How I Weld and Machine Aluminum Parts Like This from Start to Finish.

this is a six soon to be seven axes industrial robot that i've been building as a series on my channel and right over here is the part that we're gonna be making today this is a 3d printed prototype which i'm using to test out the fit form and function of my design so far i've discovered a few minor changes i want to make that's also a 3d printed part this is a pretty challenging part for a beginner machinist like myself it's got a requirement for perpendicularity between this face and this face is going to be machined on four sides got tapped holes over here some bearing fits on this side so i felt like this is a good opportunity for me to walk you through the entire process of how i'm gonna make this part this is by no means meant to be a complete tutorial though i'm a beginner machinist myself and there's a lot i still don't know what i do know is as a beginner it would have been really helpful for me to see all of the steps involved in the process i didn't realize how many steps there were between my cad model then going to cam post processing work holding i also know that many of you do this for a living and when you stop snickering you can scroll down to the comment section and leave us some tips and tricks on how you might make a complicated piece like this so let's go take a look at the cad model and we'll start there [Music] here's the whole assembly and as you can see this is access number seven that i refer to earlier although this track is really just a placeholder my plan is to make a modular design that will allow me to latch the pieces together then i can essentially make the same box over and over again and extend the track as long as i want the part that we're interested in is right here though i've already made the changes that i wanted to make most of the changes being related to assembly i was having a difficult time fastening these last three fasteners up here i also noticed that down in this corner it was a little bit snug on the 3d print but of course there'll be a weld there in the real design so i wanted to be sure that there was plenty of room even if the weld was a little bit oversized so let's talk about machining this piece as i mentioned earlier these two faces need to be perpendicular and that's because this drive gear and this axis need to be perpendicular to each other if they are not perpendicular let's say for example that this ends up being at a slight angle and the head is up here then when i run my calculations for figuring out where the end of the arm is the computer will think that the arm is here when in reality it's over here there are two tapped holes here and here on both sides and that is for mounting limit switches like this one there's some additional tapped holes on each side as well those holes will accommodate a cover plate which is going to go over this entire assembly here so at this point we've got at least four faces to machine but in reality i'd like to machine this face as well but there's a couple of problems first i've got these arms in the way that's not a permanent obstacle i mean i could either machine this face before i weld those on but a better option would just be to machine the area under this plate because that's the only area that's important to me i just need to be sure that when working through my cam i create a void areas around these brackets to keep the tool from running into those columns the more difficult problem is this height from here to here is almost five inches actually it's a tiny bit over five inches and because of the width of my spindle there's no way i can get the head of the spindle down in here and still be able to machine past this face that means i'm going to have to have the tools stick out five inches or more in order to machine this face that creates all kinds of other problems like the end of the tool vibrating actually it just dawned on me that i bet a fly cutter will work for this i've never actually used one before and i don't have one on hand so i'd have to order one i won't have the tool in time to show it in this video but i think as long as i adjust it out wider than the head of the spindle then i can get the head in there and just jog up relatively close to that back until i can shave the whole area i need to reach i wouldn't dare try to program it that way i think i'll just jog it in there manually but i feel like we have a solution now let's make the part and then probably off camera i'll come back and fly cut that last surface there are actually several reasons why i like welding these legs on first and the first one has to do with work holding if you look at this other part which is a part that i made just prior to this one i tried it that way i tried not welding these legs on because i thought these narrow edges were a little bit too small to clamp on and it would give me a chance to put a clamp right in this corner and down here at the bottom so that's what i did clamped it here and here and i stacked up some one two three blocks and tried to support this edge as i machined it but i just wasn't satisfied with the results i definitely underestimated the power of trying to cut away material out here with this cantilevered beam if you will sticking out even though this is 19 millimeters thick or three quarters of an inch it's still flexed a little bit and that was a problem however if i had had this support in place especially in this orientation as you can see the beam in is much shorter and thus you're going to have a lot less flex here learning from that experience i brought these brackets out closer to the end and i cut out this section the material in this area is doing hardly any work at all it's the material out here near the ends that's doing all the labor so let's get rid of this stuff save a few ounces of weight and now i can still stick a clamp in this area and down here and i've got support very close to the end so that's reason number one reason number two is if you weld these on after you're adding heat to the part and with aluminum being a heat sink that heat is going to disperse quickly into this part and possibly distort my machine faces i want to pause here for a moment and put a little bit more emphasis on work holding because to me figuring out where to reference the part before you start cutting it and also how to hold on to the part as you cut away material is probably the two most important decisions that you'll make while machining the part and yet there are hardly any videos on it and very few articles written about it when i first started designing this part that we're talking about today i ordered this piece of aluminum and at that point i had only machined a couple of parts and so this is just barely wider than the part that i needed in my mind i was thinking i'll machine off you know maybe 20 000 of an inch and then start adding the features into it but i can tell you this angle iron and none of the angle irons i bought after it are actually at 90 degrees i need to machine off more than that which means i should be starting with more material here and also how do you hold on to it this is definitely one of the aspects of machining that i underestimated before i started specifically i'm referring to how much stock material you should have to start with in order to make sure you can get the final product that you want out of it now that we have an idea of what we want to do let's go ahead and switch over to cam so in solidworks that's this tab i also went ahead and saved this body as a separate part and did the machining for that separately so so that solidworks doesn't think that this would be in a way while i'm machining that for the first couple of parts that i tried to machine i basically used the feature called extract machinable features it's right here in solidworks and when you click it basically what it does is it goes through the entire model and tries to figure out where it should drill holes what faces it should machine off in order to give you the final part that you want and this works okay it's decent you can see it's trying to machine that face so that's good that's not quite so good it thinks that it needs to contour all the way down to here the problem i have with this method is when i have an issue at the machine for example it does something i didn't expect it to do i can't read the code and i don't understand why it's doing anything that it's doing reading g-code is like reading an entirely different language so i decided i really needed to select all the features carefully myself and i also needed to be able to read at least a little bit of g-code so here's how i decided to solve that problem again this is not for everyone it's definitely harder this way but i decided to go through and make each feature painstakingly on my own instead of using the extract machinable features that way i was forcing myself to really understand what everything does and i also made myself some g-code flashcards i used a little phone app and throughout the day i would just flip through them on one side of the card it would say what is m03 flip it over spindle forward now when the machine does something i don't expect i can go oh it's because i'm telling it to you know go to some coordinate that i didn't want it to go to or i'm missing a tool change which is something that's happened to me on more than one occasion it's not for everybody but it helped me learn much much faster so at this point we've automatically generated all of our features that we're going to be machining out i would hit simulate tool path and watch it cut out the part you definitely want to preview everything before you go out to the machine and crash your machine let me tell you if you are a beginner like i am even professionals actually you are going to crash your machine eventually you have to mentally prepare yourself for the fact that you're going to break a tool eventually it's going to happen [Music] if you always have that in the back of your mind that this next tool run i could break the tool it'll make you a little bit more cautious and you'll double check whether you've set your z height correctly and whether your coordinate is in the right place all right let's run our simulation all right so we all saw that there were some problems with that code there but we're going to act like everything was great for a moment at this point we're ready to create what's called g-code g-code is basically all the coordinates that you're going to move the tool to and the instructions for turning the tool on and off and even things like turning the coolant on and off each machine speaks its own version of g-code so you need something called the post-processor if you think of g-code as sort of the master language each machine has its own dialect you might even say that each machine has a few slang words that other machines don't recognize so you need to translate your g-code into g-code that that machine can read before i hit post process which is already set up to go to my bridgeport i want to show you what the options look like so i'm going to go under machine and hit edit definition of course if you're using a different cam package this is going to be in a different place but it's all the same stuff and then i'm under the post processor tab and you can see there's a whole bunch of options everything from a tutorial version which is kind of a generic g-code export there are other brand names here that already have post-processors written for them but the most important thing there's a haas vf3 be nice to have one of those in the shop here's the deal in order to get my cam package to talk to a haas machine i'm going to use this post processor to make those minor translation changes from the standard g code to the g code that the machine can read and that's what this does i've already selected my g code so i'm going to hit post process i'll give it a name this is just a sample code hit save and in solidworks i get one more pop-up if i try to close it right now i haven't generated any g-code yet so let's hit the fast forward button and once that bar fills up i can hit the check box and the code's been created and here's a preview of the code let's zoom in and looking at this you can see it's just a long series of numbers and letters and the first time you see this it just looks like another language right what does it mean but it does mean something to the machine for example i can see that i have t15 m06 that tells the machine that we're going to do a tool change to tool number 15 s 3094 means that the spindle speed is 3000 rpm and m03 tells it to turn the spindle on going forward g54 is the work offset that's something you're going to set at the machine to determine where the x y and z coordinates are i could go on and on because i memorized these it's not magic it's just something that i took the time to learn that all of this is attainable it just takes a while you have to take the time to learn it but you can learn it this is what i would open on the machine so we're done at the computer i have saved this file let's go outside and get ready to start making some parts another thing i didn't think i would spend so much time doing is trying to clean the chips off of the work surface off the vise but even if you have just the tiniest little chip in there it can cause a problem i have experienced that the hard way enough times to know you have to really really clean the vise and clean the bed that's being used to reference device first i'll get the device set up then i'll go and set my work offset we'll talk more about aligning the device in just a moment man it's just gonna barely be in there should have cut that a little bit longer i think i'm about ready to go this is my little cooling guard that i threw together because i was tired of chips and cooling being thrown on me so this is pretty much the point where i'll fire up the machine and hold on to the e-stop for dear life and i listen to music i always start the machine with the speed turned down and as i see things running as i expect i go ahead and speed it back up oh [Applause] nice all right good first run so i'll take this over to the bandsaw cut off the extra then i can stick this back in the vise and machine off the back face [Applause] [Music] here i've got some air cutting that i missed during programming but since this part's not very large i decided to just wait for it to run now we gotta get all this out of here weld that up clean all this and then really get to the harder machining yeah i can't believe we're halfway through today and i'm still i hadn't got to the meter yet so i want the back to be really snug and the front to be able to float a little bit so i'm kind of pivoting around this first bolt here this one is almost pretty tight and these other three are pretty loose keep in mind each tick mark is a half a thousandth of an inch we're talking about very small increments here all right we're down to two thousandths of an inch across ten inches and that's getting within they almost don't care range but the whole world is watching i have to try to get it closer is it going to stay oh no we're in half come on come on come on come on yes half a thousands i will take that take that internet let's get all set up to load oh man i need to go well the angle iron god list this part is so complicated as you probably guessed these faces are definitely 90 degrees to each other and these are not that's about what i expected i've really enjoyed working with aluminum on this project and learning a little bit more about it as i go both for its mechanical properties as well as how it wells this is 6061 aluminum and i've been reading up on this the same way i have been with the machining the main thing that i've learned is that you got to clean the material really well it doesn't respond well to any dirt or grime or grease on the surface still you can kind of get away with that with aluminum you got to clean the surface really well the other thing i've noticed is how you have to adjust your feed rate as you go aluminum is a natural heat sink and so as you're imparting heat into the part that heat is quickly dispersing and you have to speed up your feed rate as you go otherwise you start to melt through and really get this ugly weld if you don't make adjustments accordingly [Music] need to adjust the settings here that's much better i need to turn the juice up a little bit [Music] that's the first pass on the wrong setting and that's the right setting boy what a difference that means i should mention i also read that you shouldn't mix your brushes so the brushes that i use for aluminum i put white tape on so that i don't accidentally clean steel with it yeah not as pretty as a mig weld but it'll sure be strong enough for my robot i love doing this all right that's enough cleaning let's go machine this dude the motor side of this plate is the flattest of the two so i want to use that as my first reference surface i'm going to take that and mount it here and that means i'm going to be machining the mounting side first as opposed to the motor side all right taking off the welding suit and let's put on our machinist hat so this will rest on top of this so that it's tall enough for me to machine all the way around this lip here the final part is only about five inches tall so i'm not worried about this piece flapping around eventually that's just going to fall off on the table i just want to make absolutely sure that this is as flat as i can make it because i don't expect that surface to be perfect and it is a very consistent 24 millimeters all the way across i feel like there's probably a better way to do this this is a good spot for one of my machinist friends to tell me what the what the secret is and how to clamp work sideways like this okay that wasn't too bad this is a passive probe that i've set up to work with my machine but you could just as easily use an analog probe to find your x and y coordinates manually no fancy wire required nice [Applause] [Music] sounded like it was chattering more than i expected and i've had this tool work its way out on more than one occasion i think it's a an issue with this locking nut here and over time they just wear out and don't lock as well okay that feels pretty tight let's lower the speed a little bit and see what happens [Applause] wow did you see the park actually come up [Music] it definitely looks like it's getting deeper okay so here's what i didn't consider i set my zero here but this piece is not flat uh what we're actually measuring is the tall side over here in this corner this is where i should have set my z golly i mean look how deep that is in the park now that is insane this is why you keep your hand on the east out i'm going to find the high spot set my z and get all this reset up but now i need to reclamp this surface and i need to check and make sure i didn't move this as well because that's a very good possibility now so i moved to half the thousands [Applause] okay [Applause] hey [Applause] three quarter inch end mill [Music] so [Applause] [Applause] okay [Applause] [Music] okay [Applause] [Applause] so hey take a look at that look at the grain inside the weld it looks like we got good penetration there which is obviously a good thing but more interestingly is the the texture of the material there all right we got two more faces in the machine let's get to work well i don't remember which one is next [Applause] this fancy tool is called a thread mill and it is a fascinating topic that i can't possibly start in this video just know that it's worth learning how to program one of these if you don't have rigid tapping abilities on your machine last side coming up i cannot believe it we might almost be [Applause] done well i think we're going to call that a finished part everything seems to be within tolerance happy with the finish unfortunately that first weld produced some weld spatter there as long as these faces are good i'm a happy camper that was a lot of fun i'm glad we made it through without too much damage man those threaded holes came out good too really happy about that i got to tell you i'm pretty excited about this little hunk of aluminum i just cut out here to think that six months ago i wouldn't have been able to make something like this just is astonishing to me people invested time in writing books and creating youtube videos that showed me how they do it and then i was able to figure out how to do it speaking of being enabled there's no way i'd be able to create a project on this kind of scale without sponsors like kiwikill i first learned about kiwiko at a friend's house let me tell you watching our kids play together with these boxes and assembling their kits i knew immediately i had to have this at my house now for us it's a family event and what makes it work so well is we can order different kits to match each person's interest we would normally order five kits allowing one adult my wife to assist the others if they need it but apparently we're gonna have to start ordering six kids and there's a box for each of us there are five boxes oh i i'm fine being a helper and i'm a person too and i should get a box okay look at your box one of the most important features is that everything is in the box if you need a tool or batteries all of it's inside of the box we always have a lot of fun but this last time turned into an all-out tournament who wants to erase the gecko all right we got the same uh yeah go go go go slow he's still going though all right that's good i think that counts but seriously though it's more than just having fun with the kids all of these crates are related to steam concepts one of my lifelong all-time goals is to inspire my kids to be able to create things using their imagination playing with those robots when they're small is how you grow up to make robots like this so here's the deal you can inspire your kids to be the next generation of innovators and you can also support this youtube channel by going to kiwico.com fielding50 go to kiwico.com building50 and get 50 off of your first month's subscription i'm telling you it's one of the best things we ever had delivered to the house trying to build an industrial robot is by far one of the most epic challenges i've ever taken on and you just dropped in the middle of the series about it if you want to see more content like this you should hit the subscribe button because i've got a whole lot more to share and a whole lot more pain for you to experience with me the next video will be coming out soon thanks for watching well we have made one huge mistake as you can see i've got a nice big crack going across my motor now

Channel: Jeremy Fielding

Views: 60,462

Rating: 4.9766083 out of 5

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Id: KqP9IFcGQZQ

Length: 29min 8sec (1748 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 26 2021