CNCCookbook as a web site sees a lot of traffic–over 100,000 visitors a month.  We bill ourselves as offering “Software and Information for Machinists,” but what are the top pages that bring people to CNCCookbook?

Here they are by category:

Software

It’s fitting that our #1 category is software.  Here are the pages in order of popularity:

G-Wizard Calculator:  Our wonderful tool for helping machinists to calculator everything from Feeds and Speeds to Thermal Expansion to Unit Conversions, Trigonometry, Thread Specifications and more.  We’ve got some deals available if you check out our deals page.

G-Wizard Editor:  Our g-code simulator, editor and backplotter.  It’s free while in Beta test.

CNC Software:  This is an article that rounds up all the different kinds of Digital Tooling available for CNC machinists and explains what problems each kind of software solves.

Gearotic Gear Design Software:  Art Fenerty, father of Mach3′s, very special CAD/CAM for designing and simulating gears as well as creating g-code to machine them.

CNC Simulators, Backplotters, and Viewers:  An in-depth look at what these tools can do for you.… Read the rest

We’re on a campaign to double our user base in 2012 versus what it was in 2011.  Every so often, we goose our sales by offering just a few 15% off coupons good on our 3 year subscription.  It doesn’t happen every month, and we only offer enough of the coupons to hit our sales goal–it’s first come, first served.

To use the coupon code, just order the 3 year subscription from our purchase page and enter the “15OFF” code where it asks for a coupon.  But do it now, before the coupons run out.… Read the rest

Machinists are familiar with spot drills–they’re stub length and have little or no flutes.  These little drills are designed to be extremely rigid so that they can precisely spot a hole for a twist drill.  The goal is use the spot drill to make a little dimple in the workpiece that keeps the twist drill from walking so that the hole winds up in the right place.

Is a spot drill necessary every time an accurate hole is to be drilled?  Not necessarily.

If you use a carbide drill, or a screw machine length drill, spotting is typically not needed.  The carbide itself is so rigid compared to HSS that the drill will go where it is pointed.  As a matter of fact, most manufacturers recommend against spotting either a carbide twist drill or an insertable drill because its easy to chip the carbide in the dimple.  Screw machine length twist drills are much shorter, so they’re less likely to flex as well.  In general, you’ll save a lot of time if you can avoid spot drilling.  Investing in a set of screw machine length twist drills is well worth it.  … Read the rest

I was trolling through Practical Machinist posts for something interesting and came across this sweet project.  This fellow has used an EDM, a mill, and a lathe to make a really nice tool height setter.  EDM is an acronym for “Electrical Discharge Machine”.  It literally uses electrical sparks to disintegrate the metal.  There are electrode EMD’s, that plunge a conductive electrode into material, and there are wire EDM’s.  Think of the latter as being a ridiculously fine and precise scroll saw.  EDM is slow, but it has the ability to carve out shapes that would be next to impossible with other methods.  They can also be used to cut extremely hard materials, such as the carbide used in this project.

A Tool Height Setter is used to measure the height of your tools so you can fill in the tool table on the CNC to adjust for that height.  Some use electronic touch sensors, and some use an indicator like this one.

Check out the link.  Here are some sample pix from the article:

First, use a Wire EDM to cut all the parts out.  … Read the rest

Press brakes are cool machines for bending sheet metal. The CNC variety have what is called a “back gage”. You insert the sheet metal through the opening until the back of the workpiece hits the “back” gage and step on the pedal to do the bend.

You can set up a variety of tooling in the opening, and a skilled operator can walk the workpiece through each station of tooling to make a finished part:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Meanwhile, there’s a guy over on CNCZone who has done a post showing how he built a CNC press brake from scratch. Very cool project! Here are a couple videos and pix:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Demo of the back gage showing how it can move in 2 axes…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bending some test parts…

Cylinder raw materials, and finished cylinders (this fellow does this kind of thing for a living, BTW)…

Machining the upper and lower die holders…

Plate was flame cut (2600lbs worth!). Ram is guided by some large two truck linear bearings…

He built a plasma table too and used it to cut the pieces for the hydraulic tank…

Back gage and hydraulic manifolding…… Read the rest

Are you a cheapskate like me?  It’s no problem.  Our money doesn’t go as far as it used to and we need all the help we can get.

And, I hate companies that hide their coupons, ration them only to new customers (why not give your loyal customers something too), give rebates that are hard to cash in on, or otherwise rely on you to be your own worst enemy so you won’t get the deal.  It’s hard enough actually being my own worst enemy without having to be reminded of it constantly.

Because of that, I’ve create a special “Cheapskate Page” where you can always find whatever deals we currently have going on.  No more need to search for coupon codes, sales, and the like, they’re all right there on our page.

Go ahead, check it out.  You know you want to.… Read the rest

I just uploaded G-Wizard Editor version 0.440, and its biggest new feature is G01 Chamfer and Corner Round for CNC lathes.

But, the feature is very buggy, so I need your help:

Since I have very few examples to test this on, can you please check through your own lathe g-code and send me samples that have problems in the backplot?

Let me know what I should expect it to do versus what it is doing.  Mail the examples to me here.

I’m sure I can get this feature nailed down solid with just a little help from our generous beta testers–thanks in advance for your help!

If you haven’t tried the G-Wizard G-Code Editor/Simulator, check it out.  It’s free while in Beta test.

PS  There’s a couple of bugs visible in the screen shot on the right.  Can you tell what they are?… Read the rest

I recently came across this cool video of a bar feeder and lever collet closer on a CNC Sherline lathe:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I couldn’t find much more about the project, but it looks like this fellow is selling these on eBay.  I think this is the first time I’ve seen a bar feeder on a hobby lathe, although surely someone has done it before.

I’m also a big fan of the gang tooling.

… Read the rest

If you’re like me, you probably use McMaster Carr a lot to order small parts.  They have a nifty graphical catalog and they carry almost anything you could imagine.  Well, it looks like Amazon wants to do the same thing with their new Amazon Supply web site:

Tell us what you think of Amazon Supply.  How are prices and selection?

One thing I wonder is whether the free shipping for Amazon Prime members applies to most of what’s on Amazon Supply.  I tend to order from the free shipping offers as much as I can from places like Enco.… Read the rest

Those of you who are beta testing our G-Wizard Editor, be sure to upgrade to the latest 0.437 release.  I have fixed a crash/lock-up bug that could very commonly strike while editing code.  Thanks to our user Don for finding a set of steps that would reproduce this problem every time.  Once I had that set of steps, I was able to find the problem very quickly and fix it.

Click here for the G-Wizard Editor Install Page.… Read the rest