[NickB00]

It was 8 degrees in my garage yesterday lunchtime, I was trying to fit a dust-shoe I printed which needed some mods so thankfully I had to go back in the house and there I stayed. Brrrrr... no thanks!

.

And I get you about cold in the shed. Even though mine's insulated now and we're finally seeing a bit of sun in Perth after a couple of weeks of british style misery, I'm not even a little bit tempted to swap my uggies for steel caps and shuffle down there

[Mmpie]

8 degrees? Celsius? That's shorts and t-shirt weather.


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[NickB00]

Yeah I was in my tshirt, shorts & thongs and the garage roller door was open.

[NickB00]

Hey Guys, I have finally done my first job with my Omio X4-800L CNC Machine!
I did this one using Artcam which is an awesome program to use. Many thanks to you that have answered all my dumb questions (but wait.... there will be more)
but at least now I have made a good start and amazed how good these machines really are!
So thanks heaps everyone for your help!
Blown away!
cheers
Nick

[Mmpie]

Congrats, that's a great looking piece and for a first try very impressive.


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[Sterob]

Yeah...most of us try to cut a circle and end up driving the tool into job and breaking it....lol
Well done.....


Did you fix your font problem?

Steve

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[NickB00]

Yeah did that a couple of times, did I forget to mention that? hehe..
No I think will have to live with the font problem. Even Omio say it is a problem they have never seen.

Yeah...most of us try to cut a circle and end up driving the tool into job and breaking it....lol
Well done.....

Did you fix your font problem?

Steve

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It really came out nice, I am going to do a bigger one and use a finer ballnose bit (say 2mm) next time. The 3mm ballnose finishing bit could not get into the small crevices I think and so left some stringy bits dangling there.

Congrats, that's a great looking piece and for a first try very impressive.


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[Mmpie]

It's all trial and error. I think most people cut these sort of things with 60 degree v bits and tiny (<1mm) ball nose bits.

I really wanna try do some pieces like that, I've never done one. The most decorative thing I've done is a bunch of mounting blocks for curtain rails on a plasterboard wall they kept getting pulled out of


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[NickB00]

I bet you have made some real nice intricate pieces too. The curtain rod mounting blocks sound interesting, ok maybe not but still...,
I think small ball end bits are the go as a vee bit would leave grooves.

It's all trial and error. I think most people cut these sort of things with 60 degree v bits and tiny (<1mm) ball nose bits.

I really wanna try do some pieces like that, I've never done one. The most decorative thing I've done is a bunch of mounting blocks for curtain rails on a plasterboard wall they kept getting pulled out of


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[dharmic]

Combination, Nick. V bits usually have a tiny radius on the end so they're not /completely/ sharp point. But you're talking 0.05 - 0.2mm typically so they're good for very small detail work. Having engraved a mild steel stamp (ie slow feed rates) and trying to get it smooth with a stepover of 0.05mm on a 0.1mm radius v cutter though, I can attest to how slow they are for everything else.

I'd now use a combination of three or four passes - a flat endmill maybe 4 or 6mm to rough it out fast and do any flat horizontal surfaces, then the ballnose in 4mm to smooth it out, then a ballnose in 2mm to smoothly get into any of the corners where the 4mm couldn't reach, and finally the V bit to tighten up any sharp details.

[dharmic]

How have people been going with motor tuning, out of curiosity?

Yesterday I got bored and decided to explore a little. Soft limits work great once you set them up - and have realised (DUH!) that the machine coords need auto-resetting on homing

I started ramping up speeds, now running rapids at about 8500mm/min with an acceleration of 800mm/s/s and she's tearing around. Homing cycles needed to slow down to 30% on X and Y, because the overshoot was outrunning the travel on the microswitch.

Not sure about that acceleration though: my maths is telling me that 800mm/s2 should mean it takes 10s of ramping to get to that full speed but it seems to do it in about 1.5 seconds. Increasing much past that starts to throw huge delays in jogging so I left it there.

Fun times

[NickB00]

yeah I might try that, but too late now as my corner zero point has been cut off, so will give it a go on the next one and will let you know.
I am thinking maybe a 1mm ballnose may also do the trick...

Combination, Nick. V bits usually have a tiny radius on the end so they're not /completely/ sharp point. But you're talking 0.05 - 0.2mm typically so they're good for very small detail work. Having engraved a mild steel stamp (ie slow feed rates) and trying to get it smooth with a stepover of 0.05mm on a 0.1mm radius v cutter though, I can attest to how slow they are for everything else.

I'd now use a combination of three or four passes - a flat endmill maybe 4 or 6mm to rough it out fast and do any flat horizontal surfaces, then the ballnose in 4mm to smooth it out, then a ballnose in 2mm to smoothly get into any of the corners where the 4mm couldn't reach, and finally the V bit to tighten up any sharp details.

[NickB00]

Hey Guys, just wondering if any of you have bought or made a DUST SHOE to fit your spindle with a vacuum attachment?
If so can you let me know where you got it or what you made with some pics please!
I tried to print one on my 3d printer but it wont fit as the spindle motor is too close to the Z axis frame and there is maybe 3mm clearance so
the one I printed and others that you can buy on ebay wont fit because of this minimal space and they have 100mm diameter vacuum attachment??? What the.. !! https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/65mm-Spi...53.m1438.l2649
Here is a link to the one I printed. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2019569
cheers Nick

[Mmpie]

How have people been going with motor tuning, out of curiosity?

Yesterday I got bored and decided to explore a little. Soft limits work great once you set them up - and have realised (DUH!) that the machine coords need auto-resetting on homing

I started ramping up speeds, now running rapids at about 8500mm/min with an acceleration of 800mm/s/s and she's tearing around. Homing cycles needed to slow down to 30% on X and Y, because the overshoot was outrunning the travel on the microswitch.

Not sure about that acceleration though: my maths is telling me that 800mm/s2 should mean it takes 10s of ramping to get to that full speed but it seems to do it in about 1.5 seconds. Increasing much past that starts to throw huge delays in jogging so I left it there.

Fun times

I've gone back to the standard 4000mm/min set up. I was running it at 6000 mm/min I think but my ballscrew support bearing in the gantry arm popped. I think that's more to do with the ballscrew being ever so slightly oversized and putting an uneven load on the bearing but I slowed it back down anyway because the machine is slow actually cutting anything I figured what's an extra minute or so per part in rapid moves... and hopefully the new bearing lives a little longer. Pain in the arse pulling it all apart to replace, it's the cable chain that does me.

Dust shoe - I printed one, it sort of worked semi well, as you say it's the clearance that's the issue. I have my machine enclosed in a box so if I'm ever cutting anything a dust shoe would be useful for, I don't bother anymore and just switch the airblast on periodically to clear the cutting area and clean up after. Another alternative would be to 3D print a small fan that clamps around the spindle neck. Might actually try that myself for clearing slots.


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[extent]

I've been running 6000mm rapids and 600mm accel, and I think I turned the microstepping up on the drivers by one step. The accel is the really important part to me, even if I do all my cutting at 3000mm/min and under. Trying to clear out small features with a 2mm endmill I may have a set speed of 500mm/min, but due to accel only get about 200mm/min, which is terrible for chipload.

[NickB00]

Do you have a pic of the dustshoe or an stl file of the one you printed? It might be helpful for us to look at and alter maybe?
Ive gone nuts lately down at Bunnings buying pieces of wood, a drop saw, a table saw and a wet & dry vac, some router bits, wood stain - aye carumba!
So anyway, hopefully can work something out to collect the wood chips from my OMio it really makes a huge mess..
Maybe put it in a box and clean up later. Its a thought!

Dust shoe - I printed one, it sort of worked semi well, as you say it's the clearance that's the issue. I have my machine enclosed in a box so if I'm ever cutting anything a dust shoe would be useful for, I don't bother anymore and just switch the airblast on periodically to clear the cutting area and clean up after. Another alternative would be to 3D print a small fan that clamps around the spindle neck. Might actually try that myself for clearing slots.


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[dharmic]

When my machine turned up, I put it together on a table. First cuts, **** flying everywhere - and that was some scrap wood. Second job was aluminium with sprayed WD40 and an air duster and the mess factor increased exponentially. Next step was to buy some perspex, patio tube, a bit of gal sheet and make up a table with enclosure. Found a couple of drawer runners too, made a drawer for tooling. All up cost about AUD400 (mostly for the sheet of perspex) and now the mess is contained - a couple of misting nozzles let me manually air blast the work to stop chip buildup and mist when I'm cutting metal. When I'm done I let it dry if I've been misting, then just hit it with the shop vac and I'm done

[NickB00]

Sounds like the go. A box around it would at least contain the mess. I did a trial piece of aluminium, carving out a rectangular pocket 5mm deep in 2 goes. The chips were flying everywhere and the Omio handled it easily. I did not use lube as that just makes a mess. I use a lube when I am turning aluminium on my lathe but not on the Omio, as I kept the feed rate down slow to 20mm/sec or so so it was not getting that hot. I have the air cooled spindle so it did a good job blowing the chips away so thats good. I like the idea of a perspex box, or at least a perspex front door so you can see whats going on. I am going to persevere though with the dust shoe bracket for a while and see how I go and then a box down the track.

When my machine turned up, I put it together on a table. First cuts, **** flying everywhere - and that was some scrap wood. Second job was aluminium with sprayed WD40 and an air duster and the mess factor increased exponentially. Next step was to buy some perspex, patio tube, a bit of gal sheet and make up a table with enclosure. Found a couple of drawer runners too, made a drawer for tooling. All up cost about AUD400 (mostly for the sheet of perspex) and now the mess is contained - a couple of misting nozzles let me manually air blast the work to stop chip buildup and mist when I'm cutting metal. When I'm done I let it dry if I've been misting, then just hit it with the shop vac and I'm done

[dharmic]

Without lube, you are going to break cutters on aluminium. Slower feed rates only make it worse because they promote rubbing instead of cutting which dulls and heats the endmill - you're (unintuitively) better off increasing your feed rate up until deflection becomes your enemy.

I went for the table/enclosure for a number of reasons:
- space in the shed is tight, so I wanted something /just/ big enough without being too big, but sturdy enough to not rattle around.
- I needed somewhere to keep the control box out of the way, and somewhere to put the laptop.
- I knew it would be mostly metal working so there'd be coolant flying around, so it needed to be on a waterproof tray.
- I wanted to control the amount of rubbish flying around. But still see what was going on.
- I wanted to save my face from bits of broken endmill flying at speed when I stuffed up (again).

That said, it ain't perfect. The enclosure adds another two steps (remove/replace front acrylic wall) to every damned tool change. It gets in the way of overhanging stock. It makes life less convenient when doing the cleanup (even though all the walls are just drop in/out, it needs doing and they need somewhere to live when not on the machine) after the job. Oh, and it was considerably more expensive in bucks and time than a dust shoe.

If I was going to do all or mostly wood, well, the top of the enclosure lets dust fly fine, so it woodn't (hurr hurr) be that great - a dust shoe'd be much better. But for metal it's a pretty handy dandy setup and I have no regrets

[extent]

even dry is manageable in most situations, only deep slotting can get sketchy, but you must have at least a strong airblast (a little fan or gust from an aircooled spindle is not even remotely enough). Clearing chips is paramount. It's not too hard to always keep a healthy cut if you try to think in terms of chipload rather than feed. Staying at 1 or 2 thou per tooth avoids rubbing but is still a really light cut. Cutting a real chip also removes more heat from the workpiece, so keeps things a lot cooler, which I like to think keeps aluminum from getting so gummy.