ClayM

Thanks for the advice Warhog. I'm going to buy CamBam. I really like the fact you can draw parts directly in the program. Sounds great. First successful test cut. I initially made mistakes regarding pocketing or slotting but I am very happy with the outcome of the yaw trim! I know these chinese cnc's are pretty weak but if I can cut all the panels with similar quality to this I will be happy! Gotta go download CamBam Clay

Warhog NO not dowtown Vancouver, but in the surrounding suburbs. I did go through Synergy since they are 10 minute drive from me. Did not have stock but were still VERY happy to take my small order. Ordered 2 2'x4' sheets of 222-412V. $56 ea. One of my industrial plastics suppliers came up with some EnCore sheets. At the bottom of the sheet on a small tag was 402-222?? Strange. Anyway I now have test pieces I can cut. For the price I couldn't help but buy one of these cheap chinese CNC's. Taig was at least double and just not in the budget. Heres what I did to check calibration. Owner at work let me borrow a couple Mitutoyo dial indicators and mag bases. I clamped some steel flat bar to aluminum table first in X axis than Y. Using Mach3 checked indicated versus displayed. Over 2 inch stroke on both axis it was within half a thou after 10 or so manual jogs back and forth. I was surprised actually. I did not check backlash! I don't know why because I deal with it everyday on old machinery. It does have ballscrews that seem to move very nice. Z Zero i think i figured out. What i cant do is change x y. like rotating 90 degrees in the mill. Is this even possible? Setup is XP Pro - Inventor - HSM - Mach3 - Parallel Port - rest made in china - Nema 23 maybe?? 1.8 degree 2 amp. i think 36 volt. Sorry no idea on spindle motor rating but it has a decent ER11 collet chuck! Thanks Clay

The rowmark distributor for my area doesnt stock the rotary engraving line. so i have to wait for a stock order so its 2 weeks away. Ordered cutters from 2Linc on warhogs recommedation. Great service! About a week away. So while I'm waiting I am going to experiment with Mach3 some more.

Warhog Do you have a Canadian supplier for Rowmark or buy out of the US? Thanks Clay

metalnwood Some advice on software would be great! currently using inventor with integrated hsm(my son has student version as he is taking cad design at school so he does some drawings for me) and mach3 for the cnc. We use solidworks at work and I have some experience with that but I cant afford to pay the $5000 or so dollars for a license or whatever the yearly rates the high end guys want. Tried sketchup as an alternative but after using solidworks and inventor I just could not get used to it. On the cam side of things I have only used hsm. I am willing to try anything people suggest as an easier solution and welcome any thoughts on that. Obviously Warhog has excellent results with CamBam. I realize building panels is pretty straight forward. Not really any assemblies needed I guess. Can this be done with cheaper software with good results? How about Adobe Illustrator? Apparently ,my son claims, you can get it for $20 a month? Warhog Nice response to my question! I expected you to respond with a simple "yes, works well" or something like that. But no! You respond with every detail you possibly could. Thanks for that and thanks for taking the time once again. What is the material you are building the enclosures with? I agree with you on the results. Very consistent brightness. Looks Great! Thanks Clay

I now have the homing/limit switches working! Fairly easy to do and setup and already saved me a couple times. I have found the z-axis usually causes me problems. I installed a Z+ home/limit. When doing trial runs (spindle off. no cutter) im cautious about crashing into the table so I start a little high. but i always set the clearance height too high in the cam program (HSM). So when i start the cut with Z zero'ed at about an inch off the table I crash into Z+. Simply a matter of getting used to all the parameters that need to be setup. I should point out to everybody.. I have NO experience with CAD/CAM or G-code. Steep learning curve here! Warhog, If i want to do backlighting in the future will the rowmark work for this? Thanks Clay

Thanks LynxDK for the link! I think before i proceed with anymore cutting I will implement home switches! Glad to know hardware has the capabilities ready to go. I'm always amazed at the knowledge of all the hackers,makers,programmers or whatever we want to call ourselfs on this forum. Necessity is the mother of all inventions! ClayM

Opened it up and found this header Look correct? If so that will be my next project! I guess i can check in Mach3 if those pins give outputs. Thanks LynxDK for the tip! I thought i might have to get another parallel port card for more outputs. Any other magic you know about these contollers? ClayM

LynxDK Regarding limit switches. I think this is another priority. Are you saying I can wire in home switches to existing controller? or both home and limit? I have already used incorrect home positions and slammed into the end of axis travel:( Trying not to damage anything before I actually produce anything! I'll pull the cover off and take some pics. Thanks ClayM

LynxDK Regarding limit switches. I think this is another priority. Are you saying I can wire in home switches to existing controller? or both home and limit? I have already used incorrect home positions and slammed into the end of axis travel:( Trying not to damage anything before I actually produce anything! I'll pull the cover off and take some pics. Thanks ClayM

Yes! Great point metalnwood. In my case i have T-slots in various places. My thoughts were to make a sacrificial board and attach that to the bed. Then use management tape ( as we call it, same as two faced like the managers at work ) to secure rowmark to flat surface. Sounds like a pain and i would like more advice on this. Start with the basics! Work holding. Doesn't matter how good your tools are if you cant hold your work properly. Thanks ClayM

CDU keys look great! How do you get your switch extensions to fasten to the bat? epoxy or something similar? I assume you make the extensions small enough O.D. that you can still get the nut off if you need to replace the switch? Thanks ClayM

Having seen all the amazing results others have accomplished, most recently Deezle and Warhog, I purchased a cheap 3040 cnc. After having gone through the entire process as a beginner I now realize there are MANY details that need to be worked out. I used Lars' cad drawing to do a little test of hardware/software and came up with this. I was actually impressed with the results. Crisp straight lines even on MDF scrap piece. On Warhogs advice I have ordered some Rowmark and Cutters to experiment with. Results to come. Anybody that wants to share any tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated. Thanks ClayM

Thanks Guys Gives me something to start with. I'm going to order some of those cutters ASAP! Deezle Did you design your panels from scratch? Font size and everything else look very good(IMO)! Warhog Regarding your altimeter did you use the square endmill for the large numbers and graduations? And also where did you get/what kind of engraving plastic did you use for it? Amazing what the results are that everyone is coming up with. Thinking of starting a new CNC thread to discuss details. Any thoughts anybody? Thanks Clay

Nice work Deezle! Just bought cnc myself. mind telling me what you used for engraving cutter and depth of cut. Also how do you do the white fill? Looks great. Clay

Hi Lars Great work. My opinion on Environment Panel ( which means nothing really ) is one dzus too high. Bottom dzus hole move up one then compress your bottom row of switches so text is fairly close to next row above. Hopefully somebody else can provide better info for you! Keep up the good work. Looking forward to final results. Thanks! Clay

Great Job Warhog! Please tell me what kind of mill you are using. Thanks

Thanks Warhog! BTW took picture far away on purpose. At this point its a very functional pit. MFCDs work (that was easy) UFC work great. CMSP fully functional.AHCP ELEC Landing gear all working. UHF inputs working (now need 7 seg) missing seat arm and fuel gauge check for full start up sequence (oh and MIP knobs like HSI ADI ). So far all work is proof of concept only. Once everything actually works together will I then build proper panels. When I first starting building the pit it did not seem that there would be a suitable hardware software setup to get everything to work. But 2 years later it seems very possible for me to get it working!

Bluethornton Sorry I have no detailed schematic to share but here is what i did hope it helps. Uno R3 Proto shield on top of Uno with Max7219 (google arduino with max7219 all info is there for arduino to MAX7219 connections) I use DB9 connectors a lot so two of those between max7219 and CLP leds. Leds are wired up like in post #10 of this thread. Connection descriptions are pretty self explanatory. Get datasheet for Max7219 first! Come back if you need more help. Maybe I'll see if I can draw something up. Haven't used fritzing before. Clay

Here you go

Sorry felm My comment did make it sound like your using 595's for 7 segs but that's not what I had intended it to. I just noticed from your code examples you where using 595s for output but I thought I'd give them a try with 7 seg. Now I see why you used 7219. Warhog I'll post some pics soon but please don't expect the level of mine to come close to yours or others we have all seen here!

Warhog Hope your felling better and thanks for your reply. a few points id like to address here Did you get clp working? I hope Ians latest contribution helped you out! Once again very nice work. ILS looks great! Hope to reach that level someday. Thinking of investing in cnc router. Do you have one or laser? Sorry off topic again. I as well am having a hard time with resistor val for 7219. especially when i think i may go with 2 leds per indicator. I think yours looks great but i dont think i will have the build quality of yours and need a little extra help. Also i think I should start new thread for 7 seg. what does anybody think? Anyways, I purchased 74hc595's after seeing some of felm's work but after trying to build some circuits I think warhog is correct in using MAX7219. The only issue i had was that i purchase most components from digikey and a MAX7219 is $15.00 I think i paid under a dollar for 595's. But with adding all the resistors I may go nuts! Trying to get UHF radio working first. So MAX7219 would save about 42 resistors. Thanks for the input warhog i will do it your way. Clay

Did some more testing with the rest of the pit running. Absolutely no issues. I think I will change to two leds per indicator though. So I would call this a success! Thanks Ian! I now have all input types working. Finally have rotary encoders working. Time to figure out seven segments with 74hc595's. Already have CMSP display (I use a 20 x 2 VFD) working from a stand alone program. Searched cmsp files to find out who to give credit to. Looks like it was IAN! Ian do you recall that sketch? I think it was about 2 years ago. It has worked great for me and was the first display I built for my pit. The fact that I (or actually You) managed to get that to work was why I kept building. I thought OK if I cannot get this one thing to work then stop and go no farther! Thanks Clay

Updated to ver 0.3.0 of DCS-Bios. Sorry I guess i should have done that before. Once again everything seems to function great! Running at 250000 as per sketch. Changed nothing except pin numbers. Great job Ian! Very happy with how it functions. After testing I could not find any issues. Thanks Clay

Warhog Great how much info you can find and learn here. So can you tell me how your designs uses less current than mine. I ask because I am not 100 percent sure about my resistor value. Maybe I can learn something again! Thanks Clay