[T4bParticipant]

Looks nice.

I couldn’t wait, though. I now own a Shapeoko.

[T4bParticipant]

The link isn’t broken, my webhosting is broken. ;-)

It should be up again in a few minutes, I just forgot to pay fast enough and not a second after the deadline it went down…

My PC is good enough, it’s the virtual machine which lags. It certainly wouldn’t if I was running Windows in hardware, but I won’t install Windows in Hardware. I don’t like Microsoft and Windows is just really horrible to use (it’s possible, but every simple task takes twice as long at the very least. Furthermore it can’t mount software RAIDs and I have most of my data in one of them).

Edit 2 seconds later: Link is up again.

[T4bParticipant]

The link isn’t broken, my webhosting is broken. ;-)

It should be up again in a few minutes, I just forgot to pay fast enough and not a second after the deadline it went down…

My PC is good enough, it’s the virtual machine which lags. It certainly wouldn’t if I was running Windows in hardware, but I won’t install Windows in Hardware. I don’t like Microsoft and Windows is just really horrible to use (it’s possible, but every simple task takes twice as long at the very least. Furthermore it can’t mount software RAIDs and I have most of my data in one of them).

Edit 2 seconds later: Link is up again.

[T4bParticipant]

http://files.t4b.me/sundial.jpg

This is a picture of my sun dial, generated with gnuplot (not the picture, the plans for the sun dial). I think I got rid of the worst of the inaccuracies. In theory I guess this sun dial should be accurate to a few minutes, but I haven’t tested it yet. It’s heavily tilted to the west, that’s why it starts around noon.

I’ll post some more pictures and information when I’m really finished with it.

I’ve looked at processing and it looked quite nice, maybe I’m trying that out too.

Directly doing it in gcode could also be worth a try, sooner or later I’ll look at that.

The problem with those free Autodesk products is that they don’t run on Linux – I’ve run AutoCad in a virtual machine, it’s usable but not really that much fun. Lags now and again and it’s Windows…

[T4bParticipant]

http://files.t4b.me/sundial.jpg

This is a picture of my sun dial, generated with gnuplot (not the picture, the plans for the sun dial). I think I got rid of the worst of the inaccuracies. In theory I guess this sun dial should be accurate to a few minutes, but I haven’t tested it yet. It’s heavily tilted to the west, that’s why it starts around noon.

I’ll post some more pictures and information when I’m really finished with it.

I’ve looked at processing and it looked quite nice, maybe I’m trying that out too.

Directly doing it in gcode could also be worth a try, sooner or later I’ll look at that.

The problem with those free Autodesk products is that they don’t run on Linux – I’ve run AutoCad in a virtual machine, it’s usable but not really that much fun. Lags now and again and it’s Windows…

[T4bParticipant]

Any news?

If the instructions are taking you so long, could you maybe just release the plans and the bill of materials for now? I think that would get me quite far, and if I got stuck I could wait for the instructions at any time.

[T4bParticipant]

They recommend Rhino (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTy8KMr8D6M), so I guess that’s what they use. The one who wrote the “Guerilla Guide to CNC machining[...]” (the one I posted a link to some other time) also recommends it. http://www.rhino3d.com/

But unlike AutoCAD it’s not free for students, although students pay much less. That’s why I’m using AutoCAD at the moment (alternatively, when I don’t want to fire up a virtual machine running Windows I use qcad. But I’ve had quite a lot of trouble with qcad when opening dxf files made with gnuplot or AutoCAD).

[T4bParticipant]

Separate, as far as I know. On this picture: http://diylilcnc.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/DIYLILCNC.jpg it’s between the computer and the DIYLILCNC.

[T4bParticipant]

There are plans for it included with the plans for the rest of the panel parts, if that’s what you mean. You will need to adjust it for cutting it with a CNC mill if you don’t have access to a CNC laser.

[T4bParticipant]

I guess it depends on the software: Either you can just configure the overall speed (meaning you would need to set this to the speed of the slowest axis) or you can set the speeds for the individual axes (I would expect that from good software) and it will go as fast as it is allowed to in x/y axis respectively z axis and will automatically wait in x/y if it is necessary for z to catch up.

So I guess you should look at the CAM software you are going to use and find the settings for this things to see what it can do.

(but again, I haven’t got a clue, I’m just writing what seems logical to me)

[T4bParticipant]

Stepper Motors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepper_motor#Two-phase_stepper_motors

Unipolar ones are larger and heavier (for the same output) but easier to drive (cheaper), as of my understanding. I think there is no accuracy difference, which one is better depends on the project. I don’t know why exactly unipolar ones where chosen here, but I can imagine that the weight isn’t too big of a problem here and that maybe the driver board only supports unipolar ones.

I’m quite sure the home position is lost when the machine is turned off, as there is now way for the machine to know where it is at the moment and it assumes something might have changed while it was turned off.

You shouldn’t need programming knowledge, but it probably won’t be as easy as just drawing it, sending it to the machine, waiting and taking the finished part out. I’ve recently found http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/guerrilla_cnc1.shtml. You can skip the part about casting and mold making if you want, but there are lots things about cnc milling which are interesting to know.

I personally have no cnc mill although I want to build one (v2 of this one) and have only used the cnc mill at my school a few times, so probably you shouldn’t trust anything I wrote. ;-)

(it seems the forum system doesn’t let me post. I’ve already tried to post this lots of times)

[T4bParticipant]

That’s great. :-)

It’s just a pity that you didn’t finish it two weeks ago, now I have holidays – that would have been perfect to build it.

I’ve seen that you posted pictures for the assembly instructions on flickr.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/diylilcnc/sets/72157629702459863/with/7030505377/ so I guess your design is finished?

[T4bParticipant]

Would it be possible to cut the parts which are bigger than A4 by hand?

[T4bParticipant]

Will you be offering cut panels at the same time? Because the prices mentioned in this thread http://diylilcnc.org/forum/topic/laser-cutting-services are /way/ over my budget. Even if shipping was another $200 (which I don’t think) the panel set you sell is by far cheaper.

I have access to a cnc mill, but it only cuts up to A4, so I guess it’s useless for cutting the panels myself.

[T4bParticipant]

“Works via USB on Mac and Windows (Possibly Linux).”

Is there a reason it shouldn’t run on Linux? I went onto their site and they have a Linux version of the software they use to connect to it.

As I’m a Linux user I would of course very much like it to run on Linux.

[Author]

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