Uses of a Machine Shop and Equipment

[RoboChair]

Originally Posted by Monochron

We don't have a CNC machine of any type, we have a company who vaguely offered us help manufacturing who has a CNC Mill. I'm hoping they will be willing to include us a bit in the manufacturing process or at least let our students observe.

I would highly recommend this for any out of house production, I always try and bring a student or two over to my work with me when I am making parts for the team and involve them.

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by R.C.

Why would you use cnc mills for sheet metal fabrication? Cnc lasers/routers and water jets are way more suitable for sheet metal fabrication.

You'd rather use the cnc mill for stuff like tubing and solid milled parts.

We do it so we don't use up all of our Sponsor's time. He already cuts a large amount of 1/4" plate for us with a waterjet and could take a few days from the time we get him the files to having metal at our shop. The Hurco was pretty good this year for us because we could have parts done the night they needed to be done.

[koreamaniac101]

Originally Posted by Andrew Y.

Non technical comment/question. Are your mentors non engineering mentors?

Yes and No. We have an engineering mentor, but he is a Civil Engineer. Our other mentor (we have 2 right now) is a Non-engineering mentor. The local university also is possibly letting a someone from their Engineering and Physics department to mentor us, but we still have to finalize the details

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

I would love to have a sheet metal break. Ones that can form 1/8 sheet are hard to come buy.

I presume you mean a brake; if so, count me in as well. You can break 1/8" aluminum easily enough with a sturdy table, some c-clamps and vice grips.

[Mschmeh144]

Make sure you only use the CNC mill if you know what you are doing. The CNC mill is not the best at manual operation. It would be best to let it be controlled by a computer and let it cut the materials under its own power. Manual operation may throw it off. This happened to us

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by Mschmeh144

Make sure you only use the CNC mill if you know what you are doing. The CNC mill is not the best at manual operation. It would be best to let it be controlled by a computer and let it cut the materials under its own power. Manual operation may throw it off. This happened to us

This may be true for some CNC mills. Not all CNC mills.
CNC retrofitted manual mills can often still be fine manual mills.

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Mschmeh144

Make sure you only use the CNC mill if you know what you are doing. The CNC mill is not the best at manual operation. It would be best to let it be controlled by a computer and let it cut the materials under its own power. Manual operation may throw it off. This happened to us

Could you elaborate on the problems? I was planning on using a CNC as a manual mill with the little dial if we got one, in case I can't learn how to properly set up CAM on the computer in time for build season.

[Mschmeh144]

Originally Posted by asid61

Could you elaborate on the problems? I was planning on using a CNC as a manual mill with the little dial if we got one, in case I can't learn how to properly set up CAM on the computer in time for build season.

This is only true if you have a full CNC mill, no retrofitted table. If your mill is strictly CNC I would recommend obtaining a small non CNC one like ours or buying one that is hybrid. If you attempt to manually operate a CNC only mill, you will throw off its calibration. You can always retrofit it to be a CNC hybrid as I call it, which means it can be manual controlled. If it's a hybrid, you may need to do some calibrating after manual operation, like our mill, it may get thrown off a bit by being manually operated. Just make sure to check the manuals and specs and reccomended uses and modifications for that mill type.

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by Mschmeh144

This is only true if you have a full CNC mill, no retrofitted table. If your mill is strictly CNC I would recommend obtaining a small non CNC one like ours or buying one that is hybrid. If you attempt to manually operate a CNC only mill, you will throw off its calibration. You can always retrofit it to be a CNC hybrid as I call it, which means it can be manual controlled. If it's a hybrid, you may need to do some calibrating after manual operation, like our mill, it may get thrown off a bit by being manually operated. Just make sure to check the manuals and specs and reccomended uses and modifications for that mill type.

How could the use of a jog wheel throw off the calibration of the machine?

[protoserge]

Originally Posted by mman1506

How could the use of a jog wheel throw off the calibration of the machine?

It sounds like they are using a retrofitted mill with handwheels on a through-shaft stepper motor. I would not recommend this process, instead use the machine jog or manually input commands.

Using the jog wheel on a CNC shouldn't be any different than using code.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by asid61

Could you elaborate on the problems? I was planning on using a CNC as a manual mill with the little dial if we got one, in case I can't learn how to properly set up CAM on the computer in time for build season.

If your CNC mill has a control with a user interface like a Haas you can usually put G-code into the mill manually right on that user interface. In some cases, like the Haas, you can even setup some operations without resorting to G-code.

I guess I am old school. For simple operations I prefer G-code. For complex operations I prefer tools like: HSMWorks, BobCAD, MasterCAM (HSMExpress you can get for free to mess with and it works fine for basic operations and it integrates right into SolidWorks Student Version). So since FIRST will give you SolidWorks Student licenses and HSMExpress is free: take a good look at the price of a MasterCAM Student license and if you never did CAM before see if you can justify spending a few thousand dollars on it when you can play around for free.

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by stinglikeabee

It sounds like they are using a retrofitted mill with handwheels on a through-shaft stepper motor. I would not recommend this process, instead use the machine jog or manually input commands.



Using the jog wheel on a CNC shouldn't be any different than using code.

What's wrong with homing the machine after manually jogging the axis with a handwheel? A stepper based machine would have to be powered down anyway so running a home command is normal practice.

If the machine was servo based, homing would not be required. It's quite common to see Haas tool room CNC mills with handwheels.

[Mschmeh144]

Originally Posted by mman1506

How could the use of a jog wheel throw off the calibration of the machine?

Personally, I don't know how it happened. All I was told was that our mill is no longer accurate enough to be used. Our mill is retrofitted. It is also not in the best shape as this one is old. From what I can gather someone tried to operate our mill as it was running. My mentor told me the calibration is off. It might not be uncalibrated. It might just be broken. The kids are kinda rough with our machines.

[protoserge]

Originally Posted by mman1506

What's wrong with homing the machine after manually jogging the axis with a handwheel? A stepper based machine would have to be powered down anyway so running a home command is normal practice.

This is exactly what I was saying. This would be "recalibrating"/homing the machine as I interpreted the previous post.

[Mschmeh144]

Also, don't try to change the rpm speeds on a drill press when it's not running. If you hear gear crunching gut wrenching sounds that means your doing it wrong.
The same is true for mills. With a mill, be careful with the draw bar, they can be broken if you don't know what your doing.
As for the lathe, I cannot offer advice, I have never had the chance to operate one and I most likely will not need to

Also, I have concluded that our mill is just straight up broken. I was making assumptions on things earlier, based on what my mentor has told me.

If you run the mill in CNC mode, make sure you have a dedicated computer that you use for it. That way you will not have to set up settings every time if you switch laptops. Also make sure your laptop can handle it, and connect properly.
Do a few test cuts with the mill to get the feel for it, and practice a few times before you use it for serious work.
As for bandsaws, depending on your model and setup, they're typically used to cut wood, thin sheets of metal, and lexan. If it comes with a vacuum, always use the vacuum. It makes cleanup easier.
Do not ever use compressed air to clean machines, the flying debris can injure people.
Tabletop grinding wheels shouldn't be used on aluminum unless designed for it. If it's not throwing sparks then there's something wrong.
Keep your shop clean, and your tools maintained properly, and you shouldn't have any problems.