Author Archives: dave49

Engraving Practice

Posted on March 5, 2016 by dave49

The engraver is running; here is a practice part. This was done on scrap bronze with a .018 inch diameter end mill turning at 24000 rpm and travelling at 4 inches/minute. The groove is about .005 inch deep. My design … Continue reading →

Posted in CNC, Engraving/Marking | 8 Comments

First CNC Part

Posted on February 29, 2016 by dave49

My CNC engraver has progressed to the point that it is ready to use. Before buying design software, I decided to try hand coding a G code program. The task here will be to mill the complex perimeter profile of … Continue reading →

Posted in CNC | 5 Comments

CNC Control Panel

Posted on February 20, 2016 by dave49

The control panel for the engraver is now wired. The front has some switches to give me direct control of stepper enable, spindle power, etc. Here is the back side. There are three switching power supplies. If there are any … Continue reading →

Posted in CNC, Engraving/Marking | 2 Comments

Wired

Posted on February 12, 2016 by dave49

I now have all the wiring anchored to my CNC mill. Quite a bit of the labor was in mounting the limit switches. The engraving mill will connect to its control panel by 7 four pin connectors: 3 for step … Continue reading →

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The Motion Controller

Posted on February 4, 2016 by dave49

I have purchased the motion controller and stepper driver for my engraver. The two boards are KFLOP and KSTEP from dynomotion.com. They communicate together by a 26 line ribbon cable, and controller KFLOP talks to a PC console by USB. … Continue reading →

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Engraver Frame

Posted on January 22, 2016 by dave49

I have now built the gantry frame that supports the z-axis actuator and the engraving spindle. The gantry attaches to the 12×12 inch baseplate of the X-Y table, shown in my previous blog post. The spindle is a WW-650 from … Continue reading →

Posted in Engraving/Marking | 6 Comments

X-Y Table

Posted on January 11, 2016 by dave49

This is the next step toward a CNC engraver, a complete X-Y table. The structure here is three sheets of 1/2 inch thick MIC-6: 6×6, 6×12, and 12×12 inches. They provide a 6×6 work surface with motion of nearly 6 … Continue reading →

Posted in CNC, Engraving/Marking | 5 Comments

Y Axis Life Test

Posted on November 29, 2015 by dave49

For the engraver Y axis, I have made a temporary limit switch bracket of wood, and wired a relay to change the travel direction at each limit. As initially assembled, the NEMA 17 stepper would move the table smoothly at … Continue reading →

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Alan’s Reels

Posted on November 22, 2015 by dave49

Home shop machinist Alan has made these two reels from my plan set for “Fixed Spindle Reel”. The end plates of the spool are darker than on my reels; I think he may have dyed them instead of electrolytic coloring.

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Y Axis

Posted on November 12, 2015 by dave49

Now I have mounted the linear actuator on the slide, and have a working Y axis for my CNC engraver. Driving the motor here is a board based on the Toshiba TB6560 IC. Like any stepper driver, it requires logic … Continue reading →

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