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Sherline C-Beam with Offline Controller and MPG

Discussion in 'CNC Mills/Routers' started by James Evanko, Nov 22, 2018.

  1. James Evanko

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    James Evanko published a new build:

    Read more about this build...
     
  2. Mark Carew

    Mark Carew OpenBuilds Team
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    Great job on this one @James Evanko It looks really stout, I am sure you will have no problem working projects with it. Thank you for taking the time to share this Build and all the best on your first cut! :thumbsup:
     
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  3. Michael.M

    Michael.M Veteran
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    Looking good! I would recommend using a spoilboard intead of suspending your stock like that. I would just buy an HDPE cutting board ,or something similar, and surfacing it. This would allow you to really take advantage of that beefy spindle. Your first part looks good though.
     
  4. James Evanko

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    Hi! Thanks for your comment! I'm a bit confused. I see a lot of videos and articles on VMC's using a vice with parallels to suspend the stock in mid-air which seems similar to what I am doing here. Taking that a step further, I just bought a vice and parallels and am now doing almost the exact same thing with my machine. VMCs obviously have very beefy spindles. What makes using a spoiler board the better way to go, and how do you secure the stock to the spoilboard? Thanks in advance!
     
  5. Michael.M

    Michael.M Veteran
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    A vise with parallels would definitely work for smaller stock. As long as your workpiece is fully supported you should be good. The spoilboard is a sacrificial layer of material that essentially works as one big parallel. People use various materials depending on what material you're milling. You design / mill out your spoilboard so it can bolt to your tslot table. You then mount your stock to the spoilboard. Unless things get really crazy, this spoilboard will protect your table. When it finally gets chewed up, you face mill the top for a fresh surface.
     
  6. James Evanko

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    Thanks for your response! For the most part, I mill out smaller pieces of aluminum, but obviously built the machine with a larger bed so I could mill larger pieces if/when needed. When I have tried to investigate how the stock is held down against the spoilboard, I've only ever seen double-sided tape used. That sounds messy and prone to moving around to me. Is there another method? Do people screw the stock down into the spoilboard? I suppose I would be willing to do the same kind of thing as my first part where I drill holes in the corners, but then lay down some slightly smaller MDF in between and use longer screws in the corners to reach down to the table. I don't know. I have some large pieces of acrylic that I want to use to help keep the chips from going everywhere. That might be the first large stock I experiment with and it will overhang the bed. I was thinking I might be able to cut it in two or more passes. Might use V-rail as a type of fence on one side and then still need to figure out how to hold it in place, otherwise...
     
  7. Michael.M

    Michael.M Veteran
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    Yeah it can get tricky to design a spoilboard correctly. I would figure out the biggest piece of stock you can mill on your machine and design the spoilboard around that so you can face mill the whole thing in the future. Double sided tape works but ideally, you would use threaded inserts or something. You can also mill tslots in to the spoilboard. It sounds like a vise would work just fine in your case. My new machine uses tslots for the table so I am trying to design some sort of low profile fixture. Another idea is to use a smaller spoilboard bolted to your table so you can access the exposed tslots around the edges. This way you could still use clamps.
     
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  8. Rob Taylor

    Rob Taylor Master
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    I hope you're planning on replacing the Jacobs chuck if you're planning on doing any milling with this machine! :eek:
     
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  9. Giarc

    Giarc OpenBuilds Team
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    Here is a method I started using a while back and it works well . I see now NYCNC is doing it so it must be ok.:)If I want additional security, I do the hole drilling operations first, screw the part downd then finish. I usually only do that with aluminium.
     
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  10. Michael.M

    Michael.M Veteran
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    Yeah as long as your spolboard is flat, this method works very well. I have actually used painters tape and super glue on some large pieces.
     
  11. James Evanko

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    Are you talking about precision, destroying the bit or something else? I'm mostly using it like a glorified drill press. I need various sized holes in various different places. Most of them do not have to be tight fitting. It's actually better if they have some wiggle room so I can align the pieces to where they need to be as opposed to exactly where I drilled the holes, which isn't known in advance and can change with each use.
     
  12. James Evanko

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    Thanks for sharing that video! I've gotta admit, I wouldn't have believed it without seeing it. I can see some advantages of using that for arbitrary outer contours. If you are worried about surface finish, that's probably the way to go. Honestly, though, I really didn't mind using the tabs, clipping them off with diagonal cutters and deburring them. Not much hassle as far as setup and not much effort to clean it up, especially if you don't need it to be flat or pretty. I guess my UV resin printer, isopropyl alcohol and delimonine disolving days have made me dread the thought of going back to "chemical" approaches. I still need more time to recover. :)
     
  13. Michael.M

    Michael.M Veteran
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    A drill chuck is not designed to take loads from the side. Also, carbide can easily slip out of the chuck jaws when milling which could be very dangerous. Just use the sherline collets / chuck or whatever they recommend. Drilling only operations woild be fine.
     
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  14. James Evanko

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    Oh, good to know! Fortunately, I do have the Sherline collets for it.
     
  15. James Evanko

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    Wait, is there a difference between a drill chuck and the chuck used on a Sherline mill? I am using the Sherline chuck here.
     
  16. James Evanko

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    Okay, looked it up on the Sherline website: "The chucks are also available with a #1 Morse arbor and drawbolt for use in the headstock for drilling on the lathe or mill. They are available in 5/32″, 1/4″ and 3/8″ sizes. Runout is .004″ or less. If runout of less than this amount is required, collets should be used to hold the drill rather than a chuck."

    So yes, I thought they were using them for milling but this only says drilling.
     
  17. James Evanko

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