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Makers Central 2018 in Birmingham

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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

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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.

101-800

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

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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.

Controller Components Laid Out

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.

The electronic components laid out on the laser cut box

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.

Controller Components

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.