2) Hello World! Mill a bowl with bCNC
Make sure you have configured bCNC with Cyclone's parameters first.
To mill the bowl you will need:
- Ball end-mill tool (D ≈ 3mm)
- Piece of wood/wax of at least 20x20x20mm
First step is to define a tool and material stock.
In this case, we use the ball-end tool shown in the picture (you can use any similar endmill).
Click "End Mill->Add" and set the desired name and parameters:
Now go to "Material->Add", set a name and define the settings. These values will be good enough for most soft materials (wax, wood):
Now click in "Stock" and select the material you have created. Define as well the travel Z height and material thickness.
Note: Be careful when using pre-defined materials as they often have velocities that are too high for a DIY CNC machine.
Connect the machine to any USB port, and start bCNC. Then click "Open" to set up the connection:
The machine should connect. Now change to 3D view and center the work area panning and zooming with the mouse:
- Loading the material stock and end-mill tool
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Then go to the "Control" tab. Make sure that the tool is raised before homing the machine. You can do this pressing "Z up" multiple times. Now click "Home", the machine will move X & Y towards the origin.
Note: the motions will be locked until a homing cycle is performed. If an "alarm" message appears, read the description. You can reset alarms by pressing "Unlock". Be careful not to move XY before having homed the machine.
Once the homing cycle is completed, load the material stock into the machine. In this case we have used a piece of wood, but you can use any other soft material (wax, carving foam...). We have cut the stock to size so it press-fits into the jaws, but you may need to use screws or glue.
Also change the end-mill tool to the ball-end tool.
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Generation of the gcode -- Let's now generate the bowl. Go to Tools->Bowl and define the parameters. Once ready, press Execute:
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Milling the bowl -- We have created the gcode for a bowl shape in XY=(0,0), now we need to place it in the desired position within the material stock. From the Control menu, move X & Y to the coordinates where the bowl will be milled.
Once positioned, move Z down slowly (using small increments with the buttons in the
"control" tab) until it barely touches the top surface of the material stock. Then press X=0, Y=0, Z=0, this will position the bowl 3D gcode right under the tool tip:
Once ready, lift the tool to a safe height using the "Z up" button and click scan:
This will move the tool around the "bounding box" of the bowl, this way we can be sure the machine will mill in the correct spot without crashing into the holding vise.
Now you can turn on the spindle at the high velocity setting, and click "Start" to begin the milling process:
Video of the milling process (loud)
If everything was correct, the result should be a bowl as in the picture:
- Refining the bowl
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You can refine the bowl by doing a "fine pass". First delete the gcode you have just milled, and then generate a new refined bowl with the following parameters:
The result will be a bowl of much better resolution:
Congratulations!!! :-)
You can now explore the rest of functionalities in bCNC:
- Generate gcodes. Tutorial: simple clamps
- edit gcode and DXF
- load existing gcodes
bCNC is developed and maintained by Vasilis Vlachoudis and other members of the community. Contributions are welcome: https://github.com/vlachoudis/bCNC
License: Attribution - Share Alike - Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) (list of contributors)
Disclaimer: This hardware/software is provided "as is", and you use the hardware/software at your own risk. Under no circumstances shall any author be liable for direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages resulting from the use, misuse, or inability to use this hardware/software, even if the authors have been advised of the possibility of such damages.