

Ask HN: Getting started with CNC machinery... - aarongough

Hello fellow HNers!
I just bought myself a CNC milling machine, something I have been wanting to own for many years, and I am looking forward to extending my programming directly into the physical world.<p>I have done my research over the last few years and regularly lurk over at CNCZone etc... But that being said I have still never actually <i>used</i> or <i>programmed</i> a CNC machine!<p>My question to everyone here that has (hopefully) messed about with CNC machinery is: how did you get started? Are there any online/ofline guides you would recommend?
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jacquesm
Hey There.

First of all, congratulations, now get yourself a pair of safety glasses and
wear them, all the time. I'm seriously not kidding about this, it is one of
the most important things that you could overlook and when you are just
starting out with this the chances of an 'incident' are very large, bordering
on certainty.

Then, to give you some pointers I need to know a bit more about your machine,
what size machine do you have, what is the working volume, stroke, power of
the spindle motor and the kind of drive you've got (servos ? steppers ?).

Is it a production machine or a rebuild ?

What kind of materials do you intend to work ?

What kind of workpieces do you intend to make ?

Are you going to program the machine directly or are you going to set up a
whole chain ? (cad package, translator, machine controller)

\-- do you know cnczone.com ? --

Strike that, missed you mentioning cnczone in your comment.

I think cnczone is _by far_ the better forum for these kinds of questions, the
people there have spent collectively multiple 100's of lifetimes programming,
building and debugging cnc gear, this is a very interesting field to play
around in.

\--

In the few leftover hours that I've got I'm converting this rig:

<http://pics.ww.com/d/93690-2/dscf1225.jpg>

To a modern simultaneous 4 axis controller. It's been lots of fun so far but
rather a whole lot more work than anticipated.

~~~
aarongough
That mill looks pretty damn serious Jacques! A four axis machine would be
awesome... I used to work for a company that had _2_ 6 axis machines that were
more than 20 feet long! They used them to machine parts for acoustic
guitars...

I sent you an email with the rest of the info you were after! -A

------
bootload
_"... My question to everyone here that has (hopefully) messed about with CNC
machinery is: how did you get started? Are there any online/ofline guides you
would recommend? ..."_

The best resource is probably to contact your local hackerspace ~
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace> Where do you find them ? ~
<http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces> Playing with CNC
machinery requires a bit of up-front knowledge and semi expensive kit so a
hackerspace good place to ask questions.

To give you an example of what you can do with CNC mills check out what vrogy
builds with his own CNC mill ~
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/vrogy/sets/72157602307522809/> You can get a
good idea of what he's using for looking through his flick set ~
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/vrogy/sets/>

~~~
aarongough
Good reply! I hadn't thought of visiting a hackerspace as a way of getting
info on this. There is a hackerspace relatively close to where I live so that
would definitely be worth a look!

Once I get the machine up and running I will be using it for small batch
manufacturing of custom knives as well as prototyping all of my crazy ideas
:-p

~~~
bootload
"... Once I get the machine up and running I will be using it for small batch
manufacturing of custom knives as well as prototyping all of my crazy ideas
:-p ..."

be sure to check out vrogy because thats similar to what he's doing

~~~
aarongough
Looks good! Some of the loast-foam casting stuff he's done looks very cool. At
some point I'll be looking to do the same...

------
frankus
I went back to school in a much more applied program (post-bacc at the Vehicle
Research Institute at Western Washington University) than my undergrad
(Engineering at Harvey Mudd). One of the classes we had to take was a basic
CNC programming class. We started with hand-writing a program to carve our
initials into a block of aluminum, all the way up to designing a much more
complex part in a CAM system.

Of course I haven't touched a CNC machine since. Depending on your project you
may or may not be hand-writing G&M codes, but my understanding is that most
professional work on anything but simple parts is done with a CAD/CAM package.

~~~
aarongough
Yeah, I think I'll likely stay away from hand-coding the GCode. The parts I am
making will generally have fairly complex curves and I can imagine would be a
total pain to program by hand...

