Aluminum and carbon fiber E3d V6 mount. RELEASED!

[Jassper]

Thanks Nitewatchman, I do have some bits like that. I'm surprised they work on metals.

[Mac The Knife]

Nice find, Nitewatchman, You ever try Vcarve? pricey, but works real nice with these bits,

[travelphotog]

Thanks Nitewatchman, I do have some bits like that. I'm surprised they work on metals.

I have used the very same bits in metal and they work great.. Here is a shot of a sign I did for my folks and their new german shepherd

The dog was done as just a 1/4mm deep etch. the lettering is done at .5mm v carve with aspire 4 for this one.

All four signs were done with the same endmill and it was still sharp once finished. The blanks were cut from the stock sheet then prepped and anodized black. Then mounting hole were cut with a 1.6" endmill and the sign was engraved with the 30 degree .2mm engraving bit.

I get mine here http://www.ebay.com/itm/10x-Carbide-PCB ... 418193a5ce" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; they work great in metal, stone and also good for a fast PCB prototype, but I do not use them for final PCB cuts. I use another bit for that.


This is Spanish green slate milled with the same 30 degree .2mm tip bit. Garden sign for my sister's humming bird garden.

It is cut about .5mm into the stone. total cycle time on this whole 6x6 sign is about 7 hours give or take.

I but my small endmills from http://www.drillbitsunlimited" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and they ship fast and have a great section of smaller endmills.

I use http://www.ebay.com/itm/381043625814?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for my aluminum most of the time unless I need something smaller... Of course I tried another bit on the stock SEEMECNC mount I used in the tumbler shots and as you can see it was not near as good of bit.

I run the endmill above at about 100mm M taking a .1mm cut each time.. I tired the new endmill at 65mm M and tried to cut it at .25 and it chattered on me as the pics showed.

I did this with a .80mm endmill from drillbitsunlimited

Then anodized it and filled in the mill work for a contrasting color. Custom blending the Aggie maroon anodizing dye was interesting to say the least. This was a one off gift and NOT SOLD so I THINK I am OK with not being hunted down by the Aggies!

[travelphotog]

Anytime and thank you! The work space was a gift from my fiance who is a NASA engineer so she understands how nice a good work space can be. I need to add a vacuum system to the mill and also get it enclosed so I can keep things cleaner and work in deeper material with smaller endmills and not have to attend it so much to avoid breakages. But first I have to enclose my vacuum cleaner and do some house routing. I also need to mill out my end stop switch holders once I decide which ones I want to try next.. These tend to throw a false hit every 10-15 hours of mill time which crashes what ever job I have running when they are no where near a trip zone.


Have you guys milled much aluminum on the on your Shapeokos? I am very interest to see how the two spindles compare side by side with the same endmill in 6061.

We haven't tried alum yet but want to now that I see you are doing it slow speed and taking very little at a time I take it. So far I have only done plastic and MDF. Where do you buy your end mills from? I'm looking for a good 1mm for doing text in plexi

I also use these http://www.ebay.com/itm/30-degree-bits- ... 233f551e1a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; for my super fine engraving work and I LOVE these for PCB milling on a final board. These are super sharp and leave a nice smooth edge like a flat endmill but with a .2 mm thick cut. While I do like the spade engravers that nightwatchman uses for most things, on my final products I tend to use the above endmill or this one http://www.ebay.com/itm/30-DEGREE-MICRO ... 58bb0f4ba8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. BUT. These guys need a slower feed speed due to the fine tips. I run them at about 76mm M on the first one and only 45MM M on the second one.

[nitewatchman]

Nice find, Nitewatchman, You ever try Vcarve? pricey, but works real nice with these bits,

I have come close to pulling that trigger. Looks like it offers a lot of capability.

[Mac The Knife]

It has come a long way from the beginning. I mainly use Sheetcam for my 2.5d work,,, Meshcam for 3d machining. But V-Carve, I've used for more then machining. I can import a pdf. file, (as long as it was created from a vector file,) and convert it to a dxf file, and use it as needed. Perfect for Architectural prints.

[mhackney]

Thought I'd pipe in on a few things. Firstly, are you running the vibratory polisher dry? If so, try running water (very small trickle) through it. You will be amazed at how much faster and better the results will be and the media will last a lot longer. I have 3 of the bigger version of these polishers and they run 4+ hours 5 days a week for several years without fail. Good units.

VCarve Pro - I love it for 2-1/2D work. I've been a customer for 3 years and have not had a single issue. Very predictable, generates good paths. I mill all of my fly real parts in brass, aluminum and nickel silver with VCarve Pro gcode. It was a no brainer for me since I use it in my business and time is money. It paid for itself in the first 2 weeks in time savings and predictability. I use MeshCam too but late last year I sprung for BobCAD with 3 axis plus rotary, lathe and art. I will eventually do all my work in it but I just have so much already on VCarve it doesn't make sense to redo stuff that works. I'll still use VCarve for quick stuff until I get over the BobCad learning curve completely.

[travelphotog]

Thought I'd pipe in on a few things. Firstly, are you running the vibratory polisher dry? If so, try running water (very small trickle) through it. You will be amazed at how much faster and better the results will be and the media will last a lot longer. I have 3 of the bigger version of these polishers and they run 4+ hours 5 days a week for several years without fail. Good units.

VCarve Pro - I love it for 2-1/2D work. I've been a customer for 3 years and have not had a single issue. Very predictable, generates good paths. I mill all of my fly real parts in brass, aluminum and nickel silver with VCarve Pro gcode. It was a no brainer for me since I use it in my business and time is money. It paid for itself in the first 2 weeks in time savings and predictability. I use MeshCam too but late last year I sprung for BobCAD with 3 axis plus rotary, lathe and art. I will eventually do all my work in it but I just have so much already on VCarve it doesn't make sense to redo stuff that works. I'll still use VCarve for quick stuff until I get over the BobCad learning curve completely.

I ran the first media (green triangles) wet and the second and third media (corn cob and walnut) dry. I will be picking up a second tumbler when i get home Monday as cleaning the wet media to switch to dry was just too much a hassle and at the unit cost it is easy enough to just have one for wet and one for dry. I can use the cyclone separator to remove the dry media and recover it when I switch types in the dry unit. But aside from washing the media with fresh water I plan to leave the wet one wet instead of trying to dry it for the other steps each time on a batch. I will post updated photos shots of how the tumbler did. I just had to fly out of town for the weekend before I could get them posted.

What are you using for the CAD portion with Vcarve? I was playing around with Aspire 4 which has Vcarve built in and I was not happy with the way it does the measurements and such for the CAD side Vs how Solidworks does it. Maybe I am spoiled by solidworks or just used to how it works. But I have not been happy with the design part of Aspire for 3D parts for milling or printing. But I have been imp0ressed with how easy it is to for text engraving or really any engraving for that matter in Aspire. Overall I have been extremely happy the CAD side of solidworks but I need to find a 3D 3 axis CAM software I like.. I am not ready to plunk down the $7000+ for HSMworks but unless I switch to MACH3 I am not getting good results with Solidcam either due to using a TINYg controller and not having a post processor for it in solidcam unlike the HSMXpress and HSMworks which do have a TINYg post and work very well.

I have been looking at MESHCam this weekend and I am thinking to try it out this week. I think in the end I will switch to a MACH3 controller and just bite the bullet on soildcam and be done with it. But I do love the TINYg controller for the PCB boards. It does such a great job and I have had almost no issues with it on the Shapeoko.

Sorry to break in on the CAD/CAM thread but I have been finding my CAM limits of late and a new CAM program will have to come soon for me.

[travelphotog]

So I let the parts run for two more hours in the walnut media and then snapped a pic before I ran out the door to catch my flight. I will repost the before/after shot from before so it is easier to compare here.

This is before and after one wet and one dry stage. This piece was rush cut and the mill chattered so tooling marks were heavy to start

This is after one wet and two different dry media stages. About 6 hours total between the three.

I think a longer wet stage and maybe a tad longer walnut stage would give the part a very good finish with little to no hand work needed in the process. Moving forward this will be the finishing process of choice on the mounts.

[Generic Default]

Nice job getting that surface finish! Sometimes I always thought it was weird how stuff is just vibrated around with walnuts until it looks better. Do you anodize after that process?

[travelphotog]

Nice job getting that surface finish! Sometimes I always thought it was weird how stuff is just vibrated around with walnuts until it looks better. Do you anodize after that process?

I plan to do a test on this piece just as it is with the anodize. Well it will get a fast Lye dip then go right into anodizing. Thinking of going yellow to fill a request. I will be milling 4 test units shortly to send out and plan to cut them much slower to reduce the tooling marks and then give them a good run through the tumbler before anodize.

In the past I have done a good surface prep on the stock with 3 grades of sand paper and 2 of steel wool. So far it is looking like I might be able to just do a slight sanding before milling then let the tumbler do the rest.

I should have this and a few other test items anodized by Monday afternoon. I will be sure to post an update once they are out of the sealer and ready for their close up.

BTW the funny part of all this is the fact this it is bird cage litter on the final step... They sell much smaller and cheaper bags of ground walnut shells at pet stores as bird cage "litter" and as sand alternative for lizards. Why buy 50lbs when 7 will do you for LONG time on something so small and only cost $6 on sale.. http://www.petco.com/product/102723/Kay ... SiteSearch" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mhackney]

You can buy replacement bowls for these vibrators directly from HarborFreight. Call them up and ask. I bought 3 so I have 6 all together.

I am a die hard RhinoCAD user. If SW wasn't so expensive I'd use it but as a small shop and not wanting to use pirated software, I use Rhino. It actually has some nice features more suitable for organic type shapes. It's underlying NURBS model makes sense.

I run all my CNC machines with Mach except my 10x22 lathe that I run with (when it's one anyway) KFlop.

[travelphotog]

You can buy replacement bowls for these vibrators directly from HarborFreight. Call them up and ask. I bought 3 so I have 6 all together.

I am a die hard RhinoCAD user. If SW wasn't so expensive I'd use it but as a small shop and not wanting to use pirated software, I use Rhino. It actually has some nice features more suitable for organic type shapes. It's underlying NURBS model makes sense.

I run all my CNC machines with Mach except my 10x22 lathe that I run with (when it's one anyway) KFlop.

I agree. The only reason I have SW and SC is due to shooting a ton of ad shots for a small oil valve company here in Houston and the owner balking at my prices for location work out in the gulf for over a week straight. I kept wondering over to watch his guys work when ever he took a call in the office during our meetings to watch them work in SW and running the in house CNC mills. He noticed and picked up my interest so we worked a deal and I was able to "recycle" one of their old workstations which just happened to have SW on it in. While it might not be truly 100% legal, it is not off a torrent site at least.

I looked into HSMWorks and about died at the "Low price" they came back with of over $7,000+. Glad that is low for some folks but not on a hobbyist budget.

[mhackney]

There is no doubt that these products are worth every penny and more for a professional/full time business. My business cannot justify that expense but I also wouldn't use 10% of the features.

[teoman]

I am using Fusion 360. I like it a lot. I find it much more intuitive than SW.

It is not cheap though, 40 usd a month. But free for professors.

[KAS]

http://www.autodesk.com/education/free- ... ty/popular" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


I'm learning Inventor myself, free for 3 years with a student account.

[Jimustanguitar]

Getting OT, but DesignSpark Mechanical is the best free CAD program I've tried. By far.
http://www.rs-online.com/designspark/el ... mechanical" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[travelphotog]

I am just trying to find the best 3 axis 3D (not just 2.5D) CAM software that I can afford... I would like to keep in under $2,000 or so if I can. It would be a major plus if it was also a SW plug in like HSMworks or Solidcam or VisualCAM is. I plan to demo MeshCAM this week and see how it works out for me and then go from there.

[bvandiepenbos]

I use Design Spark Mechanical also, it is AWESOME. (and free !)

[travelphotog]

Today I am working on getting the BETA tester mounts milled and I hope, into the tumbler tonight. If all goes well I will anodize them sometime late tomorrow and try to get them in the mail by Thursday before I fly our for my weekend shoots. I spoke with E3d today over in the UK and I will be picking up a few V6 heatsinks without the brass bowden fitting inserted to see how well they anodize also. Once they are anodized I will press the fitting in place (I hope) I personally like the idea of anodizing my volcano a nice red or deep orange just for the kicks of it. It will be a week or more for that result though as shipping will take a bit since I did not choose the fastest option they had as there was no rush.

getting the BETA tester mounts ready to mill out of 6mm 6061

[Jimustanguitar]

What would anodization do to heat dissipation of the aluminum? I very much like the idea, but wouldn't want to negatively affect the functionality. Perhaps there's a coating that could improve it! What does copper plating do to an aluminum heatsink?

If it works, I want a blue one!

[travelphotog]

What would anodization do to heat dissipation of the aluminum? I very much like the idea, but wouldn't want to negatively affect the functionality. Perhaps there's a coating that could improve it! What does copper plating do to an aluminum heatsink?

If it works, I want a blue one!

It should not do much if anything to it. I will be running test to see how hot it is VS the stock one on the same print. I have done it on heatsinks for custom reef led lighting and it works fine. I will be leaving the center hole blocked while anodizing to keep the inside raw aluminum. I should know more in a week or so. One down side to being able to anodize on a whim is deciding what color you want your own stuff to be!

Being that it would be such a super thin layer of copper, it would not really do much in the way of helping to cool anything off. A solid copper heatsink would do far more cooling but not so much so as to offset the cost of material and workmanship to make it.



It is looking more and more like I will be sending you guys the BETA testers next week sadly. The cycle times are adding up fast on the mill with the slower cutting rates and slowed down finishing passes to get a nice finish. Also not sure the M3 screws will make it by Thursday Am when I fly out. But if anything it will be Tuesday of next week i think. I will PM everyone tomorrow night and we will go from there.

[forrie]

Are you thinking of selling these? Would love to get my hands on one

[travelphotog]

Are you thinking of selling these? Would love to get my hands on one

I have more than a few folks asking me about it. I am sending out a few test units next week and based on their feedback I will decided if I will offer them for sale or not. I want to make sure I have all the issues worked out and that my testers feel the mount is "worth" selling.

[travelphotog]

Just a fast update for everyone on the mount. I am finishing up the milling on the BETA mounts tonight. Now that the sports season is back in full swing I am only home about 2-3 days a week which really reduces the amount of time I can mill things out.

I am getting a ton of interested folks asking if I will be selling the mounts. The short answer is yes. I am just waiting to get my BETA testers their mounts and get their feedback. I believe very strongly in trying to making sure the mount is truly an upgrade and something everyone will be proud to have on their printer, and not a source of issues down the road. To that end i am sending a few test units to make sure everything fits right on printers other than mine and that it works 100% with the Yellowjacket as requested by so many. I have redone the files to change from the 4-40 screws to the M3 screws at the request of many and now I am milling the new test units for the M3 screws. I plan to mail those out this weekend and hope to start sales within a week or two, but only after my testers agree that we have any issues addressed and fixed.

I plan to offer the following: Custom sized carbon fiber spacers with aluminum end caps in both 4-40 and M3 screw sizes as stand alone units. I will be offering the mount in either plain aluminum or anodized in a number of color choices with matching custom sized carbon fiber spacers. I also look to be making a full carbon fiber mount which is in development now. Once I finish that mount I will send one test unit up my testers and have them give a go at it also.

The mount will also be made for J mount hotends and the stock SeemeCNC hotend. It can work stand alone or with the Yellowjacket for all 3 mount types.

The hardware is M3 stainless steel or 4-40 titanium screws. At this time I do not offer the M3 in titanium but If I get enough request I will look into it.

I know this project moved fast at first and is now moving a bit slower. This is due to adopting to design changes and also the fact that I am no longer home 7 days a week but instead on the road 4 days a week shooting sports. I thank everyone who has expressed interest and I am working hard to gets things moving again and I look forward to shipping units shortly for everyone to enjoy.