Part made on my CNC mill

[Black Forest]

I tipped over a fan in my bedroom a while back. The part that holds the motor to the stand broke. So I went into Fusion and modeled the part and programmed it in CAM and like magic I had a better than new thingamajig to get the fan back in action. I had help from a man in USA with the CAM programming. We did a Zoom meeting and he guided me through the best way to program the toolpaths. That was a huge help to me and gave me the confidence that I was using the CAM efficiently. The part took an hour to mill. I was being conservative on my feeds and speeds.

[sid pileski]

Pretty nice for a first part!
Did you use a ball EM on the curved neck?

Sid

[Bented]

Looks excellent.

[Black Forest]

Pretty nice for a first part!
Did you use a ball EM on the curved neck?

Sid

I roughed it with an 8mm flat endmill and finished it with a 6mm ball nose.

[Black Forest]

Looks excellent.

Thanks. It was like magic to me!

[Bented]

If you do not have to make time on each part decrease the stepover.
This will leave fewer visible tooling marks but increase the cycle time by a great amount.

For some time is unimportant.

[Dan Dubeau]

Impressive first CNC part. Looks like a job well done!

IMO Don't get so hung up on reducing cycle time right away. Focus more on producing cycles that leave nice finishes, and ones that don't eat up tooling. It's easier and cheaper to whittle cycle time from that direction, than trying to add quality, and reduce tooling costs from the other way. Especially in the home shop environment.

[RB211]

You just opened up a new world of possibilities and capabilities.

[sid pileski]

I think it would be interesting and informative to many for you to describe the process from manual to CNC conversion.

[brian Rupnow]

BlackForest---I am happy for you. You learned something new, had fun doing it, and created something beautiful. That doesn't happen often enough in our lives. I'm proud for you.---Brian

[skunkworks]

Ooof - I keep trying to get into solid modeling -> cam... But I really am not doing that complicated of work.. I can can usually create a gcode file in a few minutes for most things.. Now with turning cycles and my working more on some lathe work - G60/61 turning cycles make profile creation pretty easy.

I want to do more cad cam though.. but Squirrel!!!

Great work! It is magical how you can create something from nothing quite painlessly.... It never gets old.

sam

[boslab]

Well done sir, and no broken tool, I’m impressed, first go I had did not go well, found out why there are interlocking doors round a mill, end mill turned into a bullet.
not only did you make the machine that made the part you made a part of a machine, winner
now you need a furnace and some moulds to cast stock I reckon, especially with the price of a billot stock, oh I used the b word ( accurately btw)
well fabricobbled.
( she who must be obeyed sends her regards to the nice man in Germany, you have a fan)
mark

[Black Forest]

Well done sir, and no broken tool, I’m impressed, first go I had did not go well, found out why there are interlocking doors round a mill, end mill turned into a bullet.
not only did you make the machine that made the part you made a part of a machine, winner
now you need a furnace and some moulds to cast stock I reckon, especially with the price of a billot stock, oh I used the b word ( accurately btw)
well fabricobbled.
( she who must be obeyed sends her regards to the nice man in Germany, you have a fan)
mark

Thank you Mark. I did break a endmill today trying to face off the bottom of the part. Luckily the end that broke lodged itself in the part. My shop looks like it snowed in there. Alu chips eveywhere in everything. I will have to at least put up some welding curtains to contain the carnage to a small area.

Please tell your better half I said hello.

[Dave C]

Nice work BF. If I were 20 years younger, I would try going the CNC route as you have done.

[garyhlucas]

I am writing an article for a sailing magazine about CNC and old boats featuring the huge number of parts I’ve made for my saiboat.