in the ballpark. each machine will be a little diff.




You made all them parts on that same mill you got my vote ONE HECK OF A NICE JOB ! Have a understanding of how many hours you got in it now.

 

Yeah the nice finish is truely a big advantage, I still dont know weither to keep it or make it out of normal steel or alu and simply paint/anodize it black.

Yeah it's a nice litte mill but i didn't use it to machine the ss. I'm still not totaly satisfied with the surface results that mill creates. It seems hard to create a nice mirrorfinish as I can on the schools mills. I'm not shure if its caused by crapy mills or vibrations, I will have to get some high quality mills before I know for shure. If you have any tips or pics of what you have done with it it would be nice to see, so that I know what to expect or aim for. Btw, im planing on cnc converting it.

For all the parts in this project I have been using the larger mills att school. Much more sturdy but the ss was still not fun. The brand is STOREBRO and it looks like this:


Anyway, I have gotten a job offer in the neighbour country that I can't refuse. So at the moment there is some moving going on. Luckily they got a lathe and a smaller mill that I hopefully get to play with as It will be harder to get to the Schools workshop in the future. Hopefully this will not affect my modding as techincaly I get access to a 3rd workshop.

 

IF ya can skip the retro on the cnc and find a nice used cnc would be better .

Have found that a FULL on cnc is just not handy for the type of work most do and if you can get a nice used one like this and that is not a bad $ http://cgi.ebay.com/Proto-Trak-DPM-3-Axis-Milling-Machine-/230584780071?pt=BI_Mills&hash=item35afec8527#ht_500wt_1156

Very handy to go from manual to cnc very easy . And for the most part can do all programing right on mill so no extra cost with a pc and cad/cam software. Also picked up that software BOB CAD kinda handy for the most part but THEY WILL CALL YOU 1 MILLION TIMES and will not stop calling so big Thumbs down on that . What stops most home shops is the 3 phase you can work around that but it is some added cost.

Only way that could get the nice micro like your looking for was the keep the head very low and keep the quil up as much as could it just had so much slop and that is what would make project take so long was just that very thing any time that wanted to change setup had to raise the head and then you would not get to keep x,y,z 0 cause it would rotate on the round column. It needed a keyway cut in side of it very much but also found that the whole shaft would rotate on base of machine if them set screws were not snug.

It just kinda depends on how far or how much $$ ya can spend.

Oh and if looking to do a bunch of SS don't miss out on some of them old Mills from like back in 40 50 and 60's and so many shops are going to CNC they will just about give them away trubble is they weigh in at around 8000 pounds .

Would love to have a nice Lathe like this but bad side is bore size on spindle think it will only go to 1 1/8 inch but very nice lathe http://cgi.ebay.com/Monarch-10EE-Precision-ToolRoom-Lathe-4000-RPM-10-EE-/270376502846?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3ef3b2063e#ht_735wt_905

But they have tubes in them so if one needs to replace anything in it almost need to swap out motor and do something else cause replacement parts could be hard to find.


Here is a few parts made on the old Mill/Drill and be sure to check out http://www.hobbiezones.com/page14.php

 

First off congratulations on the new job dude!

Sorry to hear you went with the wrong material... does look sweet though

 

Keep the sweet SS. The sheen on the aluminum will slowly fade, but the SS will stay like it looks now forever.

 

Thanks a lot mate

So true, but still it sucks to machine and I have a lot of pockets left to mill before that part would be done. Hm.. what to do

 

Sorry mate, the reply to your huge post just slipped away.
Thanks a lot for that wonderfull reply and the pictures, seems like you know quite a lot of these things. I guess you make a real good point about skipping the cncing of the round collum mill since I can't recal hearing anything good about it. The main thought of cnc:ing it was to buy a kit with some pretty decent motors to play around with and learn and do some minor stuff. And in the future, when economy (and space) allows I can retrofit the kit on a more decent mill. I have been looking quite a lot at those ZX45 or RF45 or whatever they are called. But anyway that's not gona happen in the near future.

Again thanks for your tips and ideas, always apreciated Really nice to se some of your milling pics.

 

Keep with the SS. Slow RPM, lots of coolant, and make sure your tools are sharp. You can feed it faster than you would think, but make sure you have some carbide bits.