#linuxcnc Logs

Sep 12 2021

12:18 AM Deejay: moin
01:35 AM TurBoss: moening
01:36 AM XXCoder: moaning
01:36 AM TurBoss: :-)
01:45 AM roycroft: tuboss must be repairing his faucet
02:29 AM solarwind: After using the Metabo WEPBA angle grinders with the autobalancer bearing, I can never go back to anything else
02:29 AM solarwind: That autobalancer bearing eliminates vibration even on a severely unbalanced wheel
02:30 AM solarwind: Chicago Pneumatic also has a super expensive pneumatic angle grinder with an autobalancer bearing but no one else seems to be using them
02:30 AM solarwind: Also, I can't seem to find a similar standalone product that I can attach to the spindles of my other angle grinders
02:31 AM solarwind: The principle of operation is simple enough, it's just an enclosed bearing race with a few balls that automatically align themselves when spun up to counterbalance the vibration
02:32 AM solarwind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1QYF4fevV4
02:33 AM solarwind: I should be able to buy that as a standalone component, but it's permanently fixed to the spindle of my Metabo grinders. Maybe I can order it as a replacement part
02:34 AM solarwind: It would solve the problem on my bench grinders as well, without having to resort to static balancing which would become useless as you inevitably have to true the wheel afterwards
05:00 AM Tom_L: morning
05:01 AM XXCoder: yo
05:51 AM JT-Cave: morning
05:51 AM XXCoder: yo
05:56 AM Loetmichel: mornin'... maan odering that beef jerky in bulk was an error... just ate 300g of it...that was an expensive snack considering that i paid close to 80 eur for the kg... :)
05:56 AM XXCoder: ouch
05:57 AM XXCoder: unicorn jerky?
05:58 AM Loetmichel: nope, germany
05:58 AM Loetmichel: that stuff is expensive over here.
05:58 AM XXCoder: ah germany unicorn jerky
05:58 AM XXCoder: ;)
05:59 AM Loetmichel: its like potato chips. once you started the bag you cant stop until its empty
08:29 AM mrec_: did anyone here do some pcb milling? it seems like 0.3mm / 10mil is easy to approach; 0.2mm seems to be somewhat ok. 0.1mm doesn't seem to work for me.
08:29 AM mrec_: I'm using a 90° cutter
08:55 AM enleth: Loetmichel: if you're really into it, making beef jerky is not *that* difficult
08:56 AM enleth: Loetmichel: you need a proper food drying appliance, but it pays for itself pretty fast if your consumption is high
09:32 AM t4nk_freenode: and of course you need one or two pussycats you'rte not particularly fond of
10:05 AM JT-Shop: yippie my magjig 150's arrived
10:09 AM Tom_L: sounds like a woodshop toy
10:11 AM JT-Shop: aye, part of one
10:11 AM roycroft: magswitches can be used for many things
10:13 AM Eric_: I always wondered how those worked and then I found out from a tubelcain video even though he didn't actually know how they worked
10:15 AM norias: Eric_: what were you surprised by?
10:16 AM Eric_: I'm never surprised that tubelcain doesn't know what he's talking about
10:16 AM Eric_: it just had never occurred to me how those things work, but it is fairly obvious
10:25 AM Eric_ is now known as unterhausen
10:29 AM roycroft: yeah, it's a really simple mechanism
10:33 AM roycroft: i see that sawstop make a nice cast iron router table top for their saws, and the opening looks like it fits my incra router lift
10:34 AM roycroft: that would be nice to use in the over/under cnc router i'm thinking of building
10:34 AM roycroft: i think grizzly used to have one - i should check
10:35 AM roycroft: grizzly would cost about 1/2 of what the sawstop one costs
10:37 AM unterhausen: my tablesaw table would make a great place for a router, but I need to use it as a tablesaw table sometimes
10:37 AM unterhausen: maybe if all the rails but the cross rail were below table height
10:37 AM unterhausen: ^cnc router on tablesaw table
10:37 AM roycroft: the grizzly does not have an opening for a router lift - just a circular opening for the cutter, and one drills one's own mounting holes for the router
10:38 AM roycroft: the sawstop is $500, but it might be worth it
10:40 AM roycroft: having the top be cast iron has many advantages - it would be dead flat and stay that way, it has a built-in miter slot and t-track slot, and being made of iron, i could use magswitches for jig/featherboard hold-downs
10:41 AM roycroft: my current router table top is 2 layers of mdf with plastic laminate on top, but when i rebuild i am going to make the back section a torsion box with a single layer of mdf, so i can drill it out like a festool mft
10:41 AM roycroft: i've been planning on doing that for a long time - in fact, i bought an mft mounting adapter for my incra jig a few years ago
10:42 AM unterhausen: putting a gantry on top would have the advantage that you could use it to push all the detritus off of the tablesaw
10:42 AM roycroft: yes
10:42 AM roycroft: you could build a plow attachment for the gantry
10:43 AM unterhausen: "there goes my calipers"
10:43 AM roycroft: maybe two - a v-shaped plow for when the piles are really high, and a straight plow for normal messes
10:43 AM unterhausen: just build it into the dust boot
10:44 AM roycroft: or you could put your spindle on one side of the gantry, and mount a big laser on the other side
10:44 AM roycroft: and then you can just vaporise the detritus as needed
10:46 AM Tom_L: careful with a laser in a wood shop :)
10:46 AM unterhausen: I really like the idea, but I would want to have a waste board which brings back the storage problem
10:46 AM roycroft: i can store a 2'x4' spoil board
10:48 AM roycroft: if i don't have to store the incra jig while using the overhead spindle and the gantry while using the underside spindle that's a big win for me
10:48 AM roycroft: it's one of the biggest appeals of this design i'm thinking about, although automating the fence for the underside spindle would be really nice
10:49 AM roycroft: i'm assuming i can devise a really simple way to control that, as linuxcnc seems to make it easy to set up custom user interfaces
10:54 AM unterhausen: I have a 52" table, I can spare a foot down at the end I never use for sawing
10:55 AM unterhausen: I'm a little surprised it's impossible to find a design that used that space for a cnc router
11:09 AM roycroft: i wish there were a cast iron router table top that did not have any of the corners radiused
11:09 AM roycroft: i understand why they do, but i wish that there was one that did not
11:10 AM roycroft: it makes installation tricker for me
11:10 AM roycroft: trickier
02:05 PM CaptHindsight[m]: roycroft: make some corner pieces to square them off
02:15 PM CaptHindsight[m]: a radius remover
02:27 PM CaptHindsight[m]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAxgRaLfQjU&t
02:28 PM CaptHindsight[m]: seems to be a lack of understanding of bearings and loads
02:39 PM unterhausen: the chatter isn't good
02:40 PM unterhausen: with some effort, I could design a pretty good spindle, but I would rather buy one
05:44 PM JT-Shop: nice day for a ride in the Corvette went to the Crown Valley Winery and stopping at 12 West for some gourmet food
05:45 PM Tom_L: beginning of fall
05:45 PM Tom_L: was pretty nice here as well
05:46 PM JT-Shop: a tad warm to ride the BlueWing today
05:46 PM roycroft: it's not a fall day here, but it's 26 degrees, which is nice
05:46 PM roycroft: since we've been mostly in the 30s forever
05:46 PM Tom_L: says 93F here
05:47 PM roycroft: i got a lot of work done on my gazebo yesterday
05:47 PM roycroft: i'm about to head off to buy some more materials for it
05:47 PM roycroft: there's a chance i'll have it done in a week or so
05:47 PM JT-Shop: we didn't get as hot as they predicted only 82°F or 28°C for you metric fans
05:47 PM roycroft: which means i may be able to host a tiki party this year yet
05:48 PM roycroft: jt-shop: are you going to have some more 7i76e boards soon?
05:48 PM JT-Shop: aye in a week or two
05:48 PM roycroft: cool
05:49 PM JT-Shop: Peter is building them now
05:49 PM roycroft: i may not be ready by then, but i'm close to getting an rpi4 to test remote access to linuxcnc
05:49 PM roycroft: the design of my router is going to take a while, especially since i'm working on an over/under design now
05:50 PM roycroft: but i really want to know if it's realistic to use an rpi4 to run it
05:50 PM JT-Shop: I'm going to tear down the makeshift whatever it is over the raised beds this fall and build a pergola
05:51 PM roycroft: i just got back from a country fair elections meeting, but i've spent what little spare time i've had this weekend working on a bow saw
05:51 PM roycroft: i'm going to try to finish making it today
05:51 PM JT-Shop: a more solid control is a PC with any Mesa board
05:51 PM roycroft: i'm trying to conserve space
05:51 PM roycroft: which is why the rpi4 is interesting
05:51 PM roycroft: if i can make x11 over ssh work it would be great
05:52 PM roycroft: but i want to get that sorted while i'm still working on the design
05:52 PM roycroft: because if it's going to suck, i'll need to make more room inside the router table for a pc
05:52 PM JT-Shop: I've not tried that but a mini keyboard and rpi 7" touch screen are pretty small
05:52 PM roycroft: i have zero interest in that
05:53 PM roycroft: but if i can do x11 over ssh (which is easy to do - i just don't know how the rpi4 will perform doing that) i can run linuxcnc using a laptop as the display
05:53 PM roycroft: and that would be fine
05:53 PM roycroft: if it works reasonably
05:54 PM roycroft: the lowrider cnc router uses proprietary software and a tiny touch screen
05:54 PM roycroft: i rejected that rigth away
05:55 PM roycroft: i'll probably get anothe rpi4 very soon
05:55 PM roycroft: and do initial testing with that, but i'd like the mesa board before too long
05:55 PM roycroft: it will be at least a couple weeks before i'm ready for that, so no problem there
05:56 PM JT-Shop: a 7i96 is the most cost effective stepper solution
05:56 PM roycroft: i'm not familiar with that board
05:57 PM roycroft: but yeah, it's $80 cheaper than a 7i76e
05:57 PM JT-Shop: a smaller version of the 7i76e
05:57 PM roycroft: for a router it looks like it would be fine
05:57 PM JT-Shop: even if you need more I/O later on a smart serial card will take care of that
05:57 PM roycroft: i won't
05:58 PM Tom_L: io adds up pretty quick
05:58 PM roycroft: i need 3 axis + spindle control
05:58 PM JT-Shop: https://mesaus.com/product/7i96/
05:59 PM roycroft: yeah, i'm looking at the specs now
05:59 PM roycroft: thanks for saving me the money :)
05:59 PM JT-Shop: np
06:00 PM roycroft: i got this idea earlier today to get a cast iron router table top, and that's going to add $500 to the build cost
06:00 PM roycroft: but it will be such a huge improvement i can't not get it at this point
06:01 PM JT-Shop: time for me to wander in and switch on the relaxing mode
06:01 PM roycroft: sounds like a good mode to switch to
06:02 PM * roycroft needs to head to harbor freight and then to the lumber yard to get some more fence boards for the gazebo
07:11 PM skunkworks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW1GGI55Epc
07:12 PM XXCoder: some progress i see
07:20 PM XXCoder: testing torque?
08:08 PM Tom_L: looks like a keeper
08:29 PM roycroft: grr
08:29 PM roycroft: the brats were just here
08:29 PM roycroft: i was operating my table saw, and they kept yelling HEY! HEY!
08:30 PM roycroft: until i finally stopped and reminded them that 1. they are not to enter my property, and 2. if they distract me while i'm operating a piece of machinery it's dangerous for me and dangerous for them
08:30 PM roycroft: the response was a question: "why don't you have your flag out today?"
08:30 PM roycroft: and i said "i don't fly my flag every day"
08:31 PM roycroft: the kid said "you did the other day. my dad says that real americans fly the flag every day"
08:31 PM roycroft: this time i do think there's a good chance the father put them up to it
08:31 PM roycroft: that's way too nuanced for a <10 year old to come up with on his own
08:33 PM roycroft: maybe i should fly it upside down while i'm in the shop
08:42 PM roycroft: on a more topic note, if i build this router table with dual motors/ball screws or belts on the y axis, would i need two pairs of limit switches for that axis, or would one suffice?
08:42 PM roycroft: it seems to me that one pair should be fine
08:43 PM roycroft: if the two sides get out of sync, i should think i'd have bigger problems than hitting the limit on the side that does not have limit switches
08:47 PM Tom_L: likely want 2
08:47 PM Tom_L: for homing at least
08:49 PM roycroft: i'm counting pins on the mesa board
08:49 PM roycroft: but i can gang limit switche together
08:49 PM roycroft: run them in series, normally closed
08:51 PM Tom_L: how would you plan to home them?
08:51 PM roycroft: i would not run all three axes together
08:52 PM roycroft: but an axis with two motion controllers should stay in sync, no?
08:52 PM Tom_L: once you get them there initially
09:29 PM enleth: roycroft: if possible, go with separate home and limit switches
09:31 PM enleth: wire limits into e-stop circuit, use one home switch per motor/screw
09:31 PM Bleepshop: roycroft, XXCoder: Somehow despite my best efforts I ended up with a job as a production engineer and machine operator on a 60"x120"x21" CNC last week after a self-taught, 1/2 hour crash course on Vectric Aspire. LO
09:31 PM Bleepshop: LOL
09:34 PM Bleepshop: And the worst part is the Aspire crash course was with the trial version installed via wine on my Fedora 33 box the night before. xD
09:34 PM CloudEvil: :)
09:34 PM CloudEvil: Have you broken any tooling or machine elements with a minimum dimension of 2" yet?
09:35 PM Bleepshop: CloudEvil: Yeah, I'm still giggling nervously... "WTF have I gotten myself into ???"
09:38 PM CloudEvil: Good luck.
09:38 PM Bleepshop: No, but I made the owners son look like an ass after I wanted the tool out of the head in case the tool changer wanted to swap. Sure enough He slaps the tool in the chuck, tells it to init and I'll be go to hell if he didn't crash another tool in the holder into it because they'd manually swapped them around.
09:39 PM CloudEvil: I hope there is some time for a bit of training before you're expected to be at full productivty
09:40 PM Bleepshop: Oh yeah, I'm on generating canned cycles for the rest of the crew to use and prototypes only.
09:42 PM Bleepshop: It's a woodshop so they're using a lot of cycle/reload/repeat. Which means I get to do the part layout, a few test runs and then hand it off to the production operator.
09:46 PM Bleepshop: Plus whatever I want to build out of massive piles of pine, mesquite and vacuum dried oak scrap. I'm supposed to take a trailer over next week and bring it back full of sawmill scrap for firewood and barkside slabs for a fence.
09:52 PM CloudEvil: :)
09:52 PM CloudEvil: I guess wood is a little more forgiving
09:54 PM * Bleepshop is bored AF and waiting for an RPi4 to finish updating. This thing would mill V8 heads with no modification. It's a freakin beast.
09:56 PM Bleepshop: What's funny is they've got everything for producing whatever out of wood and I've been offered free run of another empty 10K sq/ft space for whatever.
09:58 PM Bleepshop: What's funnier is this company is the one that produced all the MDF that varies 1/2->1" in one sheet and makes up the floor in my shop so I got to jokingly lodge a quality control complaint. xD
10:15 PM CloudEvil: Is it meant to vary like that?
10:16 PM XXCoder: Bleepshop: congats liol
10:17 PM XXCoder: manually swap tool. dangerous
10:20 PM XXCoder: got some battle wounds now
10:20 PM * Bleepshop returns with food.
10:20 PM XXCoder: they stings
10:21 PM XXCoder: wb bleep
10:22 PM Bleepshop: I wanted it out of the head because I knew the machine state had changed while it was off due to them working on it.
10:22 PM Bleepshop: Going to make a request for some feedback from the turret for loaded/unloaded tools.
10:24 PM XXCoder: im still having no luck with jobs myself
10:24 PM XXCoder: anyway those "battle wounds" is from removing a lot of vines
10:24 PM XXCoder: we have 2 nasty areas of vines, im still working though those
10:25 PM norias: XXCoder: no luck with jobs?
10:25 PM Bleepshop: CloudEvil: No, It was in the first few weeks the MDF plant ran and they were tuning the pressure on the feed/thickness rollers.
10:25 PM XXCoder: norias: yeah
10:25 PM CloudEvil: ah
10:25 PM XXCoder: im very bad on finding and getti9ng jobs. been applying for many jobs for quite a while now
10:25 PM norias: XXCoder: jobs like job shop, or jobs like a thing you do for money? ( i guess these are kinda the same )
10:25 PM norias: oh, i see
10:25 PM XXCoder: cnc machinist job
10:26 PM norias: oh, that's surprising
10:26 PM norias: I'm told there are lots of machining jobs
10:26 PM XXCoder: though im trying to contact DVR for maybe office job, since im permently dizzy
10:26 PM Bleepshop: norias: Depends on the area.
10:26 PM norias: Bleepshop: fair.
10:26 PM XXCoder: it didnt go away when i finally solved very bad balance and other kind pf dizzyness
10:28 PM norias: XXCoder: what area are you in?
10:28 PM XXCoder: tacoma region in wa
10:28 PM Bleepshop: Damn that was good. Huge burger with a slab of cheddar. Which is atually good since I haven't eaten all day.
10:28 PM XXCoder: so, wheres my share bleep
10:29 PM norias: hmm, i guess the whole aerospace thing is screwing you up
10:29 PM XXCoder: unfortunately id be unable to eat it. must be on keto diet now
10:29 PM XXCoder: nor yep!
10:29 PM norias: i think it's silly there isn't a more robust market for remote CNC programming
10:29 PM Bleepshop: XXCoder: Running around a pasture? And you're a hell of a lot closer to the Tillamook factory than I am. LOL
10:29 PM norias: especially with more folks getting robotic attending
10:30 PM XXCoder: lol too far still
10:33 PM Bleepshop: I actually ended up getting this job after going the opposite way from Santa Fe over to Las Vegas NM. Everybody in Santa Fe has the head up their arts hole and wants to fund a multi-million $ studio with a Mickey D's paycheck.
10:33 PM XXCoder: fancy
10:33 PM XXCoder: me, i just want a job that I can do well
10:34 PM XXCoder: because ssa can go suck kernels
10:35 PM Bleepshop: XXCoder: Me too, but asking for money for that is called prostitution .LMAO
10:35 PM XXCoder: lol
10:36 PM Bleepshop: So I guess I'm gonna have to settle for running a PC and CNC. LOL
10:39 PM norias: this is the way
11:01 PM Bleepshop: Aha! This looks right. Found a picture of the same size/type. https://www.elephant-cnc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ELECNC-1530-CNC-Nesting-Machining-Centers-for-Wooden-Furniture-1-1.jpg
11:01 PM XXCoder: fun
11:01 PM XXCoder: i used to run huge cnc router
11:02 PM XXCoder: in old job (before last one)
11:10 PM norias: i'm most of the way to having access to the MasterCAM SDK
11:10 PM norias: which I think could be fun
11:10 PM norias: I wonder if there's a good linuxcnc post processor out there for mastercam?
11:11 PM XXCoder: dunno? though you can select one thats pretty compitab;e
11:11 PM XXCoder: think you can even use faunc mode which is very common
11:13 PM norias: hmmm.
11:13 PM norias: right on
11:14 PM XXCoder: note my memory of linuxcnc is very old, could be wrong
11:14 PM norias: fair.
11:14 PM norias: i have it running in simulator mode on a VM
11:14 PM norias: i think it would be handy to test stuff
11:14 PM XXCoder: https://forum.linuxcnc.org/20-g-code/3241-post-processor-for-mastercam
11:14 PM XXCoder: maybe
11:15 PM Bleepshop: The keyboard and interface are wierd. The UI is 40x80 text with no graphics, Keyboard has English and Kanji or Chinese charaters on it.
11:16 PM roycroft: such a post-processor just rewrites/adds/deletes some of the gcode to a form that linuxcnc prefers, no?
11:16 PM XXCoder: sounds like very cheap machine
11:18 PM Bleepshop: XXCoder: I dunno, It's this wierd mix of beautiful machine construction and "Oh here's a basic controller to run it."
11:18 PM XXCoder: programming is expensive
11:18 PM norias: roycroft: in this case, probably not
11:18 PM XXCoder: they probably ripped firmware off
11:18 PM norias: roycroft: i'm pretty sure mastercam output's APT CL, which the post processor converts to gcode
11:19 PM roycroft: oh
11:19 PM roycroft: i've never used mastercam, so i don't know
11:19 PM roycroft: i figured it generated gcode
11:19 PM Bleepshop: The whole thing is macroed off the F-keys. F2 Load Prog, F3 Menu, F( Run, F!) Pause, etc.
11:19 PM Bleepshop: F9/F10
11:19 PM XXCoder: do it have full keyboard?
11:20 PM norias: roycroft: eventually, but it uses an intermediate file format, i think.
11:20 PM XXCoder: banana
11:20 PM norias: roycroft: it's not an entirely unusual way to do it
11:20 PM roycroft: sure
11:22 PM roycroft: it's like ditroff - that took the original troff, but instead of outputting code that could be fed directly to the printer, it generated device-independent intermediate code, which in turn generated code for the specific pinter that was needed
11:22 PM Bleepshop: XXCoder: Full keyboard, 21" LCD. The control head is this lockable flip-top pedastal where you can load the program and then lock the machine into a run-only mode.
11:22 PM XXCoder: hmm not too bad then
11:23 PM XXCoder: i still remember one expensive machine that had that weird keypad with numbers and letters and "shift" for less commonly used letters
11:23 PM XXCoder: which is a HUGE annoyance when inputting filename for downloading gcode file from server
11:24 PM Bleepshop: Of course full KB means squat all to me since I've been using a VelocFire Bluetoooth KB/Numpad pair for mine. I can pick either one up and walk around the machine. LOL
11:24 PM XXCoder: true heh
11:24 PM XXCoder: do it have pendant?
11:25 PM Bleepshop: XXCoder: Probably a Siemens or Fanuc. LOL
11:26 PM Bleepshop: Yeah, there's an MPG, but they couldn't find the manual when I was there making chip on it Friday.
11:27 PM Bleepshop: I'm expecting it to be 1/2 Kanji/ 1/2 Big-5 Simplified and 100% machine translated. LOL
11:28 PM Bleepshop: I still can'r believe the owners kid did the dumb-ass with the tool changer.
11:28 PM XXCoder: fun
11:28 PM XXCoder: did crash damage bed?
11:29 PM XXCoder: hopefully spindle is still lined up
11:30 PM Bleepshop: Nope. Air cylinder to move the turret cusioned it, It was trying to unload tool 1 with tool 7 in the turret already
11:30 PM snakedLX is now known as snaked
11:30 PM XXCoder: thankfully not expensive repair
11:30 PM Bleepshop: Tool 1 was in the turret of course.
11:32 PM Bleepshop: So I slapped E-stop. Unloaded 7 from the head, slapped it in the holder, pulled 1 and put it inthe head and then reset/restarted. All in ~ 30 seconds. LOL
11:33 PM Bleepshop: At which point I annonced loudly and clearly "And that's why I wanted the damn spindle empty a minute ago."
11:34 PM Bleepshop: "NEVER load a tool in a machine in an unknown state around me again."
11:38 PM Bleepshop: Told the owner "Yeah, I know I'm acting paranoid AF, but this is a $40K+ machine, each one of those carbide mills is >$100 and I don't plan on having to buy any of them because I screwed up". Thankfully he laughed. LOL
11:43 PM XXCoder: :)
11:47 PM norias: heh. 40k
11:48 PM norias: what sort of machine?
11:48 PM norias: i think 40k is the cheapest Haas
11:50 PM XXCoder: very cheap chineseium machine
11:50 PM XXCoder: cnc router, last one i ran, was $100k, which is very cheap american machine
11:51 PM XXCoder: unknown options
11:59 PM norias: XXCoder: do you use CAM software?