Beginners Guide to Manual & CNC Machining!

hi folks welcome to another episode of NYC CNC this video is for the Concord kids they're a group of students that are focused on the stem curriculum and their advisor shot me an email and said some of the stuff that they're working on it would be really helpful and they had a video that would show them some of the basics of what a milling machine does and this really struck a nerve with me because coincidentally I was just talking to a local Ohio area overview and he's a he's responsible for all of the trades curriculums and they have a huge interest in the welding program it can't get kids interested in machining which baffles me and I think part of it is because welding is big in Central Ohio with a lot of the oil and gas and people think if there are welders they get to drive big trucks and get muddy and go to job sites and hey that's that's cool to people I totally get it but but to think that they're choosing that because they don't even know what machining is like they have no idea and hey I was there once too I didn't grow up my grandfather was a steel fabricator I didn't grow up with Bridgeport's and milling machines and so forth so I get it so I would love to make this little video and show people what metal cutting and machining is what I want to do today two really basic things we're going to show some test cuts on a piece of aluminum with a Bridgeport milling machine this mill is probably 50 years old but it runs great and then what we'll do is we'll move over and we'll take similar type of cuts on the tormach CNC machine which is a computerized version of basically the same thing this is our Bridgeport milling machine it's kind of like a drill press but a lot more it's similar to a drill press and that we've got a handle that raises and lowers a tool in the quilt but if you'll notice this quill is really fat and it's actually really strong compared to a bench top drill press but what makes the machine really different from say just a drill press is we've got these handles I can rotate these handles and move the table left to right or the x-axis and then I can use this handle in the front here and move the table back and forth or front to back in the y-axis so not only can we cut down like you do with a drill bit but we can use an end mill just like that's in here right now and cut on the side of a piece of solid metal just like that there's a ton more this machine you can actually do but that's really the essence of what we need it to do and that's what we're going to take a look at today so not only does the machine have to be really strong and really rigid but to be useful it's got to be accurate accuracy is just key and metalworking and machining and for this machine which remember it's like fifty years old we can still do that the key are the graduated dials on the handles we can use these dials to accurately machine and measure distances in 1000 of an Inc increment measurement and if that doesn't sound precise to you a thousandth of an inch that's crazy a sheet of printer paper is four thousandths of an inch let's take a look at that accuracy our dial here is on zero we'll go ahead and rotate it I'll do it slowly for the camera to twenty thousands so that's about five sheets of paper that we should be moving the machine in enough talking let's see this thing in action safety glasses on folks what we'll do it we'll slide the workpiece under our end mill we're going to use a two flute pretty large diameter end mill and we'll just go ahead and move the quill down still right on top of the workpiece that locks the quill in place I'll come off the workpiece and I can actually lift the table up just a hair we'll turn her on and let's see if we can face off the top of this part so nice and easy we'll come over and you should see we're making a nice chip machine doesn't sound too loud and because this workpiece is out a little bit of an angle we'll probably run out as you see right there so okay we'll come back and we'll just keep cleaning it up you go a little faster if you want again folks we're cutting through metal right now I think it's pretty cool you want to try to be smooth with your motion that will make for a better cut back right over here looks like that's all we'll get removed at this height if you will we'll stop the machine and if you feel that it is silky smooth and that's what's really cool it's a really nice quality cut so that was cool we sort of cut the top of it let's see if we can do a little bit of a heavier cut and let's actually see if we can measure the accuracy so we're going to unlock the quill lower the tool down and now what we're going to do is we're going to take a little bit of a cut off this one side then we'll use our dials and our digital readout to measure how far over we cut and let's see we measure the part that we end up with and see if we were accurate so here we go fire up pretty cool you can see the chips flying off that machine should be a nice surface finish it sounds good you don't hear chatter real nice cut nice and steady let's take a look at that beautiful I like that let's take a side cut now and see if we can clean up the side of this part and then move over we'll measure how far we move and we'll see if that distance makes sense and is accurate this is a two flute quarter inch end mill let's fire up nice and smooth look at that great surface finish very happy with that now we'll come back and we cut that at zero on our dial so let's move all the way over and if we cut it at 2:00 we'll see if that makes sense now that's a little bit too much for me to take in one pass so well lift up the quill and we'll take a little bit of a shallower pass it first and we'll do a few more deeper nice and easy come down a little more you could also come up with the knee either way works so let's use our digital calipers sort of like a tape measure but pretty accurate let's see what we got going to fit them in here where it we're at 1.75 inches so let's think here does that make sense well at first you would think no I thought we went from 0 to 2 inches but if you think about it when we were cutting on the left side we were at 0 but remember we're using a quarter-inch n-ville so how is ear o is the center line in the middle of the tool so it was cutting 1/8 of an inch or 0.125 off on the left then we moved over to the right we cut another 1/4 1/8 of an inch or 0.125 so in the end we've removed point two five so we went from zero to two but we back out that tool diameter 1.75 Fulks pretty cool huh here is a CNC milling machine believe it or not it's actually incredibly similar to the Bridgeport we just use the difference is that instead of using a hand and cranking those knobs we've got motors and they're driven by computers which take G code that we sort of program in and it's those computer computerised motors that move the machine back and forth which is really cool because you can end up with a very easy way to automate the cutting as well as create complex cuts and if you want to watch a really good video in my opinion on basic way to build and understand I just did one where I use an Arduino and a very inexpensive shield called a garble shield and we built from nothing a pen plotter that we use to use a pen and create a pattern it's pretty cool stuff folks and it's really not expensive to get into so this machine again it's just like the Bridgeport underneath here we've got screws and motors and that drive the table back and forth and we can use the computer keyboard we can go left and go right you go backward and away from us and we can go down so we can come back up that was me controlling it myself I've got a little program in here and what it's going to do is it's going to trim this block sort of like what the Bridgeport did and we'll measure it afterwards and see what it looks like and then it's also going to create a circular pattern in the middle and that's something that would be a lot harder to do if you didn't have a machine they could calculate and control the steppers with such precision okay so there's spindle starts up and proaches the side of the part here you'll hear the coolant kick on those two gray lines have coolant and you notice when it didn't just jab itself into the park or the nice smooth ramp in coming along you can see the chips flying off looks really nice the reason that end moles coated is it's a special coating different coatings for different materials that help improve the cut fall on your tool life lots of really cool things like that again though it's all being driven by the computer here and the motors that you see under that are underneath this machine should be pretty darn accurate the proof will be in the pudding we'll have to measure it here when it's done just about coming out home stretching if you watch closely again it's going to ramp out and take a nice little curve right about now which hopefully will mean there's no tool mark where the heart started finished now we're going to cut a circle and instead of plunging straight down into it you'll notice it did a little it's called an interpolation but think of it like a ass like a curlicue type of slide and that really reduces the chip load or it's a lot easier on the the tool nice and easy going into the part like that and if you think about it it's cut in a circle like this is using using both the X and the y-axis at the same time and that's what's led us cut a perfect circle like this which again is something there would be a lot harder to do on the Bridgeport but is quite easy on a CNC there we have it let's grab our calipers and let's see if we really got what we hope here look at that folks 2.2 4 9 we're about 1,000 under so across that whole distance or less than 1/4 the thickness of a piece of paper off I'll take that any day folks I hope everybody enjoyed that really brief episode of NYC CNC and sort of basics on both manual and how a CNC machine works for those of you regular subscribers I know this was really basic but I'm really hoping to help and encourage anyone involved with stem or any sort of youth engineering and Science and Technology it really is so cool I would encourage you to reach out to either your local STEM program or FIRST Robotics or anything you can do because I tell you the world needs more engineers and scientists and metal workers and stuff like that to the conquer kids I hope you enjoyed this video I hope it helped you learn and understand the types of equipment out there a lot of it isn't expensive anymore that's what's really cool I did a video about buying this Bridgeport which I bought for less than $2,000 I know that sounds like a lot but it also produces money it's not a huge investment some really cool opportunities out there I certainly love being a machinist in being able what I being able to do what I love in this career and field and the more we can help people understand and see what's out there and enable them the better off we are so thanks for watching I'll see you this Wednesday for the Wednesday widget otherwise take care see you soon thanks folks

Channel: NYC CNC

Views: 976,457

Keywords: tormach, nyc cnc, DIY, machining, milling, sprutcam, solidworks, Numerical Control, Do It Yourself (Hobby), Milling (Product Category), STEM, basics, beginner, bridgeport

Id: TecC9_nwpUw

Length: 14min 1sec (841 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 18 2015