[QUELAB CNC] Tighten CNC Coordination at Today's 6 Dec meeting?

Mon Dec 7 11:14:06 PST 2015

John, Hi –

Thanks for your planning offered below. Sorry that you were unable to attend.

Six of us did gather after the monthly meeting in the back to review next steps..

(Andres, Eric, Morgan, Troy, New Member (Name?), and Myself…Adric was engaged. We were joined by an interested future user also.)

We did not review your ideas listed below. So your follow on participation and advocacy is definitely needed.

Eric pointed out a new issue of “Maker” Magazine that he had picked up from Barns and Noble. It includes a review of several CNC Maker machines of a similar cost/performance/quality to the one we are planning to use.  Interestingly, all of the CNC machines either used the Bosche Palm Router or ones of another manufacturer that are similar.

Andres confirmed the information below and anticipated delivery of the new hardware. These additional parts will be a big facilitator to move forward.

For me the best conversations were the review by 3 of the participants of the various software design programs. Morgan, Troy and “New Guy” all sort of pooped on the choices advocated by the others.  This is very healthy  ;-))

I especially enjoyed the discussion about the poor performance/annoyance of under-filled data buffers that required lots of pauses in the operation of the machine.

This is exactly the kind of “Full Throated” discussion I was hoping for. And I expect that when a functional CNC platform is available, each person will then have the opportunity to try out their thinking in practice. We can then all be better informed on practical solutions to Maker CNC-based projects.

So, ideally, later in the year we will be much better informed to think about adding a CNC capability to one of the Quelab vertical milling machines. This is my actual goal so that the Quelab will have unlimited capability to include machined metal solutions.

Andre agreed to check in with you to review the “Group think” status  to move forward.

Best Regards,

John Anthes

Dr. Opto

From: John Benedetto [mailto:john.benedetto at gmail.com] 
Sent: Sunday, December 06, 2015 3:48 PM
To: John Anthes
Cc: cnc at quelab.net; Eric Lee; Walter Duran; Morgan Gangwere
Subject: Re: [QUELAB CNC] Tighten CNC Coordination at Today's 6 Dec meeting?

I'm not able to make tonight's meeting, John.

And, actually, this CNC mailing list was created so we could have discussion & coordination.

A plan of attack has already been formed - Andres purchased the X-Carve upgrade along with a Bosch Colt Router mount that fits the upgrade.  We can make do with a quick and dirty mount to put the colt on the current Z axis, or wait until the upgrade is here & not use the machine until then.

I want to be a part of the upgrade.  We had too many hands involved before, and the project languished because of it.  We need someone to take pictures (a time lapse would be good), and I will make a blog post about it.

We 'won' the Shapeoko2 from Inventables, and actually have an obligation to the original agreement, if there is any interest in fulfilling it.  Part is that we need to make the machine available to the public one day a week for a year (I think those were the terms)

I see three approaches - 
1 - make the machine run - upgrade it to an X-Carve, install the Colt router once the mount comes in

2 - utilize & document  Inventables' suggested CAM solution Easel
3 - investigate other methods of CAM, such as MakerCam or the Vectric software.  It sounds like some of the work people have asked about cannot be done in Easel

(2 & 3 can be simultaneous & pulled off by different people or groups - )

JT

On Sun, Dec 6, 2015 at 11:46 AM, John Anthes <jpanthes at comcast.net> wrote:

CNC Advocates, Hi -

Am planning to attend Quelab monthly meeting starting with the pot-luck about 4 PM.

I’ve been talking with Morgan and with Eric about one CNC project.

This included the purchase of a Bosch Palm Router that I’ve donated for Quelab projects.

Walter has identified JT, Troy, and Adric as members very interested in adding a CNC capability at the Quelab.

I expect that there are quite a few others. 

Can we have an informal discussion today and think about coordinated next steps?

Thank you,

John Anthes

Dr. Opto

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