What did you do today (2015)

You might make your first attempt using a piece of foam, wax or MDF to reduce the chances of tool breakage - assuming it first managed to cut air without any issue! Excitement builds - good luck!

Hi Muzzer,

I fully intend to use MDF aftercutting air. If all goes well I will try it in HE-30. Will have to wait untill after the weekend but in the meantime I have brought my Cad Cam programmes with me on my lap top so I can get some practice in.

I think you said you are using Sprutcam. That seems to cost about £950+vat according to my enquiry recently. How do you find it? Would be interesting to hear how you find it. I see there is a 30-day trial so you can try before you buy.

I have HSMXpress which is free for 2.5D milling but unfortunately only works with either Solidworks or Autodesk Inventor. I'm only starting out with it at the moment...

Finished off the Gade flywheel that I started in the week and then did some work on teh second one.

8.75" dia, 300rpm, 0.015" depth of cut.

Hi muzzer,

Being a novice, I am not too familarwith other CAM software programmes. I bought Sprutcam as part of the package. Iamgfinding it fairly intuitive so far and have not had to lookup help which is available on line. I haven't been able to find amanual in amongst the software but thereare plenty of tutorials on youtubE.

the software is loaded with thr mill details so you don't have to configure it for that.

i was at first daunted somewhat by it but as I get further into it I am finding it easier to use. It is worth giving it a try but at £900 a pop it is a big expense like alot of CAD/Cam softwae seems to be.

Took an old, defunct printer to bits to liberate some material. Got covered in ink. Became thoroughly unimpressed with build quality of printer.

cheers

Bill

Hi Muzzer,

I replied to your posting on my phone hence the lackof propper spacing here and there. I have just had a look on my laptop to see if I could find any manual in the programme, there is a short cut to the user manual but no sign of a PDF file containing it. I will have a look at the sofware disc when I get home and see if I can locate it there,

Regards,

Bob

I have just finished replacing the piston seal in my Diana Mod. 75. What a kerfufle with the 2 cogs that connect the front and rear piston. ( Recoilless air gun)

Just been outside now in the cold to sight in the telescope which i had to take off for the work to be done. It is a trifle low in the MPI but I can adjust for that. Look out Squirrels as we are inundated at the moment and they are wrecking the bird feeders. all up and down the road.

Clive

> Took an old, defunct printer to bits to liberate some material. Got covered in ink. Became thoroughly unimpressed with build quality of printer.

As an ingineer you should be impressed by how incredibly simple they can make printers that give such good results!

Neil

Hi Muzzer,

I managed to find a user manual from the Sprutcam USA website. It is for version 7 and the most current version is version 9, however there isn't a great deal of difference between the versions. Sprut is a Russian company and sometimes translation is a little bit off but in comparison to some manuals that I have seen from the far east it is more than adequate. When I get home I will load up the printer with paper and knock out a copy.

Not in this case Neill. It was slow, noisy and over complex. Yes it did work, but not as well as it should have done. In any event, it's gone to a much better place.

cheers

Bill

Reassembled a Union 1/2" pillar drill that I collected yesterday.

Now I need to source a new drive belt - I don't suppose anyone knows the size?

If you get stuck, you should be able to estimate the required length using a belt length calculator. Something like this. You need to know the section (size) of course but that isn't difficult to figure out.

I bought some timing belts, taperlock pulleys and vee belts from these boys in Hampshire and they seemed pretty reasonable.

Murray

Belt length calculator? When did bits of string become obsolete?

.

I think it was when someone noticed how difficult it is to wrap string at the effective radius of a vee pulley

MichaelG.

Indeed. And if you think that's too virtual, the chain / belt function in 3D CAD is very useful for designing "real" belt sizes into your machine before you even have pulleys and bits of string in front of you. I did this in Solidworks and found the timing belt fitted perfectly when it arrived - handy really, given that I'd made the rest of the parts by then. Avoided having to provide Norma's great adjustment slots everywhere, which seemed like a bodge to me.

Murray

Maker perspective on the Model Engineer Exhibition:

In between yet another day of getting things organized in the new workshop I needed to do a small turning job but as I have not yet plumbed in the coolant pump a squeezy bottle would have to make do.

The nozzle hole on the washing up liquid bottle turned out to be far to big for the job in hand squirting coolant at a rate of knots so I glue gunned a WD-40 "straw" in. A very good result with (depending how you hold/squeeze the bottle) anything from a few drops to a squirt.

Nothing much to write home about I know but it pleased me. As they say, little things.............

Rik

Edited By Rik Shaw on 02/02/2015 17:44:35

Hey Rik

Some of us, lacking the luxury of coolant pumps, have to make do with the squeezy bottle method all the time! My own preference is for small bottles, obtained via ebay, with a right angled spout ( thus avoiding a squirt of coolant in the eye!) I believe these are sold as bottles for tattooist's inks. ( I should point out that I have no connection, and desire no connection, with tattooists - other than to use their bottles!)

Norman

Edited By NJH on 02/02/2015 18:09:01

New version of the Raspberry Pi is unveiled. Nice piece of kit for £23. Cortex A7 (ARM) quad core processor 900MHz /1GB RAM.

Joy of joys. As it will be almost as powerful as a proper PC (six times as powerful as the last version), "the Raspberry Pi 2-compatible version of Windows 10 will be available free of charge to makers". Should also be pretty good for machine control, assuming you run Linux of course....

Murray