Making Pucks – Loen.Design

Building a Chinese 3018 CNC Engraving machine

05.30.2019 by rich // Leave a Comment

This small CNC Engraving machine is available at the banggood.com site:

https://m.banggood.com/3018-3-Axis-Mini-DIY-CNC-Router-w-2500mW-Laser-Module-Wood-Engraving-Cutting-Milling-Engraver-Machine-p-1263082.html

It can be hard to find the plans for this machine online. Here’s some help!

You’ll assemble most of it by just looking at the photos.

The manual I got with the latest one I ordered was pretty good.

The details page has a link to this dropbox:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ybh0xihxeco9szp/AAAt8XkxL1V_5AkwQN2K-w17a?dl=0

Which has drivers, the manual, etc.

For the GRBL sender I have had good success with GRBL Panel which didn’t have as many features as others, but WORKED. https://github.com/gerritv/Grbl-Panel

One option I added for the little CNC was a proper collet:

https://m.banggood.com/Drillpro-7Pcs-ER11-1-7mm-Spring-Collets-with-ER11A-5mm-Motor-Shaft-Holder-Extension-Rod-p-1280353.html

This makes it easy to use better tools. I was using a standard 1/4” v-carving router bit, for instance. I found that the hole in the adapter that is supposed to slide over the 5mm motor shaft was just a bit small. I reamed it out with a 5mm ream, and that worked great. For the first one, I had to shove it onto the motor shaft with a vise – which worked, but I’ll never get it off!

Finally, one change I made was to use better nuts and bolts. The screws that come with the thing are soft – like aluminum, and have Phillips heads, which I hate. Proper metric cap screws are much better. Sorry for .ca links.

FullerKreg M5-0.8 x 10mm ISO 4762 Hex Drive Class 12.9 Black Oxide Finish Alloy Steel Socket Cap Screw (Pkg of 100) https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07BSBCP3K
Boeray 2020 M5 T Spring Nut Half Round Roll-in Nut for t-Slot Aluminum Profile 20x20mm 50pcs https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B075SYDZWB
TOPINSTOCK 20×20 European Aluminum Extrusions Slim T-Nut M5 Thread Pack of 100 https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01FOC6A8E
boeray 100 pcs M5 x 10 mm 304 Stainless Steel Internal Hex Drive Button Head Cap Screws, Packed in a Plastic Case https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07FF28LMD

Last Minute! Giving a talk about CNC with the Hack613 crowd.

04.30.2019 by rich // Leave a Comment

I’m giving a talk about how to build your own CNC machine, along with Darcy White and Doug Commons on April 30, 2019.

This is a dry run for the talk I’ll be giving at MakersCentral in the UK next week.

Here’s a link to the details!

UPDATE: The talk was a great success! Here’s some photos from the event.

Heading back to Makers Central in Birmingham!

02.21.2019 by rich // Leave a Comment

Makers Central is happening again at the NEC in Birmingham on May 11 and 12 this year. Here’s some more details in their flyer.

I’m very excited to be heading back to the UK for this event. I’ll be making pucks for kids in booth F6, and I’ll be giving a talk about how to build your own CNC machine as well (time and place to be determined).

Kids watching their pucks being carved in the small CNC puck mill.
(From a recent event in Canada)

It will be nice to catch up with Jimmy Diresta, Laura Kampf, and the rest of the YouTube crowd. They were a really great group to meet last year.

I’ll be there with @silver_hand, an accomplished jeweller, watch maker, and pen maker. Be sure to check out his podcast at: http://offhours.show/

I’m giving a talk at Maker Space North on February 26, 2019

02.18.2019 by rich // 2 Comments

Rich Loen has built many CNC machines including routers, mills, and cutters. He’ll share the knowledge he’s gained both building machines from scratch, and converting metal-working mills to CNC.

Tickets are limited so don’t miss out and snag yours now before they’re all gone!

BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE

More details from the event description: Rich Loen (https://Loen.Design) has built many CNC machines including routers, mills, and cutters. He’ll share the knowledge he’s gained both building CNC machines from scratch, and converting metal-working mills to CNC. Rich will cover:

Hardware options – machine frame, linear bearings, ball-screws, belt drives
Electronics – stepper motors, servos, drivers, power supplies, control interfaces like smooth steppers, G540, Planet CNC hardware.
Spindle options – routers, air/Water cooled spindles, high-speed spindles
Control Software – Mach3, Linux CNC, PlanetCNC, etc.
Design Software – Fusion 360, Vectric V-Carve Pro, Other options
Suppliers of hardware and software

Rich will be joined by Chris Manning (@silver_hand), a local watch maker and silver smith with years of CNC lathe and mill experience. Rich will also bring a small CNC mill he made for carving names into hockey pucks – and if you’re lucky, you can get your name carved into a puck during the event!

Making Pucks! – Last minute!

02.18.2019 by rich // Leave a Comment

Last minute news!

@inventorartist has asked me to take part in a sort of mini Maker Faire on Monday February 18 at Ottawa City Hall. A group of makers is showing up to carve pucks between 11am and 2pm.

Thanks for the invite Darcy!

Deets: http://hack613.com/event/mayors-annual-family-day-skating-party/

Update!

We had a great day. My son and I set up around 10am, and started making pucks immediately. By 3pm we had made about 120 pucks! Always nice to see the kids so excited to watch the process.

Here’s some photos:

Success! We had a great time giving our talk “How to build a CNC machine” at Makerspace North

10.24.2018 by rich // 2 Comments

@Silver_hand and I gave a talk about building your own CNC machine. The talk seemed very well received, and we had a lot of great questions from the audience at the end. Thanks to everyone who attended – you made the talk great!

Here’s the presentation in PPT, and PDF format.

And thanks to Sheri at MakerspaceNorth for hosting us tonight.

Makers Central 2018 in Birmingham

05.20.2018 by rich // Leave a Comment

We were lucky enough to head over to England for the first Makers Central show in Birmingham in May 2018. @sliver_hand and I flew over on Thursday, to be ready in time for the Saturday and Sunday show. Amazingly, we packed an entire CNC machine in two suitcases, as checked luggage, and managed to man-handle it through the London Tube, as well as onto a train to Birmingham! It was exhausting!

The Makers Central show was excellent – an amazing accomplishment for a first-year event. Nick Zammeti did an amazing job organizing the event. We had HUGE 10×20 foot booth – about 4 times bigger then we needed – but we got set up quickly on Friday, and managed to create some test hockey pucks. Yup, we were two Canadian lads, in England, carving people’s names into hockey pucks! Special thanks to @Vectric, makers of the V-Carve Pro software we used to make the pucks – who managed to snag 200 hockey pucks for us at the show!

The event was great, with really good crowds – and just tons and tons of YouTube stars, like Laura Kampf and Jimmy Diresta, and about a hundred more! It was excellent hanging out in the hotel bar after the show, with all the folks from the show.

When the show finished, we headed down to London, touring the London Science Museum, a special tour of the Goldsmith’s Company, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as dinners with some London friends.

@silver_hand and I talk about the trip in Episode 17 of the Off Hours Podcast.

Engraving hockey pucks at the Ottawa Mini Maker Faire

02.15.2018 by rich // Leave a Comment

Wow, what a busy weekend we had, cranking out puck after puck for two days. I had purchased about 150 pucks before the faire, but had to puchase another 100 pucks Sunday morning on the way to the Faire.

The puck mill had created about 15-20 pucks before the faire – test pucks as I was calibrating the X and Y axis, and setting the Z height. But, from the second the Faire started, until it ended, we were continually carving names into pucks. The machine literally ran non-stop – as quickly as we could swap new pucks into the machine, it would start carving again.

So, over two days, we created 300 pucks in total – that’s 300 puck designs, and 300 toolpath G-Code files, and then sending them all to the Planet-cnc controller to create the pucks. Our copy of Vectric V-Carve Pro was really put to the test! [Read more…]

Wiring up the controller for the Puck Mill

02.15.2018 by rich // Leave a Comment

Wiring up the controller for a small CNC mill such as this always takes longer than I expect. I start by laying the components out on the work bench – to determine how big a box will be needed.

This gives me a feel for the size of the box, and the location of the components (not as shown above).

I made the box using my laser cutter – just a plain rectangular box, with nothing fancy.

I then mounted the components in the box, with short stand-offs, so there is air space between all the boards and the box.

Power distribution is always a challenge, and I’ve ended up using a rather pricey solution of DIN rail power blocks. These are extremely handy, and quick to wire up. Nice.

I kept the box sides off for most of the assembly. I wired up the back panel items first – soldering the wires into the DB9 connectors for the motors, and the limit switches, and connecting the 115V power input, circuit breaker, power switch, and the output connector for the vacuum. Also, the spindle power. I tried to use different connectors for most items (such as the spindle) so that it would reduct the problems that could occur if one was plugged into the wrong connection.

I wired up the 115V power stuff first – getting the thicker wires set for the power to the 3 power supplies, and the wiring for the vacuum wired up to the relay board.

I then worked on the higher current stuff – the spindle output (also through a relay), and the power to the motor driver boards.

And, then the wiring of the 12V power to the relay board, and fan. This used a small 12V power supply that snaps onto the DIN Rail.

Finally, I wired up the motor outputs, and the connections to the control panel, and the relay board – the relay connections went through a couple of switches on the font panel, so I can override the vacuum and spindle – turning them ON, OFF, or AUTO – under control of the CPU board. The Vacuum is wired into the Flood output on the board – so I simply have to make sure that the G code generated includes the M8 and M9 commands to turn the Flood coolant on and off.

Astonishingly, everything ran perfectly when I powered things up. The motor drivers have all kinds of warnings about powering them up without a motor connected (which is a bit worrisome – are they that delicate???). The spindle didn’t work at first, but I finally realized that the speed control was set to its lowest setting – not enough power to drive the spindle motor!

And, on to the next step – calibrating the PC software which drives the Planet CNC board.