Engraving an aluminum micrometer dial

Everything 4th Axis

Moderators: al wolford, sbk, Bob, Kayvon

Post Reply
JayMcClellan
Posts: 18
Joined: Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:53 pm

Engraving an aluminum micrometer dial

Post by JayMcClellan »

For the first real test of my new harmonic drive 4th axis (see http://www.cncsharktalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5372), I used it to engrave an aluminum micrometer dial on my Shark HD. I had a few difficulties along the way but I think it came out pretty good.
Image
More details and videos are at http://BrainRight.com/Projects/CNC/MicrometerDial. I published two videos of this project; the first video is a start-to-finish tutorial on using Fusion 360 to create a CAD model and generate the toolpaths. It could have been done just as easily, or maybe more easily, in VCarve or Aspire but I'm using Fusion 360 for everything now. The second video shows the machining using the 4th axis on the CNC Shark. I am using the CNC controller that I built (http://www.cncsharktalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5358) but it could have been done with the standard Shark controller. I drove my 4th axis from the X axis output so it only really needs 3 axes and 3-axis controller would work, if one mechanically locked the X axis to keep it from moving. In my case I had another stepper driver output so I just connected the X axis to that in order to hold it in place.

Rando
Posts: 757
Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:24 pm
Location: Boise, ID
Contact:

Re: Engraving an aluminum micrometer dial

Post by Rando »

A-Freaking-Mazing! Wonderful to see such a thing. Thanks for sharing; what a great inspiration as to what's possible!

Interesting how you can just make out what appear to be micro-deflections at the top of the half- and fifth-index marks....very nice work!
=====================================================
ThomR.com Creative tools and photographic art
A proud member of the Pacific Northwest CNC Club (now on Facebook)

Post Reply