Brand new toy!

[audiophyle_247]

I am the proud owner of a ShapeOko2 CNC Mill, or will be as soon as I finish building it. lol

This is what came right out of the box.


Assembled the Z axis with X axis mount.


And with all of the mechanical goodies put together.


Just need to finish wiring it up & fab a housing for the Arduino & driver board.


Ive had so much fun putting this thing together that I just had to share.

[ttocs]

too cool. Is this just for fun or a small biz? And how much?

[audiophyle_247]

Primarily just for fun because I have wanted one for a long time, but will surely collect some extra play money from projects here & there. The circuit boards were what brought those bass cube remotes to a halt, they cost too much to have fabricated and making them by hand took forever. Now I can engrave my own, for remotes and the many other projects I have had in mind.

I bought the complete kit from Inventibles.com for $700 or so. I had planned on eventually building one myself, but after putting this "kit" together doing one completely on my own would have been a nightmare & easily cost more. This kit is impressive & very well thought out, and my favorite part is I can scale it up in size easily & is very affordable.

[ajaye]

dude that's kind of insane in the best way possible.

on a related note, when people are talking about "3d printing" that I keep hearing about, is it basically something like this? or a whole different type of machine/process?

[audiophyle_247]

3d printing is a lot more like an actual printing process. The machine lays down thin layer upon layer of materials to slowly build something 3d. It is an additive process.
Milling is a subtractive process, where a block of material is used & the mill removes all of the excess material to leave the desired shape behind.

Milling has been around for a long time, and 3d printing is slowly making its way into manufacturing processes. It's also very expensive if you want to print in anything other than plastic, sand, or paper.

[dbjury]

Cool.... Very!


Sent from my slutty assistant...

[ttocs]

$700 is all??! I would have thought it was a lot more then that. I might have a small job for you when I get time to make my amp rack. I want to make it from aluminum and weld it together....

[audiophyle_247]

Wife thought I was crazy, but that was my reaction too. lol

For the price it is awesome, and the cutting area is a little on the small side (12"x12"x3") but I can expand that to almost 3'x3' for just over $100 if I ever need to. (can go larger, but that gets very expensive)
I primarily wanted it for the precision & to mill small parts anyway, so it should be perfect.

[ttocs]

it amazes me the technology that people can buy now. I have another buddy that has a small laser version that he uses for custom making balsa piece for his rc heli's that amazes the hell outta me.

[audiophyle_247]

Upgraded the spindle from the worthless 200w generic dremel to a 1.25hp Makita, all the difference in the world! Following vids are cutting through acrylic in 1/8" bites per pass with a very slow feed with the Makita turned down to its slowest setting. Right now the feed/speed settings are not optimal, it is spinning too fast & feeding too slow, so I will most likely be cranking up the feed rates & turning up the spindle speed just a hair. The power this thing has is awesome!
The cuts are a test pattern to verify accuracy & square of the machine. The cut accuracy was only off by 0.01" and was as close to perfectly square as my calipers could measure.





The belt setup is basic & needs a good tension system, which I am trying to design & fabricate now.
This will help the accuracy further & allow faster feeding speeds without loss of accuracy.
I am also working on a dust collection setup to keep the work area clear.

[LowandLoud]

Man.... You are the envy of the Phorum right now, lol. This is sweet. I too am surprised how affordable it is. Too cool.

LL

[Bomber Z]

Awesome!!!!! That is so cool...

[trickyricky]

That sure do look like a sweet toy to have. Was the Makita an optional upgrade or was it your add on? I ask because that mounting hardware on it seems like it was custom made or made exactly for that model.

[audiophyle_247]

The best part of the ShapeOko community is everyone works toward perfecting it & there are countless iterations shared on their forum. The Makita was an upgrade I chose because I found it locally & the price was right. The mount was snagged off eBay which was the exact sizeneeded for the Makita & it just happened to fit the mill perfectly too. (couldnt have been happier when I discovered that btw)

The cutting area is still pretty small at just over a sqft, but it can be expanded pretty easily & I plan to eventually.
Ive already cranked out several speaker rings for friends & fab'd up a replacement part for my shopvac out of ABS plastic.
Waiting on engraving bits in the mail & I hope to be engraving circuit boards pretty soon, so I can perfect my basscube remotes. (& mill the mounting plates too)

[trickyricky]

You think you could do a simple end plates (2" x 12") out of aluminum or steel that is 1/8" thick. I need a couple for two amps that are in horrible shape and would like to customize the end plates.

[audiophyle_247]

This setup isnt strong enough to mill steel, but it can do aluminum.
I however have no experience milling aluminum, yet. I dont see why not though, do you have a sketch or picture of what you are looking for?