3D Printing

New Power Panel It's been a while since my last post here. I've been quite busy added a new workshop to have a nice plice for all my toys... I finally moved my CNC mill/table from my basement to my new workshop. I made a steel base, which I'll cover in another post to replace the wobbly wood base I used in the basement. I also re-wired most of the circuits : Added contactors to control power to the computer, control boards, motors drives and spindleAdded a hard-wired emergency button to physically cut the power to motors / spindle. The temporary emergency was software only which wasn't that great from a safety point of viewAdded an software controlled relay to turn the spindle cooling pump on/offAdded a flow sensor on spindle cooling line to ensure proper coolant flowAdded ...

In order to use my newly added tool touch pad, I needed to be able to move the machine to a known (absolute) physical position.  So it was time to finish my half-wired limit / homing switches system. I did a bit of cleanup in the schematic and added a quick and dirty 'breakout' board for the SmoothStepper Port 3.  This also allowed me to regroup all limit / homing / probing inputs on the same port I used cheap 6 pins / 4 pins round connector to make it easy to disconnect the wiring (I'll move the machine in my upcoming workshop this summer).  I actually used the machine itself to machine the connector openings in the board (non-circular holes)   The 'switches' are actually optical barriers.  I decided to use optical switches due to easier installation, ...

A few weeks ago, I made a wooden plate using my mill machine and decided to time how long it would take to mill the whole plate.  I found out that I spent 25 minutes out of 67 doing material Z measurement (zero) and Tool Z adjustement after each tool change (I want a toolchanger!) I realized that a few thing that I could do to streamline operations (and prevent small tool breakage) would be : Automated material height sensing (Z).  must work with both conductive and non-conductive materials. Automated tool length measurement before and after a tool change in order to automatically adjust the current Z position 3 axis touch sensor (I already have it, just need to make connection easy to do) I decided that the biggest time saving would be #2 - Automated tool length...