CNC

…a new CO2 Laser cutter / engraver.

November 26, 2012

Wow, been a long time since I posted about anything. I thought it was about time I wrote about something new. I recently acquired all the parts for a laser cutter – although I was running an 80W tube from the BlackToe gantry I found that the two machining techniques were at odds with each [...]

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…Fritz Lang’s Theremin Stand

November 6, 2011

(Sounds like something you’d find in Warehouse 13) For many weeks I’ve been trying to come up with a cabinet design for the vacuüm tube Theremin I built a while ago. I decided that the electronics were far too marvelous to hide away in the classic RCA “drinks cabinet” – and that something more radical [...]

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…making some initial cuts with the CO2 Laser

October 4, 2011

Yes! Finally, after several iterations we have the installed, aligned and focused CO2 laser wreaking some serious havoc on a piece of MDO. There are still many tests to run and various safety mechanisms to install, but the system works, and is aligned over a 24″ x 24″ area (at least). I can think of [...]

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…installing the laser tube

September 28, 2011

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth I finally got the tube installed in its new home. However I’ve now realized that it’s 4″ too short and I need to build a new base and position it correctly . Still, I hooked up the cooling system, and thankfully there are no leaks – I gave [...]

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…building my Destructor(tm) beam

September 25, 2011

More progress in the laser/CNC saga. I built a cage from steel and MDO for the laser tube – fits really nicely. Next step is to add the first bounce mirror which will turn the beam straight up – into a PVC tube attached with plumbing flanges (The sales assistant at Menard’s asked me what [...]

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…an update to the laser cutter / mill saga

August 30, 2011

It turns out that the laser tube I have will not work with the generic PSU units on E-bay. Not entirely sure why this is, but I did notice that the insulation on the tube is starting to *melt* so maybe it’s time to move on. So… it looks like my only option right now [...]

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Adding a laser cutter to the BlackToe CNC Mill

August 6, 2011

It’s time I took the CO2 laser from the Chinese cutter and attached it to the gantry of my BlackToe CNC mill. Effectively increasing the size of the cutting bay from the tiny 5×8″ to a whopping 2′x 4′ – the small size of the cutting area was starting to become annoying – and it seemed ridiculous [...]

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The Clock Of The Long Weekend…

July 25, 2011

I’ve spent a lot of time on the “The Long Now” website lately – I would urge you to check it out if you’ve not seen it – one of the things that caught my attention was the 10,000 year clock they are trying to build in Texas. Inspired by the design, I thought I [...]

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…etching a Lament Configuration

July 6, 2011

The “Lament Configuration” is the name given to the wooden puzzle box that features in the movie Hellraiser. In the original book (The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker) the box is black lacquer and needs to be completely disassembled for the gateway to Hell to open. For the movie a more intricate looking box was [...]

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DIY CNC: Carving a clock face

June 20, 2011

I’d been putting it off for ages, but I thought it was about time I upgraded my CNC skills to use multiple tool changes. Since I added a home sensor to my DIY “BlackToe” gantry there was no excuse not to figure it out. This relief cut uses 1/4″, 1/8″ and 1/16″ bits to perform [...]

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