Watch me fail? Fun with milling, labeling, CNC, 3D prints, and lasers! (1 Viewer)

[GreekRedEye]

CNC Milling
I have the CNC up and working. I thought I'd give the laser a rest and do some milling tests.


Recess for the chip to assist with work holding.

Clamping down circular material is always the hardest, as it will tend to spin in the recess.

The super diamond milled like butter on one pass.

I risked my bit hitting the metal slug on this dice chip! I am tempted to make a set of labeled dice chips...I can't be the first to do that, right?

ASM Clay milled even better than the other two. You can see how deep the laser engravings I did earlier are!

And of course, the real added value of CNC over drill press...shaped inlays! The corners have a big radius because I used a 1/4 inch bit. But if I were to use an 1/8" inch, it would look better. I could even go 1/16" inch but that would take a while to mill a line up of these.

For kicks, I threw a Tina ceramic in there. I expected to hear terrible sounds and maybe have the chip shatter, but I was pleasantly surprised how well it milled. Makes me think I could turn a set of no mold or card molds into hybrids. Probably not worth doing...but it's possible!

Good initial results. This has legs. Next steps will be to make shaped labels to match inlays. And figure out a jig to do 40 or so at once.

 

[Sparkynutz]

I have an 8 inch rotary table I was thinking of trying out for milling. 1/2" bit and rotate the chip just past 360* and as long as everything is set up correctly they should cut really nice.... in theory.

 

[ukas]

Wow! Shaped inlay milling... It's amazing how chipping evolved during recent years. Who would have thought about all this just 10 ten years ago. Congrats and keep up the good work of chipperverse expansion.

 

[GreekRedEye]

I have an 8 inch rotary table I was thinking of trying out for milling. 1/2" bit and rotate the chip just past 360* and as long as everything is set up correctly they should cut really nice.... in theory.

And post photos!

 

[GreekRedEye]

And post photos!

Seriously. I think it would be cool if you gave it a try and let us know how it goes. Feel free to post it here. My snark was meant in good humor.

 

[Sparkynutz]

Seriously. I think it would be cool if you gave it a try and let us know how it goes. Feel free to post it here. My snark was meant in good humor.

All good bud!
I just got let go Wed along with 27 other people for "restructuring" Made my decision easier which of the two jobs I was working to stay at so now I'm down to 1 full time job with a few hours of OT each week. Looking forward to getting back into 3d printing a little bit and finally learning the CNC I bought like 4 months ago and have barely touched. I have lots of projects planned May be a while with the summer still being pretty busy but hope is on the horizon for some new innovations.

 

[GreekRedEye]

All good bud!
I just got let go Wed along with 27 other people for "restructuring" Made my decision easier which of the two jobs I was working to stay at so now I'm down to 1 full time job with a few hours of OT each week. Looking forward to getting back into 3d printing a little bit and finally learning the CNC I bought like 4 months ago and have barely touched. I have lots of projects planned May be a while with the summer still being pretty busy but hope is on the horizon for some new innovations.

Sorry to hear about the job loss. Times are tough - I know a lot of people laid off recently, some close to home. Glad you are seeing the silver lining of more time to develop other skills. Looking forward to seeing what you get up to.

 

[Huskerchipper]

All good bud!
I just got let go Wed along with 27 other people for "restructuring" Made my decision easier which of the two jobs I was working to stay at so now I'm down to 1 full time job with a few hours of OT each week. Looking forward to getting back into 3d printing a little bit and finally learning the CNC I bought like 4 months ago and have barely touched. I have lots of projects planned May be a while with the summer still being pretty busy but hope is on the horizon for some new innovations.

Sorry to hear about the job loss but looking forward to you returning here a bit more. Best wishes!

 

[Taghkanic]

Does anyone have experience with the Bauer line of drill presses sold at Harbor Freight? I looked at four different models today, ranging from $99-$470 and am trying to decide. I want to use this both for relatively modest repair/improvement projects around my place, but also try my hand at milling. (I have an older, smaller Craftsman press... but even though it goes back a ways before Sears totally imploded, it’s pretty imprecise and underpowered for most of my projects.)

 

[Huskerchipper]

Here are some members that you could probably ask that have experience with them.

 

[Colquhoun]

Does anyone have experience with the Bauer line of drill presses sold at Harbor Freight? I looked at four different models today, ranging from $99-$470 and am trying to decide. I want to use this both for relatively modest repair/improvement projects around my place, but also try my hand at milling. (I have an older, smaller Craftsman press... but even though it goes back a ways before Sears totally imploded, it’s pretty imprecise and underpowered for most of my projects.)

That looks like the Harbor Freight Central Machinery drill press that they sold a few years back, just re-branded as Bauer. It’s a decent press if you don’t expect much. It does the job, and has a centered chuck, but won’t be very accurate with depth stop, etc.
I bough the base model and milled a bunch of chips with it with no issues. I preferred to not use the depth stop anyway because each chip is a bit different.
If you get one, it will need a few adjustments to really make it ready for prime time.
This guy made a great video on some tweaks you can make to the press that really help:

 

[GreekRedEye]

The drill press I use in the first post of this thread is Bauer from Harbor Freight. The same one that @Huskerchipper screenshot from my sale ad when I got rid of it (no takers, so it went to Goodwill.
https://www.harborfreight.com/power...speed-bench-drill-press-with-light-58780.html

To repeat @Colquhoun: it gets the job done, but is not very accurate. In my case, I found there was a bit of flex if I pressed too hard, which threw off my level on the recess until I figured out what was going on.

I still milled about 8 racks of chips with it.

 

[GreekRedEye]

All this talk of the drill press prompted me to dig up 3d print files for the jig I made. This worked, held the chip firmly, and kept my fingers away from harm. But it could be improved. As I recall, the shortcomings were:

• The recess was a hair too wide/loose
• It was hard to get the chip in and out
• Fine dust tended to collect in the recess which had to be periodically swept out
• I oriented the mounting slots the wrong direction, should have made them perpendicular to the table slots
• The arm slid well in the raceway and secured the chip, but tended to slip out easily when pulled back - should have a stop of some kind. And an ergonomic handle

I am going to reworked this file over the weekend to see if I can't improve it. I am open to good suggestions! Particularly on how to make it easier to get the chip in and out and clear out dust.

(Note, in the below image you are seeing the BOTTOM of both parts. So the top of the parts in the image were placed down on the table).

 

[Taghkanic]

That looks like the Harbor Freight Central Machinery drill press that they sold a few years back, just re-branded as Bauer. It’s a decent press if you don’t expect much. It does the job, and has a centered chuck, but won’t be very accurate with depth stop, etc.
I bough the base model and milled a bunch of chips with it with no issues. I preferred to not use the depth stop anyway because each chip is a bit different.
If you get one, it will need a few adjustments to really make it ready for prime time.
This guy made a great video on some tweaks you can make to the press that really help:

The Bauer $99 model seems similar, but as you bump up to more expensive options the build quality seems sturdier. (The $470 one has its own floor base and post so it doesn’t need to be bench mounted.) Most of them also have a laser feature, which I assume would help with accuracy, but I haven’t ever had one with a laser before.

https://www.harborfreight.com/power-tools/drills-drivers/drill-presses.html

There’s also a $729 combo mill/drill machine, different brand:

https://www.harborfreight.com/power...-variable-bench-mill-drill-machine-44991.html

The $299 Bauer’s slowest speed is 580 RPM, whereas the milling one can adjust all the way down to 0. Not sure what speed is too fast for chips.

https://www.harborfreight.com/power...d-drill-press-with-laser-alignment-58781.html

 

[GreekRedEye]

I have been meaning to order the steel jumbo sized cup holders to upgrade my Barrington. But this thread on dual cupholders got me thinking about 3d printing inserts for beer bottles...and that got me thinking...why not just 3d print the whole thing and get exactly what I want?

Modeled the below. Before I set the printer going, any thoughts on how to do this better?

The orange is the main, "jumbo" cup holder. When using for wide rocks glass, put the yellow insert inside. When drinking a beer or using a tall Collins glass, remove the yellow insert and drop in the green one to narrow the diameter and increase depth.

Should pack up fine when the Barrington is closed. The orange is 60mm deep and you can nest them for packing by flipping the green upside down inside the orange and put the yellow on top.

(The blue was my original idea instead of the yellow with two holes for fingers to remove it, but then I realized it is unnecessary since you can just push from below to remove it).

 

[Benjaminotaur]

I’ve never thought about bringing the profile of taller drinks down. It’s a pretty solid thought, and will make it less likely to bump them in the first place. It’d make me rethink having cup holders right in the table. So long as they don’t start bumping knees or thighs below