[Coco] [coco] Coco CNC

[George Ramsower]

I did my first fully automated CNC machining this morning. I finished 
cutting the groove for the X axis lead screw into the X axis table. It 
worked but with a problem with (I think) the Dremmel. Twice, the end mill 
began dropping down into the part..slowly. However, I don't think it is 
moving inside the chuck. I think perhaps the dremmel is moving in the clamps 
I made, since they are simply pressed onto the dremmel. It might be also the 
output shaft on the dremmel that is moving. I'll have to look into this. It 
didn't hurt anything as I'm only making room for the lead screw and nothing 
is supposed to come in contact with this groove. It only makes room for the 
screw.
 But this issue will need to be dealt with before actually trying to make 
parts.
 Next, the pocket for the lead nut. This will more critical, as the nut 
needs to be pretty darned close to the desired position to work correctly.

 Tomorrow, I'm going to work on a utility to make a file for the main CNC 
program to read, and from there, do the moves that need to me made. The one 
I'm using now has an area from line 20 up line 100 where I put in the data. 
This ain't cool as the program is growing.. as does all software. The file 
needs to be small. The program can be larger, but there needs to room on the 
disk to save the files, with only the necessary programs to process them.

 I wish I'd have thought this out first before I began this. It's really 
time consuming and burning fuses in my brain.

 So far, I've only crashed the mill twice. Not too bad really.

George