Skeinforge Milling

Once I finish getting the bugs out of my McWire (fingers crossed...nearly there)I'm considering strapping my trusty Dremel to the Z Axis and milling the fabricated Extruder parts.

Has anyone tried this, how successful was it and do you have any tips on proceeding setup-wise (trying to avoid reinventing the wheel)? Thanks in advance.

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- Rick

A chicken has a head the size of a walnut. Yet, even it has the sense to come in out of the rain.

Rick Wrote:
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>
> Has anyone tried this,
>
Yeah.
>
> how successful was it
>
I milled enough things, including a 10 mm six-toothed involute profile gear in HDPE, to convince myself that it was a workable situation and then went on to other tasks.
>
> do you have any tips on proceeding setup-wise
> (trying to avoid reinventing the wheel)?
>
I didn't use Skeinforge because I didn't want to get involved with yet another language (Python). Modified my own software written in Visual Basic to do the job.

That's not to say that Skeinforge couldn't be made to do that task. I don't know of anyone who has tried yet, though.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2008 12:24PM by Forrest Higgs.

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Forrest, do not forget to tell, that your tommelise is certainly not a mcwire setup

But since McWire intentionally WAS a milling machine, I guess that doesn't matter much

'sid

Looks like it would be relatively simple...Reversing the GCode so the commands would build (or rather subtract) from top to bottom...the real trick is the offset for the subtractive bit (oversized for the outer lines, undersized for interior holes, etc). Haven't dug too deeply into Skeinforge yet to see if it was possible...and Skeinforge may not be the best tool for this, just curious if anyone else had tried it yet and what would be the best way to proceed. Wade looks to be up to his elbows with requests for Darwin parts and I was hoping to not have to whittle the extruder by hand...

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- Rick

A chicken has a head the size of a walnut. Yet, even it has the sense to come in out of the rain.

sid Wrote:
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> Forrest, do not forget to tell, that your
> tommelise is certainly not a mcwire setup
>
LOL! It's a lot closer to a McWire setup than Darwin is.

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Forrest, I wasn't talking about type of z-axis, but of rigidity

'sid

sid Wrote:
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> Forrest, I wasn't talking about type of z-axis,
> but of rigidity
>
Whatever...

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Rick Wrote:
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> Once I finish getting the bugs out of my McWire
> (fingers crossed...nearly there)I'm considering
> strapping my trusty Dremel to the Z Axis and
> milling the fabricated Extruder parts.
>
> Has anyone tried this, how successful was it and
> do you have any tips on proceeding setup-wise
> (trying to avoid reinventing the wheel)? Thanks in
> advance.

I will be in the same boat shortly, so I would love to know how you do it.

Skeinforge only handles additive fabrication. It won't handle milling for many moons because the todo list seems to grow as fast as I develop Indeed it should be possible to subtract the shape from a box, reverse the z slices and play with offsets, but skeinforge doesn't do this now and probably won't be the best tool for a milling job for a long time if ever.

I haven't tried it, but Ralith mentioned the GNU Computer Aided Manufacturing (GCAM) package, whose home page is at:
[gcam.js.cx]

Some posts from Forrest's site about adapting additive software for milling are at:
[3dreplicators.com]
[www.3dreplicators.com]

September was mostly about milling:
[www.3dreplicators.com]

and there was a milling post in October:
[www.3dreplicators.com]

Enrique

Enrique Wrote:
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>
> I haven't tried it, but Ralith mentioned the GNU
> Computer Aided Manufacturing (GCAM) package, whose
> home page is at:
> [gcam.js.cx]
>
You need to check that link.

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison

Hi Forrest,

The GNU Computer Aided Manufacturing link:
[gcam.js.cx]

works for me. If it doesn't work for anyone else, try googling:
GNU Computer Aided Manufacturing open source package

or try the cached link at:
[209.85.173.132]

[www.3dreplicators.com]

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Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas A. Edison