CNC ECourse Day 6 CNC Machining

CNC ECourse Day 6 CNC Machining

Video Info:

On Day 6 we learn about CNC Machining. This is where the rubber hits the road. Before this, we did virtually everything on the computer. Now we move into the real world. Machining is about removing material from a piece of stock until we finalize our parts. One thing we learn is that manual machining and cnc machining have similar issues. There is coolant, chips dust and dirt no matter if you are operating the machine or the computer is operating the machine. CNC Machining safety is important during this step. We need to wear safety glasses, protective equipment and appropriate shoes. There are many different types of CNC Machines and types of machining. There are cnc routers, cnc lathes, cnc mills, cnc plasma cutters and on an on. Each of these types of machines operates in different ways and you must learn their differences to be effective. Tomorrow we go over various CNC Produced Parts and Projects. We look at the outcome of all out work and some of the possibilities.

Video Transcript:
Hello this is Ivan Irons and you've made it to Day six, CNC machining. This is really where the rubber meets the road in order to remove material to make parts so let's get to it.

We are on that fifth step and you'll see we are going to build parts to specifications and remove material. All of the different steps before this were really working inside of the computer and today we are going to work in the real world with machining. You’ll also see it is the last step in our flowcharts as well.

So what is CNC machining? It's the same as manual machining except for our computer is going to be controlling the movement. On a manual machine there's a number of different cranks and levers and switches that you use to control the machine's movements. All of that can be replaced by our computer sending out signals to the steppers are servomotors which will be moving the axis in various specific ways. There's a photograph of a tool removing material and that was from our simulation in the cam section.

We will have the same machining issues either way whether it's CNC machining or manual machining. Odds are we are probably going to be using some sort of coolant. If we are machining metal we will also have chips that really turn into the high-speed projectiles and plasma. The equivalent of that is plasma dust and dirt and smoke and in wood routing its wood dust and sometimes chips. That goes to the next point here, which is that we have to be very aware of our safety. Before this in the various steps to CNC there weren't things flying around or the chance of them hitting us. We will now we need to wear safety glasses when we are out in the shop. We also need to have some personal protective equipment such as heavier clothes and maybe a machinist’s apron with steel toed boots. Safety can even go just to the movement of the machine. These machines are very powerful and just their movements could knock people over or have them pinned up against the various items.

Take a look at chips on the left as those are leftover when I was machining some aluminum and the fly around. On the right you'll see that is what's left over from drilling. As you can see these are sharp and as you are handling of you don't just reach in and grab chips as there is a cutting factor.

In machining whether it's CNC or manual it requires tooling and some of the tools you are probably pretty familiar with and others have some odd eccentric names. Even the lowly drill bit is a type of tooling in machining. We also have end mills, plasma cutter could be considered a tool, dovetail cutter, fly cutter, and we have router bits if we get into wood router. There are also a number of people that out there they make small routers that use Dremels. On the right there is a toolbox I have in my shop and you will see a number of different bits and end mills and indicators and parallels.

Where do you get these tools? There's a number of good places out there and as you flip through you can look at the various names and types of tooling that are available. Any of these sources are pretty good to get acclimated too. These will all send you for free a giant, massive bible that has all of their tooling and equipment that they sell with pictures. You can get on their mailing list and in a month or so you should have a pretty good idea of the type of tooling that you will need.

In CNC machining there's a number of actual machines that are out there. I have a number of them listed you have your plasma cutter, lathe, wire cutter, tube bender and this list goes on and on and on. There are also people who make purpose built CNC machines. I can think of a guy I came across he makes large columns for plantation type of estates for those old columns out front holding up the various porches. He made a specialty wood router that's all he does is load on giant woodstock into it and he goes to town and comes back eight hours later and he has one of these giant columns built that is very ornate. I guess the point is there's been many many types of CNC machines made which equates to many many types of machining that you will come across.

On the left we have a full sized mill and if you look inside of it you'll see an engine block that is working on. Its a multi axes machine that can spin it around and get to every nook and cranny. On the right we have a home set up that I would consider a CNC mini mill. You will notice there is a computer setup there and he also has an enclosure to keep all those tips from flying around and on the screen you will see mock3. This next one on the left we have a turning center or a CNC lathe that is a production type set up. On the right just to give a look at CNC Wood router there's one. It has a project loaded in it and on the right-hand side of that photo is the milling head and the router and you'll see there's a flat sheet there looks at balsa wood and they have various cuts out if it's for a boat. You can see the model the boat in that photo.

That gives you a flavor for the different types of CNC machines out there both home and commercial and that's it for today. Tomorrow were to go through some CNC parts in completed projects. I want to show you some types of projects or parts that were completed so you can see the outcome of CNC if you get into it. I will show some of the things you can make or build and look at parts of creative projects. In the meantime, if you have any questions at all you can go to CNCinformation.com and get more information. Thanks!