CNC Machine

CNC MACHINE 

By: Josh Rucinski

The CNC is ready to work. A couple of nights ago the DFL team was able to finish the gantry so the CNC now has dust collection capability.  The gantry will allow the router to go anywhere on a piece of sheet stock while still being attached to the dust collector.

People who think they want to use the CNC are welcome to, but it needs to be cleared through a professor first.

A couple of quick notes on using a CNC.

The CNC is not like the laser cutter, it doesn't incinerate wood, it rips it apart (albeit cleanly) with a router bit, similar to working with wood by hand, except it is very accurate. So if you are designing the latest and greatest furniture for example:

There are three kinds of basic actions for the CNC (actually, there are more, but these are the most basic and do most of the work)

Profile Cut,  This makes the bit either travel on a line, travel inside a line, or travel outside of a line.  This is the kind of cut you want to cut through your material.

 Pocket Cut, This makes the bit cut a pocket (like a mortise on a door to put a lockset on).  The bit travels inside the line and then cuts out all the matter inbetween the lines.  The polyline must be closed.

Drill Cut,  This makes the bit drill down, like a drill bit.  It is common to use this to make marks to place screws that will hold down the material.

Make sure you make a layer of ¼ inch diameter circles on the work piece that is in between the pieces to be cut out and has a good ½ inch of clearance from the cut line.  Save that layer SEPARATE from the rest of the work.

 Make sure you allow for the diameter of the bit in your design!  The bit is a ¼ inch not a tiny fraction of an inch like the laser.

Insert tab onto small pieces to keep the router from pushing it around after the piece is freed from the rest of the material.  The router is very strong and will push away untethered things in its path, beware that counts people to.

Use a closed polyline to make a pocket.  NOT a spline, the CNC software doesn't know what a spline is.  The polyline must be closed or the software ignores it as a mistake.

Josh Rucinski