Loen.Design

What’s Happening Now – December 2021

12.01.2021 by rich // 2 Comments

I finished, the block-head/mosaic head project, and it came out looking great! A lot of nice comments on IG about it.

Image of head made with various height blocks, stained blue. — A scanned image of Rich, manipulated in Rhino and Grasshopper to obtain a height map, and then created by cutting quite a lot of small blocks of wood.

I mounted the logo from the sign for a company I founded (Ingenius.com) in the back corner of my shop, above the CNC router. It even glows!

Repurposed the old InGenius logo from a sign into a cool background thing above the CNC router.

I updated the sign outside our studio with a weird kind of insider message for some friends who drive by regularly.
Fixing the floor! Not at all exciting, but a nice thing to tackle. When we originally moved in, we covered the whole shop floor with hydraulic cement, in order to level it, and then we covered that with garage floor epoxy. Unfortunately, the cement layer didn’t stick to the underlying floor well, and began to chip off, leaving large ugly patches of floor. This week we went around the 3000 square foot shop area and chipped off as much of the cement layer as possible, and then applied the floor paint directly to the underlying 50 year old garage floor. We’re about 1/2 way done, and things look a lot better already.
Updated the sign outside our studio with a Talking Heads song reference. I like to think of people humming along with the song after they pass our studio!
One last thing with the old InGenius sign… I put the “In” up on the wall at one end of the shop and I’ve wired it up so that it automatically illuminates when I arrive at the shop.
Rich looking at the In sign. The sign turns on automatically while Rich is at the studio. Rich looks oddly demonic.

Some more info on our Aciera F5 Mill

11.07.2021 by rich // Leave a Comment

Almost a year ago I posted a video about our Aciera F5 Mill. That video has received quite a lot of views, and I recently received a very nice, detailed comment from a viewer, Lutz Geiger, who has completely restored an F5. His comment is fantastic, detailed, and full of useful information. Even more importantly, Lutz clears up a few of the many errors I made when recording that F5 video…

So, I thought I’d publish that comment here, in case it makes it easier for someone to find.

Lutz Geiger:

I have restorated an Aciera F5, too. I know every screws first-name now 🙂

I disassembled the whole machine, changed nearly every bearing (prophylactic, because i already ripped everything apart), cleaned every furthermost corners in there, repainted it and rescraped the axes. Some dumbass used the grease-pump instead of the oil-pump for a short period of time until a gear failed. Lucky machine, because it protected the other parts and axes from getting damaged. Over €1000 just for the Aciera-replacement-parts, no bearing or seal included.

If you still haven’t found a manual: Ask Mr Rösli in switzerland: https://www.roesli-maschinen.ch/ He sells not only manuals and parts-lists, but a lot of parts for Acieras, too.

Have you noticed the surfaces at the measures, where also the limit-stops are? You can lay gauge-blocks there, mill “against” them and thereby cut extremely precise lengths with automatic feed-stop. Just stitch your blocks to the right measurement together and lay it on there.

The power-feed of the table isn’t hydraulic, only gears and shafts. But lots of them… Every power-feed is driven by that one and only motor in the feed-box at the bottom of the machine, the distribution, activation, rapids and auto-off is all mechanical stuff. You can slide the whole feed-box out to the front after some minor handling, there are kind of runners down there, very very cool construction. In that box you find the 2-stage-AND-variable-feed-gear and that rapid-feed-wet-clutch (very evenly controllable with that big handle or pedal).

And you said “some interlocks”… The whole machine is one single interlock 😀 Additional to the ones you mentioned there are also mechanical interlocks between axis clamping-levers and feed-levers. and reversly. You can’t clamp the slides with the feed engaged and vice versa. btw the moving of the table on it’s axis left-right is accurate to within 1/100mm, so you don’t have to zero Y or Z again. And it gives additional 400mm capacity to the 500mm of the main-guideway.

The flat-belt can be changed without cutting and rejoining it, described in the manual.

Oh, and don’t swivel the fine-feed-thing on the cutting-head in that far, you have to adjust it to the right point to eliminate play and maintain easy turning. If you swivel it in too far, it’s hard to turn and wears the gears. If made correctly the wheel can be turned with one single fingertip.

Most important: The machine has a very (!) complex lubrication system, you can do very bad things to the machine when not lubricating it correctly (price for the extremely tight tolerances of every moving thing in there). I really recommend you to get a manual (english in there, too) and parts catalogue! Very interesting and detailed, btw. There are many oil-bath-gears, different oils to take care of, shot-blast-wheels, pipes and pumps for the oil to get from the main-frame to the inside of the Y-axis, the table has to be in the middle of the axis for filling the lubrication-reservoir with its roller-drum-applicator, the machine has to stand exactly horizontal for the oil-paths on (yes, ON) the feed-box to work as they are designed to and so on…

But if you follow it’s lubrication needs, as you said, very robust AND precise machine. No aftercut when moving the cutter out of the material, no bending axis or geometries, very very good machine. If you are an engineer and having fun on precision-things, this is the machine for you to disassemble and restorate. You will cry tears of joy every single day when you discover the next mechanical wonder of it… They even use bronce-wipers in the slots of the switching-shafts for the feeds to prevent chips from getting inside the machine! Every single part is designed the perfect way. No saving-measures from the purchase- or controlling-department, every single part is made as perfect as it can be. Also lots and lots of leverage, excenters, handles and stuff, always made as good as possible, every clamp has very short and precise activation, all over the machine only very extensive construction. An absolute dream of a machine. Metric wheels are with 0,02mm-division, and not that 0,5mm-from-line-to-line-division, but really widely spread and practically useable. I measured mine with some really expensive equipment, and i would not believe it, if i hadn’t done it myself. Not without reason the guys from Aciera talk in µm in the machines protocol… 😉 Maybe this is the reason such machines are sold (in perfectly restored condition) for way over €30k. One i know was sold for €56k without much accessory.

What’s Happening Now – November 2021

11.05.2021 by rich // Leave a Comment

Continuing on the Bell project – bought a pretty large (22 inch/56cm) cast iron bell this week.
I’m switching from the Raspberry Pi Pico to either a full Raspberry Pi 4, or the new RPi Zero W which just came out this week. It has 5x the processing power of the old Zero, and they use the same RPi bus, so peripherals work better. I’ve got MQTT running, as well as a display. Another advantage is that the code is more compatible with OS X, where I develop.
I’ve been setting up my new MacBook Pro as well, and I’m annoyed that Dropbox doesn’t work on it yet.
I’ve been doing some background work on the QuickDraw project, playing with different stains on pine, and seeing how it machines in the CNC Router.
Playing more with Rhino and Grasshopper
Working on software architecture and electronics for the Bells Project
Updated the sign outside our studio to read “It’s very squirrel nut zippers”, which is the name of a band.
A quick project: I took a scan of my head, brought it into Rhino, processed it with Grasshopper and a spreadsheet, and then cut a bunch of blocks to match the calculated heights. Finally, assembled it into a grid. I think it looks like a robot.

What’s Happening Now – October 2021

10.06.2021 by rich // 1 Comment

I’ve been working with RhinoCAD again, which is like visiting an old friend (or enemy really) since it’s the first CAD software I used extensively for design. It’s nice because it leads you to more organic designs instead of square blocky designs. I’ve been exploring Grasshopper as well, which allows you to create parametric and mathematically driven designs which can be cut out on the CNC Router. It’s been an interesting diversion…
Solidworks has an interesting deal for Makers. I might check that out.
I redid the “Doorbell” sign which points people to the humongous doorbell button outside our studio. The original was done in cheap baltic birch plywood, which was not weatherproof at all. The new one is done in cedar, which will hopefully last a bit longer. It’s funny that delivery drivers can’t find our doorbell.

I got a Prusa MK3S+ 3D printer, which I’m using to prototype some designs and ideas. It works well. 3D printing has improved a lot.
More work on some methods for creating patterns using computer algorithms. In addition to using Rhino/Grasshopper I’ve been using the Processing computer language, which is designed for artists and creatives. There’s a web-based version of Processing called P5, which works in javascript on a web page.

Panels created using Rhino/Grasshopper and Processing.

I had big concrete pad installed at our back door. Our forklift got stuck in the loose, crumbling asphalt a few months ago when trying to enter the garage door back there. The concrete will provide a stable surface to move equipment and machines around.

Concrete pad at the back door of the studio

I refined the random circle algorithm for generating panels. Now it generates fewer circles at first, and grows them, then adds another batch of circles are grows them all. Doing it all at once meant that there were no larger circles. There’s a greater variety now. It deletes small circles that can’t be cut with the cutter in the CNC Router.

Generated algorithmically using processing (P5 variant) in a browser. Not the full image…

I added a page to the site with a gallery of projects that we’ve worked on.
Got the Chain Drive Clock going more smoothly! Turns out there was a broken coupler on one of the sprocket drives. This provided enough resonance in the system that the Clearpath Servo motor would howl noisily and couldn’t be calibrated. It’s nice to have this clock working well again.
Clock built with servos and a large chain drive.
Back into the thick of the programming for the Bells project. A lot of Python on a server and Raspberry Pi. Lots of low level driver stuff at this point, trying to prove out the hardware and make sure it’s sufficient for the needs of the project.

What’s Happening Now – Sept 2021

09.17.2021 by rich // Leave a Comment

Back from some travels out west. Built a cool lamp using the outline of my brother’s face.
Lamp fashioned from 16 profile images of my brother’s face.
@theGrantAlexander needed a Tesla logo for a project of his. I cut it for him on the CNC – the whole thing was just over 48″ tall. It came out great – I think it would look cool backlit.
I ordered a Prusa 3D printer (MK3S+). It is really great actually. One of those “it just works” printers. 3D printers have come so far from the first ones – I used to have to spend hours tuning the machine before I could print something. Now, just walk up to it, and print – and it works! My first printer was this: Printrbot
I updated the sign in front of our studio: By Grabthar’s Hammer!

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