First CNC Machining blog post- what is CNC machining?
Hello there!
So after getting a lot of feedback and interest in my business, and CNC machining.. I decided I would start a blog series about it... I've been trying to get pictures and video the last 2 weeks, to provide some good/interesting content... But I'm having trouble deciding what people would be more interested in....
I wanted to do video but it's going to be a lot easier for me to just do text and pictures.. so I guess I'll just do pictures and text for now and see if it progresses, and if people want to see me do video instead!.. Here is a picture of me at my HAAS Mini Mill 2 :)
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Anyways,.. Now let's get to it !!
CNC means Computer Numerical Control.. There are two basic machining types, milling and lathing.. Mills and lathes have been around way before computers, and they used to be completely operator controlled. They were operated with knobs or dials to adjust the movement of the machine on one, or multiple axis. Milling is done on a milling machine like this...
That particular mill has a DRO, or Digital Readout..making it a NC (numerical control) milling machine. The readout helps the operator know exactly what location the X,Y, and Z axis are... The table travels on the X and Y axis, and the spindle, which holds the tooling, travels on the Z axis. The tooling is used to cut or drill into metal, or sometimes plastics and such..
With the advancement in computers, CNC machines were born.. Now, these Mills can run much more advanced G code, and much higher feedrate (rate and distance the machine travels on one or more axis)..
This required machines to start running coolant, and enclosing the machine to capture the coolant and metal chips that are made during the milling.
Here's a picture of my CNC mill
As you can see, it has a computer interface pannel.. The mill also has a 24 side mount tool changer.. The control pannel is the brain of the CNC mill. The newer control panels are extremely advanced, and some have hundreds if not thousands of available functions.
Here is a picture of the control pannel that is used on every HAAS machine...
I will explain later what these buttons do.. I will also be talking about the software used, called CAD/CAM, or Computer Aided Design/Computer Aided Manufacturing software.. This software is extremely important to the manufacturing process. I am also currently document my latest project, which has been to make a fixture, to hold and make fishing lure molds. I am very excited to share this latest project with everyone!
Thanks for reading!
Hello @cypher-5, Along with playing in @apolymask IFC, I also work with the newbieresteem team. A couple of things to think about when making a post is what tags will get you the most exposure and help people of similar interest find you. You use your machine to "Design" things, so using the #design tag would be appropriate, You plan on showing people how it is done so the #howto tag could be used, and well it is a pretty new piece of technology so you could use the #technology tag.
For a community one of them you might want to look at is @steemstem
(Community Project to Promote Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics Postings on Steemit), they are the scientist and engineers type community. I don't know how much engineering you do on the machine but they may be a community to look into.
Good advice bashadow! Thanks for helping my friend out. :)
So many buttons! Definitely a complicated and fascinating machine. Lots of ways it can accidentally kill you as well as I learned recently! Heh.
Cool! What was the first thing you made with it?
The first real product I started making with my mill was custom rear sprockets for motorcycles.. you can check them out at
www.5thgearsprockets.com
I will be posting pictures of Sprockets soon on my steemit page :)
So that is what a sprocket is! I never knew...
Are they cut from a single piece of metal? Are blocks of metal expensive?
Yup! I start with plate 6061 t-651 alloy aluminum... It's $3.00/lb.... an average sprocket starts at about 5 lbs of material. So it's about $15-$20 per Sprocket for cost of materials
Wow, interesting. I can't imagine how this all works,but I guess it is the bedrock of machine production. I always knew there was a machine shop in the physics department somewhere....