Anyone Play With Desktop CNC Machines?

[k1n3k]

I've been messing around with this little Nomad 883, its a tinker toy for sure.... not ever doing production work with one but its been useful to whittle out some aluminum parts on occasion. just upgraded the 50 watt spindle motor to a massive 78 watts! a whole 1/10th HP! its a great companion to a 3d printer though. that plate being carved with a honeycomb pattern will be the heat sink of a waterproofing enclosure for the Toyota electronic power steering controller in my Samurai. the rest of the box will be 3d printed from either ASA or Nylon, probably ASA.

Anyone else have some little CNC toys they're tinkering with?

 

[JEEPCJTJ]

I'd love to have one of those and a 3D printer and just about anything else that runs on a CNC style program (whater that would be called) unfortunately it's been too long since I've programed any CNC and even then those were pretty old in the tooth. As for 3D printing the closest I got was back around 2003 or so when I went to a tool show and saw a 3" long "cresent wrench" that was fully adjustable but the surface finish was similar to 50 grain sandpaper and it was far too britle to do more than spin an already loose nut without shattering.


FWIW, I'm really just posting that true story to bump this to the top, and to ask about your speeds and feeds and why it's not gumming up without any coolant which always seemed more important than actual cutting lube when dealing with aluminium.

 

[k1n3k]

I'm really just posting that true story to bump this to the top, and to ask about your speeds and feeds and why it's not gumming up without any coolant which always seemed more important than actual cutting lube when dealing with aluminium.

it does gum up when the endmill gets dull. the key is having the chip load just right so the chips carry the heat away and the endmill sharp as heck to minimize heat in the first place. i'm running a fairly light cut at 10,000 RPM with a 1/8" single flute endmill and a .004" chip load. the endmill is uncoated carbide. pretty common for routers and such to not use coolant, surprised the heck out of me that it worked as well as it did but its slow. that plate ended up taking something like 8 hours to machine. that machine just isn't very beefy.

As for 3d printing, the tech has come a long way but the end products are roughly the same, just higher quality, easier and faster. but the materials used today and 10 years ago are all pretty much the same for the most part in the FDM world. though I have a printer in my house that would easily compete with a high end $20,000 printer from 15 years ago, if not beat it. what blew my mind recently was metal 3d printing services have gotten cheap enough to actually be worthwhile. I had this little intake elbow 3d printed for a diesel swap in my samurai for about 200 bucks, shipped and with tariffs included. that was mind blowing. feels, looks, machines and functions just like a casting.

Also did a carb hat for that same samurai on the first iteration of the build with the stock 1.3L engine. printed that from carbon fiber filled Nylon. put a few thousand miles on it offroad and it the carb throat is still clean as a whistle.