High Resolution 3D Printer

This is an amazing project and video I saw recently on Hoss’s 3D Printer thread over on CNCZone:

3D printing an alien skull in high resolution…

There’s not a lot of information available about how this printer works, but there is a blog with some interesting pictures:

Whistle done in typical RepRap melted filament style…

A whistle done in 50 micron resolution with this high resolution 3D printer…

A ball 3D printed in high resolution…

As you can see, the resolution with this technique is much much higher than the typical hobby-class melted filament 3D printers like RepRap.

Apparently the process involves photo-reactive resin (resin that is cured by light), and they use DLP projectors to create the layers one 2D slice at a time.  Imagine a glass-bottomed tank full of resin, and a glass plate on the Z-axis where a normal mill’s spindle would be.  Lower the plate to the bottom of the tank and project an image of the 2D slice onto the bottom of it through the bottom of the thank.  The resin is cured by the light, and it takes 5-10 seconds for the layer to harden.  … Read the rest

Ever Use a G-Code Simulator to Debug Your Part Programs?

Tired of cutting air to see whether your g-code program is going to work?

We just added a new chapter to our G-Code Tutorial that shows how you can use a G-Code Simulator like G-Wizard Editor to help diagnose your part programs.

Lots of good info there about what a good g-code simulator can do for you.  If you haven’t already signed up for the free G-Wizard Editor/Simulator Beta Test, now is your chance.  Sign up and then use GWE to go through our G-Code course.… Read the rest

Mitee Bite Clamps and Shopmade Pallet Fixture for Small Parts

One secret to productivity on the mill is to use as much of the envelope as you can.   The more parts you pack onto the table, the more it can get done without assistance while you work on something else.  When it comes time to pack a bunch of small parts on, the ubiquitous vise is not the right tool.   Instead, consider something more like this shopmade pallet system as seen over on Practical Machinist:

16 parts all neatly held by Mitee-Bite’s “Pit Bull” clamps…

The Mitee-Bite Pitbull’s have a sharp edge that jams the part against a stop on the other side as you tighten the socket head.  They’re prefect for this kind of work.  Mitee Bite offers a whole line of different edge clamping products worth checking out.

This particular fixture is also part of a shopmade pallet system.   A pallet is an interchangeable plate.  There is a base mounted on the table, and one or more of the pallets.  By using pallets, you can drop a bunch of parts on the mill table, machine them, and them remove them all as a unit.  … Read the rest

Fixturing on a Hobby Mill for Making Fly Fishing Reels

Here’s a great video from the Eclectic Angler showing his fixture for making the side plates for a fly fishing reel:

Love the use of the toggles to make it easy to pop a new workpiece into place.  Note also the pins that position the workpiece at the top and left before the toggles are applied.  Ideally, you’d like to use a combination of pins that does not “over constrain” the part.  Ideally, that would mean two pins at the top and one on the left.

Why?

Because the three pins at the top over constrain the top edge.  It only takes 2 points to identify a line, and he’s using three.  Two points at the top and one point on the left would be the ideal way to build a fixture like this, but his is working extremely well as you’ll see from the video.

Check out the Eclectic Angler’s site: some very nice reels if you like fly fishing.  He even sells books if you have a desire to build your own reels.

Disclosure:  Michael is a G-Wizard customer.… Read the rest

Broaching in your CNC Lathe or Mill

I recently came across Razorform, who make tooling for broaching:

Razorform Broaching Tools…

Razorform on a lathe…

These tools make it possible to broach internal keyways on your CNC lathe or mill: neat idea.… Read the rest

.50 Cal Guided Missile

Imagine a modified .50 caliber round.  Instead of being a solid slug, it’s actually a guided missile 4 inches long.  Inside the projectile is an optical sensor, a guidance system, and a mechanism capable of adjusting the fins that guide the round 30 times a second.  The projectile has a range of well over a mile, and it is capable of accurately hitting the laser spot it homes in on to within an 8″ radius.  This is the device that Sandia Labs recently unveiled:

Sandia Labs .50 Cal Guided Missile with Stabilizing Fins…

Talk about smart weapons.  The degree of miniaturization here is staggering.  Here is a shot of one of these rounds in flight with an LED attached so you can see its flight path:

Flight path for .50 cal guided missile…

The round follows a flat trajectory, because the guidance package counteracts the normal arced trajectory and it actually gets more accurate the further it flies, because it will have had the opportunity to correct more times.

Now if they can figure out a way to paint large numbers of individuals in say an enemy camp with the right laser spot without painting any friendlies, this will be an amazing weapons system.  … Read the rest

Want More CNCCookbook Blog Posts? (Try My Secret Idea Stash, Ssshhhh!)

Some people wonder where all the content comes from on CNCCookbook.  The answer is that I write it all myself.  That causes people to wonder how the heck I find the time?  The fact is I don’t have nearly enough time to do as much writing as I would like, but I love to write so I do as much as I can and probably more than I should.

My editorial “process” starts with doing a ton of reading.  I like to use a blog reader and subscribe to around 200 different blogs (no, not all of them are machining or CNC related!).  Any time I find a new topic of interest, I do a ton of research, and put together CNCCookbook’s Machinist’s Search tool to help me narrow my research to sites with proven content for machinists.  I spend a lot of time on a number of the online forums for machinists.  You can see that list and a whole lot more by clicking our “Resources” tab in the top menu.

I can’t tell you how many hours and web pages have gone into this kind of research, a lot!… Read the rest

12 Great Posts for 2011

These are my 12 favorite posts of 2011, along with the reason why:

January 2011:  Engineer, Heal Thyself.  The amazing story of a man who designed his own aortic prosthesis in order to save his life.  BTW, the article that got the most traffic was on making art out of old CD’s.

February 2011:  Exploring Ramping and Interpolated Holes with G-Wizard’s New Mini-Calcs.    These were some cool new functions for G-Wizard that solve problems I’ve never seen another speeds and feeds calculator tackle.

March 2011:  Carbon Fiber Wingtips for a Jet Fighter.  March was an amazing month for the blog.  There were lots of great articles (love the Henderson Piggy-Bike), but learning how to do carbon fiber was a really cool thing for me.  I’ve loved the material since I first discovered it.  I own a car, largely because its carbon fiber dashboard is so cool.

April 2011:  Close to Canned Lathe Cycles for G-Wizard G-Code Editor (G71 Sneak Preview).  Because these cycles are so darned cool.  GWE still has a little ways to go before the cycles are completely finished, but the bones are in place and they are sweet!  … Read the rest

We’re Moving the CNCCookbook Blog!

No doubt you’ve noticed that we’re on a sprucing up spree with the CNCCookbook site.  First we updated the overall design of the web pages with a crisper more modern look and feel.  We added a Home Page to help new visitors understand what exactly the site was for.  That’s all been window dressing, but today we’re unveiling our biggest change yet:  a new Blog that’s fully integrated with the www.cnccookbook.com site.

When I first started the CNCCookbook site, it looked kind of like a blog, but it didn’t use blog software.  Each page was handcrafted by me in Dreamweaver.  I have no good excuse for this except that it was easy and I never dreamed we would have so darned many pages.  While it looked like there were individual articles on the home “blog” page, it was just formatting, and you couldn’t get a link to an article, let alone see an article on a page by itself (the exceptions being certain special articles in the Cookbook, Projects, and other non-blog sections).  Looked at this way, CNCCookbook.com had about 300 or so web pages.  … Read the rest

Wiley Davis’s Photogenic Kickstarter Project

I got a nice note from G-Wizard Customer Wiley Davis, who has a Kickstarter project underway to create a product for the photography market. Wiley tells me he used G-Wizard extensively to calculate feeds and speeds while developing his project.

We ran an earlier article about a product called “Modigrip” that was another Kickstarter project. If you’ve never looked into Kickstarter, it’s a very cool concept. Essentially, you pitch your business idea, and the Kickstarter audience can decide to jump in and fund it. When I first looked at Wiley’s Kickstarter page this morning, nobody had decided to fund. I’m looking at it at the end of the day and he has $15,000 pledged of the $20,000 in capital he’s trying to raise. If you have a business idea, maybe Kickstarter could help you get it off the ground too!

Wiley calls his gizmo the “$50 Follow Focus.” It’s a good looking piece of kit:

Follow Focus drives the lenses focus grip with a toothed belt (kinda like a servo drives a CNC axis)…

Another view…

The parts that go into the Follow Focus…

Not being a commercial photographer, I will let Wiley describe the value:

All we wanted was an affordable way to adjust the focus on our DSLRs in a precise, repeatable manner.

… Read the rest