Project Athena: A Custom Case Build

[X99stattrak]

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[nmil]

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Thanks

 

For those of you who are interested in my CNC setup

[nmil]

 

Here you have a slightly better view of the damage (sorry for the bad quality I took these at night in the garage).

 

IMG_1057 by nmrci1, on Flickr

 

So I've spent the past week trying to mill this piece sufficiently so that I can finish it of on the Dremel, but due to the fact that the bit I was using was tapered at the end and you cannot get the sheet steel to sit perfectly fat, there will always be a high region or a low region, none of the cuts end up being the correct thickness. So I got the flat end mill in order to make sure that all the cuts are the same width. But then I ran into another problem :angry: . For some reason the CNC mill keeps stopping randomly in the middle of the project. At first I tried to stop the Raspberry Pi from sleeping, since other people with similar problems had done the same and that worked for them. That didn't work, so I switched it over so that the CNC would run of my laptop, that didn't fix it either. So after a whole night of troubleshooting my dad determined that it might the new adaptive feed rate feature I think it was in the latest version of GRBL which could have been causing the problem, since it only supported feedrates of more that 45mm/min, but we were running much less. So we tried disabling that, and the CNC got a little bit further through the gcode, but then it struck again. So I still haven't been able to figure out this problem, if anyone out there is an expert on grbl could they please tell me what I'm doing wrong.

 

So while I was trying to figure out this problem I also decided to try to solve a different problem in the build – the mobo tray flex. I started by marking out the area where the supports would be situated.

 

IMG_1041 by nmrci1, on Flickr

 

Then bent up this piece of aluminium angle to fit the shape

 

IMG_1042 by nmrci1, on Flickr

 

The tray has ridges that mean that the aluminium angle would not sit flush

 

IMG_1043 by nmrci1, on Flickr

 

So I made some shims out of aluminium sheet

 

IMG_1044 by nmrci1, on Flickr

 

Then I had to get rid of some pesky holes

 

IMG_1045 by nmrci1, on Flickr

 

Here it is all riveted together, I had to add the 2 going diagonally for extra support to straighten it out further.

 

IMG_1094 by nmrci1, on Flickr

 

And here’s the front, I know, some of you will complain about the amount of ugly rivets, but you won’t be able to see this in the final build since the mobo will be covering it up.

 

IMG_1095 by nmrci1, on Flickr

 

So I hope you guys found that riveting  :lol: , but I probably won’t be able to finish the back panel before I have to go on holidays, so this build will have to resume next year. I’ll have some content premade in order to satisfy your cravings over the time when I’m overseas.

Thanks for looking,

nmil

[nmil]

So I finally got my cnc working properly, I got the latest version of ugs and it worked!

Then the spindle broke. So I guess all that work went to nothing. Luckily Inventables customer service is super fast. (They replied within a day of my email.) And they gave me the option of either getting the same spindle again or upgrading to the quiet cut or a dewalt 611. I was considering the dewalt for its shear POWER!! But inventables told me that it would only run of 110v, and in australia we use 240v, so I would have to use some sort of transformer. The other problem with the dewalt is that you have to adjust the speed on the actual spindle and you can't control it through gcode, plus the dewalt would be a whole lot louder, meaning that i would have to stop work earlier in order to not annoy my neighbours. So the natural move would be to go with the quietcut. What it lacks in power it males up for in quietness and gcode control, not to mention the er11 collets, meaning I can use all of my bits without an adapter.

So no more updates in the build for this year since I will be on holiday. So a merry christmas and a happy new year to everyone.

[nmil]

project athena banner by nmrci1, on Flickr

So school has started again, and to any Australians reading this, hope you had a great Australia day. So when I got back from holidays, my first task was to complete the install of the new QuietCut spindle.
Here's the poor old spindle that died in the effort of conquering the final frontier. Steel.

IMG_1126 by nmrci1, on Flickr

May you forever rest in peace good friend.
And here's the spindle to replace it.

IMG_1127 by nmrci1, on Flickr

It's so shiny you can see yourself in it!

IMG_1128 by nmrci1, on Flickr

And her's the wiring if you are interested, you need to run another psu at 48v just to power the spindle. I did my best with the cable management, but I think i still need an intake fan to help cool all of this equipment, what do you think.

IMG_1141 by nmrci1, on Flickr

I am happy to report that with my initial testing, the spindle makes a more pleasant sound and less of it too. The noise more spread over the lower frequencies rather than the higher ones, it almost sounds like a muffled version of the old one.
If you guys are interested in a more in depth tour of the wiring and so on, I will hopefully release another video next weekend (as soon as figure out how to use Davinci Resolve), so subscribe to my Youtube channel so you don't miss it.

Apart from that I have also been doing a lot more research on machining steel, and from what I've found, my feeds and speeds are about right, 300m/s @ 12000rpm.

Also managed to improve the lighting of my workbench

IMG_1145 by nmrci1, on Flickr

I think I still need a light in front to be able to get really nice photos.
And I finished the first panel of the psu cover.

IMG_1147 by nmrci1, on Flickr

From my experimentation, I found that making a rough cut first with a jigsaw, then cleaning it up a bit with the dremel and a carbide cutting bit and finally finish it of with the grinder.

This is my last year of school, so I'm going to quite pinned down by studies and school projects, meaning this thread might not progress as fast as it did last year, but I hope you guys bear with me and stay tuned till I finish this project.
Cheers,
nmil

[LordDecapo]

Great build! Looking forward to seeing the finished product

I think I'm gonna use a couple of your building techniques. I'm making my own case as well

[nmil]

On 02/02/2016 at 1:02 AM, LordDecapo said:

Great build! Looking forward to seeing the finished product

I think I'm gonna use a couple of your building techniques. I'm making my own case as well

Good luck man, if I were you, I would start of by making a case out of steel. It is a lot easier to weld and it is not as hard on your grinding tools, aluminium sticks to grinding tools like crazy. And when you weld steel you don't have to worry about other parts of your case melting while you are working in one area.

[LordDecapo]

5 hours ago, nmil said:

Good luck man, if I were you, I would start of by making a case out of steel. It is a lot easier to weld and it is not as hard on your grinding tools, aluminium sticks to grinding tools like crazy. And when you weld steel you don't have to worry about other parts of your case melting while you are working in one area.

Well I have experience with carbon fiber and fiberglass. So as of last night, my case will be nearly all molded carbon fiber sheets. With the exception of a brushed aluminum outside and the standoffs for my parts will be metal with a common wire connected to them, to make sure everything is grounded.

The case is a cylinder btw

[nmil]

18 hours ago, LordDecapo said:

Well I have experience with carbon fiber and fiberglass. So as of last night, my case will be nearly all molded carbon fiber sheets. With the exception of a brushed aluminum outside and the standoffs for my parts will be metal with a common wire connected to them, to make sure everything is grounded.

The case is a cylinder btw

Noice, I've always been interested in carbon fibre, but it has always proven way too expensive for my needs.