I'm willing, but where is the fun in winning? Tell you what, when you think your ready down load the free trial and I'll work you through it So what would be your point of origin???
Deal! Good question. As a single piece model that gets sectioned and disassembled, probably some where along the centerline of the valley pan because of all the symmetry. As an assembly of 5 pieces not sure it matters as much but I only know what I know. Hard to imagine it being easier to model 4 & 5 as a single piece that gets section by spline defined parting plane rather than building as two separate pieces either side of that plane but probably software dependent question. I don't really know until I dabble in the modeling features of the respective packages. I expect more than a bit of a challenge to maintain the association between the features I mention. Like Ben said in his post, it's easy to imagine all kinds of things when you don't know what your doing! Best, Kelly
That is thinking in a single dimension, and something you will overcome in time. Oh the Joy's of cad modeling What's equal, what is not. What can be mirrored, and what's the offset. What's geometric and what's organic. Oh the Joy's of cad modeling...
Ya lost me after single dimension LOL! Ok I understand mirrored, offset, and geometric. What the hell's organic? Thought that was the foo-foo section of the grocery store. K
All things being equal, you only need to model one port if you understand how to mirror and off set things.... Overlapping features are just a solid. Hm . Should have grabbed yourself a 3d printer... lol....
The intake flanges can be mirrored, then off set when positioned by the connecting rod stagger. No mirror or offset possible on the runner pieces 4 & 5. Valley pan is simple. Those are dime a dozen. Wish all my problems could be solved and wishes granted for mere 100s of dollars. K
Think about it... point of origin... even if you have to model 2 runners.... Henry liked to centralize things......
It may not be as simple as you think. Henry was also fond of purposefully making certain things non-symmetric to confound the aftermarket-eers.....ask me how I know.....not my first rodeo buckaroo! K
I use Autodesk Inventor, have since 09. Been real lucky with student licenses because I was one. The last time I took a class I snagged a 3yr student license of Inventor 2020. When it comes time to upgrade I will shell out the thousands for it. That being said I use the CAD/CAM 4 days out of the week when at the shop. My friends have been able to pick up F360 pretty quickly to make small 3d prints if that helps for data points. Kelly the parametric part, if done correctly, is VERY powerful. Your ideas would be a good fit.
Was rereading through the CNC section here. Thought I would take a stab at Kelly's "Parametric Intake Challenge Bonanza." My dimensions are wayyy off and this is just crude proof of concept. More of an inline engine guy myself. However, the process should allow me to sharpen up my game. Nice little 3d spline-loft for the runners. Kelly, would you care to post some more dimensions or PM me them? All the dimensions you see can be linked parametrically to an excel spreadsheet if one cared to do so. My attempt would be to set the first 2 runners then just pattern the others down the valley. As far as breaking the parts out, one could make an assembly of the said 5 parts then just export out stl files. Can your CAM machine from an STL file?
For the next iteration, there are a few improvements I'd like to make over my current layout. I can provide dimensions and the parametric features I'd like to be able to alter for different versions. Yes to STL download. It's not a sophisticated CAM package but I'm impressed with it for the price (One time license fee $150) and what it can do, and good way (for me)to learn. The web forum may be the most helpful I've ever experienced with some very knowledgeable programmers and machine code engineers. You can have a look here and can also download and use for 40 free sessions. Gary Lucas, a member here, actually recommended it to me some time ago. http://cambam.info/ http://cambam.info/doc/1.0/ Best, Kelly
Cut my first patterns with the cnc router today. Intake manifold air filter base and lid. Pictures here: https://forums.thehomefoundry.org/i...302-independent-runner.1692/page-5#post-41168 Best, Kelly
That is all it needs to be! It is really nice that some companies have stepped up to fill the gap. .....idk this seems a little blasphamous here at THF! Hehehe
Some reflections so far. On CAM software, I originally thought I'd bite the bullet and learn and become proficient in solid modeling and related CAM packages but I was wrong on that (Gary Lucas, you were right)......I suspect 90%+ of my near term needs can probably be met with CamBam and it's much quicker and easier to learn and perform those tasks. For $150 one time purchase fee, it's great value and you can download and use it for 40 free sessions. I've never experienced a user forum as responsive and helpful as the CamBam. My post processor kept throwing errors related to arc interpretations. There was a moderator on the CamBam forum that modified my post processor and afterward, it just plain works. They also written 50+ very useful plugins, all available for free download. By comparison, the support from the machine manufacture and that forum was nil. In hindsight I'd probably have chosen something other than a grbl based controller.....but it'll do for now. I discovered many opportunities for improvement on my router hardware. I realize it's a hobby rig but I was actually very disappointed with a number of things on the hardware. I think the linear motion hardware itself is ok, but the ability to actually realize the potential positional accuracy is quite low. The plasma table under under the spoil board is so horribly out of square it's nearly impossible to mount the rail/gantry system squarely. Best I could get was .015" over 18". I'm not satisfied with that. The provisions for mounting the spoil board were poorly thought through. The z-axis and router mount unnecessarily conceded a lot of rigidity. Not a big deal for cutting foam, but will be for harder materials. The z-axis must be disassembled to remove the router mount. The stepper and homing switch cables are unshielded (and the related EMI issues took several days of my life from me) and will need to be replaced, and about a half a dozen other annoying things. I have a fairly generous available envelop for my typical projects and will set up a few work locations and vice at different table locations, but also need to test the accuracy and repeatability of the homing switches It's all correctable and I will do so in time. I've found the state of tune of one's equipment always says something about the owner. I guess it's like any other machine in regard to needing to be set up and dialed in properly but the provisions for doing so could be much better. Best, Kelly
Should have said product user forum, though I must say, even though it is dedicated to CamBam, there are other software discussions a plenty. Best, Kelly
Ever have one of those days? It can be surprising how much effort it takes to debug and get machines working well. A few weeks ago I was belting out a bunch of lost foam patterns and my cnc router was working reasonably well but there were some nagging issues so I decided to make what I thought would be some improvements to address them. I have been in a constant battle with what I believe are EMI related issues. Maybe radiated, maybe conducted, maybe both. I thought I had it sorted with replacing my stepper and limit sensing cables with good shielded cable. When I’d connect my laptop to the machine controller, I was losing the ability to use the touch pad. Having no mouse function was a total PITA, but oddly, if I picked up the lap top and cradled it in my arm, it worked? I tried a wireless mouse and same thing. I made this rolling pedestal stand to make life easier working with the router. I bought the arm and computer tray and made a shelf to hold the machine controller. Given my ongoing issues, I had second thoughts about positioning the machine controller near the lap top so I moved it to the machine frame. After moving the machine controller, the touch pad issue persisted. Turns out, the articulating arm had plastic bushings that insulated the computer tray from the pedestal and the tray itself must have been a pretty good antenna. Though there is still an occasional hesitation, grounding the tray has restored the mouse function. So then I started merrily cutting more patterns. I run a few machine ops (MOPs), queue up the next, checking the machine origin, cutter, program, and as on previous attempts, launch the program, and it promptly heads the opposite direction right at me at full rapids and crashes into the waste board as my hand smacks the eStop. At least no broken bit but what the heck? So I re-home, do an air cut, and all is fine. Try again. This time it launches fine but stops part way into the program reporting it completed the MOP with no error report???? This happens several times, getting a little farther into but never completing the MOP. Thankfully, I was just surface planing the stock to thickness so I wasn’t losing much. When foam is cut at high speed, it develops a strong static charge and the chips want to cling to everything. My dust collection hose is supposed to be static dissipative but I noticed it had foam clinging to its external surfaces near the gantry. So I was left wondering if static discharge was scrambling the signal to my controller? So I skinned the spiral support wiring in the vacuum hose and grounded the piss out of every segment in the dust collection loop hoping it would bleed off any static charge. It seemed like it worked or at least helped because then I was back to running complete programs. So then I start to cut a pair of nested patterns. I get ¾ of the way through the first roughing MOP and it skips/loses steps. So I check the rack/pinion drive and motion hardware on my rig, no binding found, do a couple air cuts, and try again on a new piece of stock and same thing in the same location. Turns out, the foam was clinging and accumulating on the underside of the v-groove on the gantry x-axis. After the wheels run over it a number of times it builds up a clump the wheel can’t roll over without high force, causing skipped steps. Being on the underside, I didn’t see it. So I scraped it off with my finger nail and wiped the rest of the way clean with my finger where the skips occurred, and then I got good patterns. So another static electricity related problem, this time with foam clinging to the vee-ways. Good grief!…..that was easy to figure out….LoL……NOT!! All of the above represents the better part of a day of my life I’ll never get back. So, what to do? Well, by now I’m highly suspect of static discharge being a big contributor to my gremlins and sporadic problems so I decided to revamp my dust collection system. I eliminated as much of the flex hose as possible replacing it with metallic tube. In the remaining flexible vacuum duct, I skinned and grounded the metallic support wire at each end of every flex hose segment and grounded them to the metallic tube, and grounded the entire frame and everything to earth ground. I may even spray the inside of the dust shoe with conductive spray paint. To eliminate dust collecting in the v-ways, I thought about trying to fashion a foam or bristle wiper brush that wipes the ways and wheels, at least in the vicinity where the cutting is done on the gantry and maybe everywhere. I’d need 12 wipers to do all, 4 for the vicinity of the gantry. However, if they ever came loose and caught under a wheel, it would be a certain to skip steps and/or crash. Instead, I sort of like the idea of using small compressed air jets instead point at the ways and wheels. A small 1/8” line of PVC in the cable carrier would deliver the compressed air to location. I’m going to sleep on that one and in the meantime just use my finger to wipe the ways between MOPs. Eventually I’d like to get to the point where I’m comfortable with long, unattended run times……..I’m not there yet I made a bunch of tweaks to the dust collection system that collectively made a huge difference in performance. That’s worthy of a separate post. Best, Kelly
