A little machining and other bits

[absolom7691]

It's been a while since I have posted any build projects. I thought I'd share some of the upgrade work that I have been doing in regards to my fogscreen. Of course, my fogscreen has been my most ambitious build and the one I'm the most proud of. Over the last few Halloweens, I have noticed how loud the damn thing is. The 120mm fans I used, though cheap when I bought them, were not the best choice. All fans have air noise, that's a given, but the motor noise from these Nidec VA450DC fans is very loud, even at low RPM. These fans are a no-nonsense beast, made for pounding away in a datacenter, keeping racks and devices cool. Quiet operation is not normally of huge concern. I decided to step up to some 140mm jobs that move roughly the same air at a similar static pressure. The fans much quieter, by almost 15 db, especially at a lower RPM, where I typically run them. They also draw 1/3 the current of the Nidec's. A win all around. Those are to be installed soon.

The other bit I'm working on is a dedicated controller. At this time, the fogscreen is set up with a few DMX boards, switches, and relays to make it all work. While it works okay for what I use it for, I want to take a bit more pride in what I have built and also see if there is a more professional way to potentially sell them in a few one-off situations. Arduino came to the rescue. I have always been a big fan of discreet circuitry but I can't deny that there are some projects that would just be too complicated without an MCU. After going through multiple iterations of coding, I finally have a finished controller that will handle everything. This will include the PWM signals to the laminar fans and to the fog fans, the energizing of the ultrasonic misters, to keeping the fog vessel at the correct water level, and filling the fog vessel when the water level gets low. I also incorporated a status screen with the current status as well as any alarms (Loss of DMX signal, Low water in the fill reservoir). The entire thing controlled via DMX for easy programming with BEYOND. The first step was getting the new control panel fabricated.

I have to say, when I bought this little Genmitsu 3020 Pro, I didn't think it was going to be up to the task of milling aluminum. Needless to say, I was quite surprised at how well it did. After milling out the panel, cutting the tabs, and cleaning the oil and chips off, I brought it over to the fiber laser to etch the button labels and my logo. Ready to be install into the fogscreen. Mor updates to come!

[mixedgas]

CNC, you lucky bastard. Manual mill here....

No ultra sharp corners on LCD cutouts for me...

NICE!!!!

Steve

[VDX]

... not sooo expensive, if you can wait for occasions

Here my actuall smallest CNC-mill (got it from a friend for 150€ + Touch-PC from another for "exchange")- 200x200x120mm moving space and sturdy enough for some centimeters in aluminium and brass ore some millimeters in steel:

[absolom7691]

CNC, you lucky bastard. Manual mill here....

No ultra sharp corners on LCD cutouts for me...

NICE!!!!

Steve

Thanks. The tightest corner I can get is probably about a 1mm radius. Even then, 2mm end mill bits need some careful feed and plunge rates which I haven't fully cracked yet. I can mill soft alloys without a breakage but if it's a good quality aluminum, changes are good that a bit will break!

... not sooo expensive, if you can wait for occasions

Here my actuall smallest CNC-mill (got it from a friend for 150€ + Touch-PC from another for "exchange")- 200x200x120mm moving space and sturdy enough for some centimeters in aluminium and brass ore some millimeters in steel:

Now that's a sexy mill!!!!

[VDX]

... have another, slightly bigger (275x210x210mm moving range) and with servos instead of steppers, which I was using for my laser-development.

Here (last image) both, side by side, for comparison ... and much more machines or components for different configurations

[mixedgas]

"Baby Got Back" to quote the song. This pic is the same model as mine, I just don't have the DRO and power feed. Do have the 8" vise and the 14" rotary table.

Manual Machining old style, "This is the way"

When I talk to professional machinists, I get credit for being able to do my own setups the old way, as they claim it produces greater awareness of the process.

But when you want to clone your design, it takes extra time and practice, and a lot of thinking. R8 tooling is not that expensive, but the cost of End Mills and Good Quality Drill bits has risen through the roof, about 2.5x in the past two years. Don't get me started on the price of 6061 Aluminum. I'll only use Polish, Slovak, German, or American End Mills. Chinese tooling is so highly variable in quality it is not funny.

Steve

[buffo]

Wow, I must have missed this thread when it was first posted. Great work on that panel, Brian! That would have cost a fortune from Front Panel Express. Not that the fiber laser, mill, and tooling are cheap, of course, but once you've got the gear you can make just about anything for no more than the cost of the material, which is awesome. (My envy is intensifying!)

Regarding the controller, are you sending and receiving DMX directly from the Arduino? I know there are libraries for this, but I seem to recall that there were bandwidth issues with a full universe unless you plugged in a dedicated DMX shield.

Adam

[VDX]

... especially for DIY-panels, beside a CNC-mill you should have a laser too (my youngest asked for someting more "vintage-style"))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF_AyG2h8-4

[absolom7691]

Wow, I must have missed this thread when it was first posted. Great work on that panel, Brian! That would have cost a fortune from Front Panel Express. Not that the fiber laser, mill, and tooling are cheap, of course, but once you've got the gear you can make just about anything for no more than the cost of the material, which is awesome. (My envy is intensifying!)

Regarding the controller, are you sending and receiving DMX directly from the Arduino? I know there are libraries for this, but I seem to recall that there were bandwidth issues with a full universe unless you plugged in a dedicated DMX shield.

Adam

Thanks, Adam! I agree. Fabrication has always been a pain point for me. I can do it, I just hate it. It's an amalgamation of working with dangerous tools, the fatigue, the mess, and the noise... all of it. Designing in the computer and sending it to <insert fabricator here> to create what you have designed is just priceless. The best part is being able to prototype. I milled three pieces for this, two were for prototyping the third was the finished piece. The first two were out of some really junky PCB that I didn't mind wasting. From there, I tested to make sure everything fit properly and to make sure that the layout would work for my application. Being able to do it all from home may be slow but you have no lead times or potential delivery issues. Also, there is no misunderstanding between designer and fabricator (I'm thinking of Stonehenge from "This is Spinal Tap" LMAO).

For the controller, I'm using an RS485 to TTL decoder and the Conceptinetics Arduino library. I guess it is a shield. It's worked flawlessly so far. I can't believe how cheap it has become to build highly custom controllers. The RS485 decoder was about $4, the Arduino Nano was about $12, and the coding was about two weeks worth of time, writing, testing, improving... If we can keep AI from killing us all, the future of home manufacturing is bright.

... especially for DIY-panels, beside a CNC-mill you should have a laser too

It's on my radar! Definitely would like to get a 700W~1KW cutter. The problem I'm facing is that most of them are HUGE with large work spaces. I'm starting to see some that are "home garage" sized. I was looking at getting a welder/cutter and using the Langmuir System. It's originally designed for plasma cutting but I've seen plenty of people convert them to use a fiber system.

[VDX]

... what are the materials, you want to laser-cut or otherwise -process?