[sdiy] Talking of panels.... (was: Small drill pressrecommendations)

[Julian]

Hi Aaron,

A fairly quick reply, as im in the middle of somthing -

> Can your machine do slots for sliders?

Yep.  The head in the shots on the website is an engraving spindle, but a 
routing / milling head is interchangable with it.
Milling is slower, and more hassel than engraving, but its all quite 
possible.  Recently, i have been making x0xb0x panels, so that gives an idea 
of the capability.

Any machine of this type will create a radius on corners, as its using a 
circular cutter.  Smaller cutter, less radius, but increasingly slower 
milling.  Ive been doing the x0xb0x panels with a 1.96mm end mill, as they 
require tight corners, but, really, for any other job, id stick to at least 
a 3mm cutter.

> Could you do things like italic Helvetica, in blue, on brushed aluminum?

Yes, Yes (if helvitica is a single stroke font, maybee yes if it isnt), No.

Anodised is whats needed rather than brushed.  Bushed has too soft a 
surface, and the engraving isnt the best.  Yeah, its possible, but the cut 
isnt as clean.  Aditionaly i personally wouldnt use brushed for much at all, 
as the surface isnt durable enough (IMO) to give good cosmetics through 
extended use.


> What kind of file formats can you take?

The machine runs off g-code, but there are a myrid of ways to generate this 
from a lot of different file formats, including (not that ive yet been 
sucessfull at doing so) standard image files (think about how usefull itlld 
be to turn all those old pcb files, or even scans of old boards, into newly 
milled board)

> Can you do the actual cutting to size, i.e making the initial raw panel?

Yes, and no -

Things like Oakley panels i can do at a good price (roughly half of 
shaeffers cost), because i buy in cut-to-size panels in standard sizes.

Whilst i can cut and mill materials here, that all takes time, and then my 
price isnt so competative.

As you can imagine, when costing things up, machine hours are less valuable 
than man hours, so, yeah, sure, anything is possible, but the more time i am 
taken off other jobs, the higher the cost has to be as a result, and there 
will be a point where itlld be more cost effective to hire shaeffers much 
more automated machinery.

The machine build was motivated by its usefullness in my own work, rather 
than as an attempt to mimic shaeffers service.  Im primarily offering its 
use here as a way to fund its further developement, rather than as a full 
blown enterprise in its own right : )


> The examples on your website are really impressive, but there's not a  lot 
> of actual details...

Thats primarily because i only got the machine running a couple of weeks 
ago, and, whilst im happy to casually talk about it here, im reluctant to 
put up a "this, this and this" price list before im fully up to speed.  I 
think i have mentioned the service on the oakley list, and here.  I 
deliberatly havent, for example, mentioned it on electro-music, nor any of 
the other possible candidates, as id rather build up slowly, producing good 
output.

Currently -

Engraving ive got fully cracked, but cant yet do huge panels, due to 
clamping limitations, which is what im working on at the moment.

Milling is fine, with the same caveat as to large panels.  (the machine 
actually has a work area of 300mm x 700mm)

Isolation milling (pcb production) is still getting there.  At present the 
output is good, but the track width and isolation huge.  This is basically 
as im using completely the wrong tool for the job, as i havent had a chance 
to finish up the correct tools.


Im hoping that may make things clearer than the webpage?

Thanks, Julian