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Post by yusuke620 on Sept 26, 2016 22:27:50 GMT
Welcome James. You're going to love having a CNC router... Thank you sir! Tjennemann is my business partner you were helping earlier. I can't wait to start! I'm gonna love building it and making cool stuff! |
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Post by kevin on Sept 27, 2016 0:55:48 GMT
Hello all, I'm James. I'm a 20 year veteran of car audio. Been building and tinkering with things forever. I got into 3d printing a couple years ago and CNC seems like the natural next step. I ordered my M3 yesterday and can't wait for it to show up. Some of the most fun I had with my 3d printer was putting it together. I'm definitely going to get the laser attachment when it's available! Hi James. Welcome to the forum. Since you love building and tinkering, you are going to love CNC'ing. I have to warn you though, it's a pretty addictive hobby. |
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Post by yusuke620 on Sept 28, 2016 2:03:42 GMT
Hello all, I'm James. I'm a 20 year veteran of car audio. Been building and tinkering with things forever. I got into 3d printing a couple years ago and CNC seems like the natural next step. I ordered my M3 yesterday and can't wait for it to show up. Some of the most fun I had with my 3d printer was putting it together. I'm definitely going to get the laser attachment when it's available! Hi James. Welcome to the forum. Since you love building and tinkering, you are going to love CNC'ing. I have to warn you though, it's a pretty addictive hobby. Thank you Kevin! I can't wait. UPS says it will be here tomorrow as well as a couple of cheap end mills. I got everything else today. I went with the Dewalt DWP611 router and spindle mount and clamps from instructables. I tried Fusion 360 and had some good initial results with that and i have been playing with Easel today and like the simplicity of it. |
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Post by kevin on Sept 28, 2016 11:33:19 GMT
Based on all reports you are going to love this machine. There are some really good tips on the build process from Derek the Administrator here and some of the other guys who've posted stuff about their builds, so good luck with your build. I hope you are able to keep us posted on how you are coming along. And for the record, it's becoming a tradition around here to post pictures or a video of your first cut, so we'll be hoping to see that first test cut or project.
I did some CAD work in Easel and I love simplicity of the program but I've got some issue going on, possibly with my computer and can't get the program to recognize my machine for the CAM. It does fine during the CAD portion, so who knows? Because of that, I've not been able to do any CAM with the CAD I've created in the program yet. No matter what program you use, making a computer design of a project then watching the machine traverse around and create your project is pretty awesome.
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Post by aforww on Sept 28, 2016 21:13:02 GMT
Welcome James! I wish I would have had one of these back when I was into car audio. Would have been cool to machine out custom mounts for caps and custom speaker grills, things of that nature. Would have made it more interesting for sure.
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dare
Junior Member
Posts: 67 
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Post by dare on Oct 27, 2016 2:44:39 GMT
Hi -
My name is Dare M. I grew up in Vermont, and live in Rhode Island. I went to art school, and work in the video game industry. I love trying out ideas - but I am tired of manually wiring electronic prototypes, and have been looking for a PCB prototyping solution. The ability of a small CNC machine to handle this, and also cut other materials is a big plus, too.
In my profile image, you can see one of my ridiculous attempts to make my own boards. Vinyl cut copper adhesive film on a polystyrene sheet - hand punched through-holes. Worked ok until I had to desolder a component. Yuck!
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Post by Derek the Admin on Oct 27, 2016 5:36:54 GMT
Welcome to the forum. Do you realize that you are living every kids dream... working in the video game industry. Very cool.
I think you'll like this machine as a solution. That's awesome that you were doing that to make your boards. Did you ever try etching? I used to laser print mirrored traces on photo paper, iron it onto a board, soak in water to remove paper, put board in ferric chloride, agitate, wash off, then throw away anything that I stained with the ferric chloride. Ha. Don't let me talk you out of buying a machine... etching is okay but it's not as nice as cutting the thing.
I do want to try to paint a board black and use our laser to burn the paint away and then etch. It's not as practical as just milling it, but it seems like fun!
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dare
Junior Member
Posts: 67
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Post by dare on Oct 27, 2016 14:16:19 GMT
Haha - yeah, I started by accident in video games in the year 2000 - a little before it blew up to be quite such a huge industry.
I have never tried etching, though have come close many times. Because I do have occasional access to the (really nice) Roland Modela, and because of the mess, toxicity (and I then still have to drill the through-holes) with etching, I have for years wanted a small CNC like the Modela... or the MillRight (I just didn't know it yet).
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Post by kevin on Oct 27, 2016 23:53:12 GMT
Welcome to the site Dare. Given your art school back round you are probably way ahead of most of us here who had to learn the CAD/CAM software before we can do much else, so I look forward to seeing some of your work. You are going to love CNC'ing and based on the feedback from the people who own the M3, you are going to love this machine.
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kb9jlo
Junior Member
Posts: 73
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Post by kb9jlo on Oct 29, 2016 0:59:35 GMT
Haha - yeah, I started by accident in video games in the year 2000 - a little before it blew up to be quite such a huge industry. I have never tried etching, though have come close many times. Because I do have occasional access to the (really nice) Roland Modela, and because of the mess, toxicity (and I then still have to drill the through-holes) with etching, I have for years wanted a small CNC like the Modela... or the MillRight (I just didn't know it yet). Dare, using the CNC you might consider some alternate methods to machine your boards. I'm also into ham radio (yes, as my wife says my hobby is to have hobbies). A method that has been gaining some momentum lately is called the Pittsburgh or MUPPET method (Google - you'll find more than you want to know). Essentially you surface mount all parts, even thru hold traditional parts. No holes. And with CNC you can machine suitable islands leaving all the rest of the surface as ground plane. Guys are using PCB Express and have modified it by using their own parts layouts for sockets, and other parts. One nice thing is you can mix surface mount and thru hole parts on the same board. I hope to heal up from my shoulder surgery and other ailments and try this out some time. You can even touch probe a PCB and map the highs and lows in (with GRBL) and perfectly machine boards. It's on my incredibly long to-do list. No specific projects in mind yet... |
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dare
Junior Member
Posts: 67
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Post by dare on Oct 31, 2016 9:21:19 GMT
Huh, that's interesting. Maybe an evolution of the ole "dead bug" prototyping trick (glue down chips upside down). I will take a deeper look at this when I get a chance. I've never done surface mount, but I see a lot of the PCB milling crew go that way. Thanks for the info, kb9.
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dare
Junior Member
Posts: 67
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Post by dare on Nov 3, 2016 14:00:01 GMT
Questions regarding forum settings
(I'll post into the Introductions thread in case the answers are useful for other new forum users)
- Can I set the forums to show most recent posts at the top?
- Can I set the forum to send me an email if someone has replied to a thread I posted in, etc?
I searched around in the forum settings, and didn't find these. I may have missed them.
Thanks.
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Post by aforww on Nov 3, 2016 22:06:39 GMT
Questions regarding forum settings (I'll post into the Introductions thread in case the answers are useful for other new forum users) - Can I set the forums to show most recent posts at the top? - Can I set the forum to send me an email if someone has replied to a thread I posted in, etc? I searched around in the forum settings, and didn't find these. I may have missed them. Thanks. To be honest I had not looked until you asked. I can't find anything either. However, I use Tapatalk on my phone to monitor the forum since I'm usually on it when I want to reply anyway. |
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Post by Derek the Admin on Nov 4, 2016 3:18:12 GMT
Try going to profile, edit, then notifications. There are a bunch of different settings. You can set it to email you if a thread you participate in is updated, private messages, etc.
I thought it was showing most recent up top.... am I wrong?
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Post by aforww on Nov 4, 2016 3:23:00 GMT
Try going to profile, edit, then notifications. There are a bunch of different settings. You can set it to email you if a thread you participate in is updated, private messages, etc. I thought it was showing most recent up top.... am I wrong? It is showing the threads with the most recent posts at the top. If that's what you mean, than yes you are correct. |
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