I got some time in the shop today and decided to test out the axis accuracy of the new CNC.
I still have tuning to do; you definitely can’t run the router through wood at the same speed as you can through air. Not ever having had a machine with a difference between “rapid” and “work” speeds, this was a revelation, even as the machine whined and complained about me trying to push it too fast.
After toning down the speed a bit, I was able to cut some nice squares. They came out the size I was expecting, and it was still cutting about 3x as fast as the Book Machine ever did.
Then I moved on to making a housing for the Super-PID. Because prt of the circuit runs at 110VAC, it’s important that nobody touch that part, even accidentally. After much hemming and hawing, I decided to just get something built, so it came out a little slapdash. But, by the end of the session, I had a working enclosure, and I was able to control the router’s speed using the potentiometer. W00t!
I will need to figure out what speeds the bit needs to be going for various materials. For wood, it seemed like anything below about 15k was pretty useless.
But, now that I can run down to 5k rpm or so, I have a good shot at being able to do plastic, and that means that I can work on cutting down old cutting boards into (for instance) housings for the home switches that I want to install.
With the initial sawdust made, there are a few things on the machine that need tweaking and tightening. The vacuum shoe is going to be worthless with the laminate router I have. We shall see whether that router lasts as the cutting tool, or whether I end up going with a bigger cutter.
A good day in the shop. Nice to have heat out there. Looking forward to the stovepipe being finished so that the starlings are gone for good.