I'm brand new to the world of CNC. In fact I've never machined a part in my entire life on a CNC (although I have used a traditional mill quite a bit). I like to work with wood and building guitars is what interests me. Me and a friend of mine have our own garage-based guitar shop where we do setups, repairs, refinishing, etc.. We've been at it for a few years and recently decided to give a go at building our own one-off custom designs.
Just yesterday we decided to pull our coin together an buy a CNC. We wound up getting a CNC Mogul machine from these guys:
CNC Mogul
It's not top of the line but it was affordable compared to everything else and will hopefully get us going enough until we can afford to upgrade. It comes with some Vetrix software and Mach 3 so that's what we'll be using to machine with.
I've done CAD work in the past, but CAM on the other hand is completely new to me so it's time to start drinking from the proverbial fire-hose.
I guess a few of the initial questions I have would be related to tooling. Specifically for cutting wood of various hardnesses.
What type of bits would you recommend to get me going? I'm thinking of these 4 just to start off with.
- 1/2" dual fluted ball mill
- 1/4" dual fluted ball mill
- 1/2" dual fluted flat end mill
- 1/4" dual fluted flat end mill
Where do I guy them from, and are there any good references around for feeds and speeds as they pertain to cutting wood. Most stuff I've found relates more to metalworking.
For the really fine work I plan to mill myself out a set of Dremel brackets to fit on the CNC so I can use all the small burrs and bits available there.
I'm sure I'll have plenty more questions to ask as I get going more, get the CNC set up, and start using the software but for now I'm just wanting to make sure I've got all of the stuff I'll need to get cutting.
Oh yeah, one more thing... My computer that I've decided to use does not have a parallel port so I'm going to get a PCI card for that. Is there any particular brand you folks would recommend one over the other or will any cheapie $15.00 card get the job done.
Thanks for listening and look forward to becoming part of the hobbiest community here. :)
-Adam
Just yesterday we decided to pull our coin together an buy a CNC. We wound up getting a CNC Mogul machine from these guys:
CNC Mogul
It's not top of the line but it was affordable compared to everything else and will hopefully get us going enough until we can afford to upgrade. It comes with some Vetrix software and Mach 3 so that's what we'll be using to machine with.
I've done CAD work in the past, but CAM on the other hand is completely new to me so it's time to start drinking from the proverbial fire-hose.
I guess a few of the initial questions I have would be related to tooling. Specifically for cutting wood of various hardnesses.
What type of bits would you recommend to get me going? I'm thinking of these 4 just to start off with.
- 1/2" dual fluted ball mill
- 1/4" dual fluted ball mill
- 1/2" dual fluted flat end mill
- 1/4" dual fluted flat end mill
Where do I guy them from, and are there any good references around for feeds and speeds as they pertain to cutting wood. Most stuff I've found relates more to metalworking.
For the really fine work I plan to mill myself out a set of Dremel brackets to fit on the CNC so I can use all the small burrs and bits available there.
I'm sure I'll have plenty more questions to ask as I get going more, get the CNC set up, and start using the software but for now I'm just wanting to make sure I've got all of the stuff I'll need to get cutting.
Oh yeah, one more thing... My computer that I've decided to use does not have a parallel port so I'm going to get a PCI card for that. Is there any particular brand you folks would recommend one over the other or will any cheapie $15.00 card get the job done.
Thanks for listening and look forward to becoming part of the hobbiest community here. :)
-Adam