What is the default acceleration rate (preferred answer - inches per second per second) for an Elite Foreman?
What is the most practical way to build a FLAT table? A giant surface plate is a bit out of my budget, so lets skip that one. As noted in my intro below I would be looking at a non-absorbent option if practical. I buy aluminum flat bar a few to several hundred pounds at a time so I have been considering a cut aluminum top, and then a set on easily removeable MDF top for dry cut through materials.
Intro:
Mostly a milling guy. I have 4 mills under power right now running Mach 3 and one running LinxCNC (PathPilot). Iāve had a ābenchtopā router before, but it was a toy. I sometimes need to cut sheet goods, and really would have preferred a 5x10 machine, but I just couldnāt justify the cost of any I liked. Instead, I compromised with the Elite Foreman.
I run a small CNC milling business making low pressure injection and gravity casting molds. Iāve been doing that since about 2010 and full time since 2016.
I donāt see me making molds on the Elite Foreman. Watching the various videos the cuts are way to light in aluminum to be very efficient. Still, I am looking at a nonabsorbent table and top so I can run coolant or at least spray mist if I āhave toā run some aluminum on the Foreman. Sorry. I know you ācanā cut aluminum without it, but it really is the magic sauce to get away from the issues so many have. Iāve been doing this a while and I fought against coolant for a long time. When I embraced it my life changed.
Mostly the Elite Foreman will get used for wood cutting and sheet goods, but one of the mills in my shop was purchased just for prepping blanks, and it actually runs regular jobs almost every day instead. I know that things donāt always get used exactly the way they were planned.
I have a self built/modified Woodworker X50, and almost exclusively cut aluminum - hobby use only without the demands of a business in terms of production or efficiencies.
I built my table from heavy wall 8020 extrusion with a 1/2" cast aluminum plate on top. My fixtures/vises fasten to a 18"X18" X 2.25" aluminum block that is bolted to the plate. I am set up for mist cooling, but mill dry (like you earlierā¦ for now). I rarely fasten to MDF but do occasionally depending on the project and material.
Thanks. 19.685211 Nominally 20. I think thatās what I have my smaller āhigh speedā mills set at. I wonder why they picked 6-digit resolution rather than just rounding up to 20 or down to 19.
The big deal for ādryā milling is getting the chips out of the cut. Heat control is also a big deal. Once chips stick to a cutter you are done. Air is better than nothing. Mist is better than air alone. Flood is the magic sauce for aluminum.
I have a good size shop, but 64ish inches is a lot of footprint. Iām struggling with where to put it and integrate it with the rest of my shop floor plans. Iām thinking if I can make the bed the same height as my work benches and position it correctly, Iāll be able to feed sheet goods through it.
I believe the number is because the Masso controller may typically be using metric so that accelerations is a tidy 500 mm/s2.
I use a strong air blast, and although still new to CNC and machining, have learned a fair bit as well about the importance of using effective toolpaths and machining parameters that suite the material and strengths and limitations of my machine. I imagine this dialing in is a normal part of what you do daily, and have done throughout your career, when using the different machines you work with.
I have considered setting up flood coolant in the future, but need to finish my new tool changer before starting āyet anotherā mod.
Oh, Iām only a pro, because I get paid. The IRS says so. LOL. Iāve learned most of this stuff as a hobbyist, and often the hard way. Iām not so sure a big open platform like the Onefinity Elite would be much fun with a flood system, but anything is possible I suppose. Thatās why Iāll likely go mist if I cut aluminum on it, and still use vacuum to minimize puddles on the stuff below the machine. Learning good clearing techniques with just mist will be a learning experience. Iāve used mist before, but a long time ago.
I do have a Bijur mister that came with an old Bridgeport CNC mill I will be retrofitting to a modern control, and I have a couple cheap import misters setting back on my surface grinder that I have yet to set up. I do use air on my Hurco KMB1 for steel cutting if I am slotting or pocketing. It gets AlTiN coated tools which actually work better with some heat in the chips, so cooling is usually out.
I built my mister around an inexpensive import, but added my own electronics and a peristaltic pump to allow the use of liquids, such as IPA, along with the air blast. In testing it worked well, but I did not see a big difference in surface finish, at least for the short time I used it, and the small number of parts machined at that time.
I still daydream about building a small metal only mill, but that will need to wait for more time and money to become available. It doesnāt stop me from constantly scouring the Internet and various forums for build ideas and videos (I seem to have time for that ).
You have to keep looking. I have some milling machines I paid retail for, but I also got some great āold iron.ā I paid only $500 for the Hurco KMB1 and $600 for the Bridgeport R2E3. I put a few thousand into the Hurco, and will probably have to do the same with the Bridgeport, but itās a start. I wonāt say deals like that are every where. I got very lucky. One was a zero bids on eBay and the other was a shop making room for a newer bigger machine, and I helped the shop find some tool holders at a smoking price for their new machine. However, I am fully aware paying more may still be a good deal depending on condition and age of control system. Again, I got very lucky. My first mill was a Taig CR and getting it working āokayā was quite the education. When I moved onto bigger machines I already had some idea of the basics of machine control and retrofitting. My deals might not have been a good deal for somebody else.
Iāve been following the Action Box guys for a while. Iāve actually started to watch that video before. Its on my watch later list.
Iām a fan of their Injecto 2.0 injection machine, but I have the LNS Tech LNS-150 machine for testing small molds. I want something with some more volume, but I think my next injection machine will be shop built. Iād like about 3-4 cubic inches and at least five tons. Probably go with a full on hydraulic. I want to be able to push multi cavity ABS and polycarbonate. Now I can barely fill smaller molds, and I have to use a cheater bar on the lever press.
Back on topic. I am getting prepared for the new Onefinity Elite to get here.
I am watching that video finally. I agree with them about a pendant, and I ordered the Masso pendant this morning. All my other CNC machines have pendants (VistaCNC). I know Onefinitly sells the game controller, but I much prefer a pendantā¦ and yes I have given a game controller a fair try. I ran one on a CNC mill I used to have for about 4 months before I decided I like an MPG pendant much better. I was going to ask VistaCNC if they had a compatible pendant, but the one from Masso is plug and play so I went with that.
Thanks for all the replies and looking forward to hearing about your rig! Brings back some of the thrill of setting up my own, and hopefully for others tooā¦
It never crossed my mind that one could have their own injection machine before seeing the video. It never crossed my mind that their stuff was respectable until you said that. The video I linked just randomly showed up on my YT page and I watched it, ran across the MASSO (and was a little piqued), forwarded it. Now Iām curious about injection molding!! Fun times, thanks!
I went with a spindle and ATC. The ATC comes with a small button that only works when the spindle is slowed to eject the tool holder. So I ask myself āwhy arenāt these combined?ā moments before pushing the button to buy the pendant and aborted.
This is a good example of why I want an option for everything to be CANbus on these rigs. The wiring goes way down and the options go up for stuff like pendants because the wiring doesnāt change. But as we say in open source software, āif you want something that isnāt offered, commit it to a branch and make a PR!ā This isnāt up to the developers of any of these products, itās really up to us. Yet another project lolā¦
I guess I should buy the pendant in the mean timeā¦
I installed high speed ATC spindles (but not an actual ATC) on two of my current machines. I installed a manually operated 5 port 4 way valve to operate one, and wired up a similar solenoid activated spool valve on the other. My Tormach mill has its own style ATC spindle and it uses the same 5 port 4 way spool valve.
I did run an actually umbrella tool changer on the Tormach for a while, but when it failed I jerked it off and sold it to somebody with more time to figure out what was wrong with it. A lot of people make a big deal about running an ATC, but just running a quick change spindle and premeasured tools saved in a tool table is a huge time savings. I canāt run lights out, but I can machine very efficiently. I have three machines right now with āATCā spindles. They get a lot of use. Sure, sometimes I just stand in the machine room waiting to change tools, but its fast. I have my 24K spindles set to 13 seconds spin up and spin down. Including the safe Z move and return to clearance height tool changes are 45 seconds and no fumbling around with setting the Z height offset.
Technically I could accidentally release a tool with it still spinning, but since I am the only one in the shop thatās pretty low risk.
Most of my machine are relatively small envelope so a wine rack style change doesnāt appeal to me very much. Even the umbrella changer reduced Z slightly since the tools hang down from the rack, and the spindle has to be able to raise above the rack.
I have 32 standard tools on the two machines with24K spindles in shop made racks ont he front of the cabinet. The Tormach has a similar set of racks, but has 43 pre assigned and saved tools.
Like I said, its crazy how so many people get hung up on automatic tool changes, but just being able to do a quick change and not have to set the offset every time is huge. Iām not saying I wouldnāt run full auto tool changes. Just that my halfway measure made a huge benefit to productivity.
FYI: The artistic rendering of the ATC spindle looks a lot like the RattM ATC spindles I am running. Even uses the same ISO20 tool holders.
My Rattm spindles are 2 pole, so they spin 24K at 400hz.
Iāll probably use one of my takeoff spindles on the new Onefinity for now. I have several 1.5Kws, one 2.2Kw, and a couple 0.8Kw. Any of them would work. Iāll probably use the 2.2Kw, and if I wind using the Onefinity a lot and upgrade it to an ATC quick change spindle later on.
While working on my new ATC tool rack design, I switched all my tools to manual.
I am using the new Masso v5.100b, and have a toggle switch to do manual changes on my 24K high speed ATC spindle.
Tool changes are very fast, and as I rarely leave my machine unattended - I learn a lot by watching and listening - it is an effective solution.
Having said that, I just finished my proof of concept for my 24 position linear tool rack that works with my floating dust shoe design. I just uploaded the video to my YT channel and shared it in the forums - here is the link if interestedā¦https://youtu.be/dbpSn8cK7Ek
Wow, fun stuff, thanks for sharing! My story isnāt nearly as interesting as yours, this is my first machine. I once bought a full sized router at a garage sale, but thatās about it. FDM printing was great and it was time to learn more. Made the decision a year ago when doing a bathroom remodel and seeing the price of custom cabinets were the same price as the base machine. It took some months, first to get the machine and then to get the spindle and ATC.
For the reasons you mention, I am very happy with the decision to get started on cutting versus spending months learning how to build the machine. I didnāt know where Iād be spending unexpected time, but it turned out it was in F360. Knew I wanted to learn only one software package in the first few years and picked this path mostly from spec sheets. I had 15 or so years amateur hour experience with Vectorworks and then Sketchup, so the transition wasnāt awful. Still getting the hang of some things and starting to probe for more advanced techniques.
My current desire is to figure out if I can parameterize components via other model measurements. For instance, if I have a mortise and tenon along a given edge, a smart component for each side of the M&T should be parameterizable from a selected edge. I suspect this isnāt possible, but I do not want to be hand jamming this construct over and over while building stuff, only to learn next year or whatever that I was doing it the hard way all that time. Time is the only thing we canāt buy more of, and Iād rather learn something early and save time over the long run.
I presume more interesting projects will follow, as will the tools to build them. Learning CNC has been a bucket list item for 20 years now, so just grateful for the small stuff for now. Itās way too easy to whip out the credit card at any opportunity and be left with a lot of stuff that never gets worn out.
Thatās really delightful, thanks for sharing. I also struggled with the tool height problem when designing my tool holders. I ended up spacing the tool holders so the z-relative dust boot would go over the neighboring tool when the spindle dropped for picking one up. Maybe you were doing the same in your older setup?
Raising the tool in the manner you did this completely avoids the problem of the boot clearing nearby tools as the spindle comes down with the boot attached. I also enjoy the elegance of the tool lift attached to the Y bearing.
For my current layout, what would be helpful is if the MASSO could be configured with an exclusion zone that only allowed X and Z movements. Without your popup strategy, Iām fearful that the spindle will crash across the tool holders, I just need to study the picker strategies more closely.
Marius Hornberger had a neat solution for his router. His wine rack was moved in and out of the travel envelope of his machine as needed. Been a while since I watched his video on it.
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