2019 POTD Thread Archive

[Larry$]

POTD was doing a tryout for a Christmas present for my mom. We lost my dad this past April; natural downward spiral after suffering a stroke 5 1/2 years before. My dad was EXTREMELY proud of serving our country in the United States Marine Corp. I'm making an aluminum memorial plaque for my mom to set in their backyard where they used to sit and feed the squirrels and birds.

The plaque will have the Marine Corp emblem and "Dale R. Hansen 7/5/1936 - 4/18/2019" engraved on it. Found a DXF file of the Marine Corp emblem on the web, downloaded it to my Tormach 1100 and used PathPilot's DXF/conversational routines to generate the G-codes for a 4" tall emblem.

I hope Tormach reads my suggestion note for improvements to PathPilot as the conversion routine does a coolant and spindle OFF command EVERY time it lifts the tool off the work before it moves to the next shape. I cannot think of any reason to do this as it adds quite a bit of time to the routine as after every move the spindle and coolant are turned back on before dropping the spindle for the next cut. Fortunately, NOTEPAD has a global Find/Replace function; went through the routine and changed the 300+ (G-code routine was over 34,000 steps) coolant/spindle OFF commands by adding parenthesis to the lines which make them comments instead of executable commands. The routine does 3 passes, removing the coolant/spindle OFF commands took the run time from over 45 minutes to about 27 minutes.

The routine uses a spring-loaded diamond braille for the engraving. Still learning engraving, started with a finish depth of 0.050" with depth of cuts of 0.020". I did a prototype run on the piece of 1/4" Plexiglas shown below. Will do some engraving on a piece of aluminum and maybe change the DOC's. Again, I have no experience with engraving aluminum with the spring-loaded diamond braille, but displacing the braille by 0.050" doesn't take a tremendous amount of force, so hopefully OK, but the proof will be in the pudding.

Thanks for looking,

Bruce


G-code routine for the Marine Corp emblem running in PathPilot.
View attachment 306373


Making the first pass in 1/4" Plexiglas
View attachment 306374


View attachment 306375


View attachment 306376

Finished Eagle, Globe, Anchor emblem
View attachment 306377

Poorly designed software for generating the code is, unfortunately, very common. We are running expensive CAD/CAM software on a 5 X 10' router. Way too many moves and lines of code generated that do nothing but add time. I think the problem is the people that write the code use repeating blocks that are easy to stick in and never go back and clean it up. Over thousands of hours of machine time it is a big waste. Contacting the software companies has never resulted in a fix.

 

[BGHansen]

Every shop needs a billet aluminum soap dish, I wanted one that would be held in place by the hole in my sink and easy to clean. I cut out the perimeter with a 3/4 in ball end mill and the grooves with a 1/4 inch ball end mill. I used a carbide router bit to round off all the corners and rubbed everything down with 120 emery. The pin on the bottom was cut on the lathe. I'm thinking of adding two rare earth magnets to help hold it down, so, would the pole orientation matter? I'm thinking magnetic field through the sink and aluminum dish, or am I over thinking it?

Nice job. Are you worried about water leaking under the soap dish and into the cabinet? Wondering too if magnets will stick to the stainless steel sink. Should be easy to set them on the sink and see if they stick, plus, it'd answer your polarity question. Might need an O-ring or something on the boss to seal the hole.

Bruce