Vises are one of my Vices

[frobzwiththingz]

almost a year ago I wrote about This. Well, there is still a fair amount to do until it is complete, but as of yesterday, it managed to produce its first test part! Nothing too complex, just a simple pocket cut out of mahogany. But that pocket was modeled in Solidworks, then run through VisualMill to generate toolpaths, then handed off into The Machine for production.



The machine now looks like this, with the router spindle attached (it's a Porter Cable 892 2-1/4 HP unit):



There is also a small R8-type spindle that can be mounted as well, that will be using Tormach quick-change
tooling. At some point in the far future, i may try to build an automatic tool-changer.



Here is the first piece, in the vise, after being routed out:



And out of the vise:



Note lack of any real shielding; so only wood test pieces for now.[Wood dust getting into the control electronics just means i need to vaccuum it out. Not so with aluminum chips!] But w00t! It is starting to look like this beast is actually going to be useable!

Comments

[n5red.livejournal.com]

That is so cool! Congratulations!!

[scliff.livejournal.com]

That's stunning.

[doctordidj.livejournal.com]

Well done! I think that's an 11 on the mecha geekery scale ...

[gravitrue.livejournal.com]

u can has CAM

[solarbird]

Hott. ^_^

[ceo]

I bow to your geekly wizardry, sir.

[lightfixer.livejournal.com]

Nice!!!

[happyinmotion.livejournal.com]

Meh... It needs lasers.

Just kidding, that's awesome and fills me with lust and dreams of fine aluminium swarf.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

i'm sure he could mount a spare green laser to that somewhere :)

very spiffy gadget. i see wooden puzzle in the future :)

#

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

If you've got a spare 30W self-contained (no gas flow though) C02 kicking around to hand me,
I'd take it. A nice Columbo or EuroSpindel 3-4 HP AC drive spindle would be nice to mount on there too.

How's the LED project going?

[happyinmotion.livejournal.com]

Trundling along nicely, the mark 3 architecture works and this weekend is planned in for building the first 3.1 driver board, which should save a whole 2.4 millisec off each update. Can't test the centre board coz I blew the picaxe but it seems good so far. Another is on it's way from Oz, you know how these things are.

No space laser here, in fact no spare 100W diode-pumped Nd:YAG laser here, much to my consternation.

[clara-girl.livejournal.com]

neat :) that's.. about all i'm qualified to say on the subject.

[rmd.livejournal.com]

yow.

[blackanvil.livejournal.com]

Neat.

[marktheorc.livejournal.com]

Tough to tell from the image, but the circles look very nice. I remember that you had millimeter resolution and I can see some of the tool action on the flat surfaces. How does the arced surface feel to the touch?