CNC Build, Day 7 – fighting the machine

I set out to cut Board 2 today. I moved some things around, hoping to help myself get through the cuts more easily.

I tried to set up a 1/4″ drill bit to do the initial drills, but the runout was extremely bad, so I decided to try out the straight-flute router bit. Also a bad idea.

I went back to the endmill, and it cut all the small drills without a problem.

I decided that I’d like to be able to see the parts on the board earlier rather than later, so I built a 1/4″ deep profiling pass to “outline” the parts. It was during this procedure that I realized that I really need to be doing 1/8″ passes with the little router.

I didn’t get as much done today as I had yesterday; there was a lot of stuff going on in the house, and I’m increasingly worried about the machine, the mills, and everything.

I discovered that the X and Y axis nuts were pretty loose, causing some chattering in the cuts. I tightened them both up. But, in the process, I overtightened X, which caused it to start missing steps. a few holes got bored in the wrong places before I figured that out. argh.

I am hoping that the new machine does more repeatable work, with less flexure. This job is by far the largest cut that I’ve done with the Book machine, but I am finding myself continually worrying over it, and for good reason. It will be nice to (hopefully) have a machine that can just do the job. I can’t imagine just walking away from the machine during this cut.

I got all the “small drills” done, the outlines cut (a couple of them look bad, but nothing major I think), and was working my way through the “large drills” when I ran into the X axis error. I was able to quickly edit myself a new set of “large drills” to finish off that MOP, but I ran out of time and had to stop for the night.

Here’s what I have so far:

I modified the machine to do 1/8″ passes, so everything will take a lot longer, but I think that it will make my life a lot easier. The palm router just isn’t doing the job at 1/4″ per pass.

Next up, I need to finish the large drills, do the pockets, and then parts cutout for this board.