What got you into CNC ?

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13 Aug 2019 15:52 #142037 by tommylight
Due to some hijacking going on, started this thread.
Made a robot hand when i was very young, had no drill so used a nail and a hammer to drill thin metal sheets, hammer them flat, nail, flat, nail, flat till i got a so so good hole, used some small DC motors from disgarder hair dryers and some plastic reductions from toys, wired ( soldered ) to a ZX Spectrum with some transistors and got movement ! It could barely carry some 50 to 60 grams and the tolerance was +-3mm ! I was very happy for a day or two then throwed it in the basement as it was utterly useless.
As for what i started and did not finish, oh hell plenty of it and i really really hate that, but i have to live with that. Started 4 universities but never finished any of them, that i will never get over it.
Things i did finish, plenty of them, wayyyy to many to start listing here.
Have to finish.....well....start the retrofit on that mazak, after i start production on a factory that has been dormant for 4 years, now have to push it to 24h, 7 day production so finding employes, training them, maintaing the machinery, fixing some issues with fittings, temperature issues, packaging etc etc.
Oh joy ! :)
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13 Aug 2019 17:20 #142047 by pl7i92
Replied by pl7i92 on topic What got you into CNC ?
job
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13 Aug 2019 18:43 #142070 by tommylight
Replied by tommylight on topic What got you into CNC ?

job

Lol, yup that should do it !
Thank you.
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13 Aug 2019 23:31 #142093 by HueyHQ
Replied by HueyHQ on topic What got you into CNC ?
Undertook a part-time diploma in CAD, and part of it was a CAM module where we got to play with an Anilam CNC.
That's it - I was hooked!
Bought some Z-axis parts off TradeMe (NZ eBay, you could say), then set about collecting parts. Still have those parts - there may now be enough to make another machine!
Saw the Busellato at an auction, got it for $2k, then it sat outside under a tarpaulin for several years before we got a barn built to house it. Removed the rust and got it working, until I knocked the controller off the cabinet onto the concrete floor, never quite worked again, leading me to Mesa and LinuxCNC!
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14 Aug 2019 00:05 #142095 by Grotius
Replied by Grotius on topic What got you into CNC ?
Fascinated for thing's that can do automated step's...
Looking how a machine or cnc process can make products is fascinating...

My first robot was a Fanuc 430d. I tried to attach some stepper's on this robot. At that time i had no clue about how to program this. But i had made a excel interpolation model for a 6 axis robot. So i thought maybe i can connect this to make a robot working like a xyz cnc. The project was not finished, what is not my style.

After that i did a 2 head's flowdrill gantry for a customer with a automated profile loader. This machine was made without break out board. It was wired straight from the lpt1 port cable.. Haha. This was 21 years ago. The machine worked on raw gcode.

At this moment, 21 year's later. In the past 3 year's invoked with linux. My world is very different now.
There are no limit's anymore to make (hardware) or code (software) something...
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14 Aug 2019 03:29 - 14 Aug 2019 03:32 #142104 by rodw
Replied by rodw on topic What got you into CNC ?
Actually, now I think of it back in the very early 90's before parallel port breakout boards existed, I made one for a window display for the "Apple And Grape Festival" in the town I lived.

I had noticed that displays that won the competition had moving parts. I borrowed a 6 bottle wine filling machine and a wine press from customers. I replaced the wine press handle with one made of PVC connected to a motor. We drilled a hole in the base of 6 bottles and siliconed in an outlet hose connected to 12V windscreen washer pumps. I mounted a 12 volt light behind each bottle. So then I wrote a program in DOS that triggered the pumps on a timer directly manipulating the parallel port based on a circuit a mate sketched out for me. I made a nice GUI in DOS with barcharts showing fake levels etc.

So we filled the bottle filler with water and red food colouring, the bottles would fill by a syphon apparatus and stop when full. So all we did was empty a bottle back into the filler tank one at a time and shine a light on it, turn the wine press handle every now and again and trigger another pump that ran water out of the wine press back into the press. When emptied, the bottles just filled up again by syphon.

By the end of the day, we had Angelo, the winemaker sitting outside our window giving passers by a running commentary!

Needless to say we won the competition and I received some nice crystal glasses, decanter and a silver tray. I'm sad to report, I broke a glass today so there are not many left!

If only I knew the value of what I invented or something about CNC back then (which I think predated Linuxcnc and Mach3)
Last edit: 14 Aug 2019 03:32 by rodw.
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14 Aug 2019 16:19 - 14 Aug 2019 16:20 #142127 by BigJohnT
Replied by BigJohnT on topic What got you into CNC ?
Needed a mill for my business so I found a BP Series 1 with an Anilam 1100M control conversion kit on it. It came with a copy of BobCrap and not knowing anything I upgraded it... what a mistake that was lol.

So a few years later the EMC2 LiveCD Ubuntu 6.06 or maybe the one before that came out... it's been a while. Well that was the first time I could get EMC to even load as I must have been too brain dead to do the BDI install even though I tried a bunch of time. Looks like it was 11 years ago I started on my plasma cutter.



JT
Last edit: 14 Aug 2019 16:20 by BigJohnT.
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14 Aug 2019 16:42 #142129 by tecno
Replied by tecno on topic What got you into CNC ?

. what a mistake that was lol.

JT


You donĀ“t say ;) ( have to agree, it is still crap!)
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14 Aug 2019 22:53 #142168 by Leon82
Replied by Leon82 on topic What got you into CNC ?
I work at a machine shop. I program and setup 3 and 5 axis machines.

I converted my grizzly x3 to cnc stepper
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15 Aug 2019 01:32 #142180 by Todd Zuercher
I work at a cnc router shop.

I found Linuxcnc as a way to revive a custom built 8 spindle gang router after a lightning strike. With the help of Andy Pugh and others I was able to.
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