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Home built CNC Mill - Gonna make a 1911


StraightUp_OG

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Bobcad was designed to work in 2d. They might try to tell you it can do 3d but it isn't effective at all. It is most used in industry for wood working. Try Hypermill software if you can get a demo download. It will make short work out of your project........

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So would a Radeon R9 380 card be ok I have looked at NVidia AUSU Turbo 970 but good lord

I'm

Just looking to tinker and learn things which programs do you all use the most and does the computer actually running the PCNC have to be the same set up with the cards and such or does a cheap black Friday laptop work for that

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.... the computer actually running the PCNC have to be the same set up with the cards and such or does a cheap black Friday laptop work for that

If you buy a Tormach PCNC it comes with the computer to run the mill. That computer won't be usable for anything else really, it's set up just for the mill.

That's a good thing in my opinion. Keeps the mill unaffected by whatever else our pc's have going on.

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I looked up my desktop from Dell and this the graphics card I have

AMD Radeon HD 7570 1GB GDDR5

this is the CPU

Processor: Intel Core 3rd Gen i5-3450 Processor (3.10 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.50 GHz)

It was a scratch and dent deal, there are some killer deals if you watch the website. Runs F360 fine.

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I wouldnt run the mill off a laptop. But you dont need a very high powered computer to run a cnc machine. I would 100% tell you to use a SSD in the mill computer.

I model/program on an alienware x51, 8 gigs of ram, i7 and 2 gig geforce something. Going to go to 16 gigs of ram soon but other thab that it works great. Thats significantly better than my computer at work for modelling and it works fine day in and day out.

Edit: GTX 670 is what my computer has, finally got home to look it up

Edited by amish_rabbi
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seriously, my computer at work is an old i5 with an older nvidia quadro, probably the k420. only 8 gigs of ram as well. It works but its probably the bare minimum

I don't know about fusion 360 but solidworks is only single core, so more core speed is better than more cores of a lower speed. Not sure just how 360 uses a computer.

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Not bad for a first cut. It's a smart idea to use wood for test cuts if you're not sure exactly what's going to happen. In case of a crash that really cuts down on the amount of damage done.

I use conversational for everything. Been doing it that way since 2001.

Edited by Toolguy
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Depending on your goals/parts you would like to design, inventor and solid works may be over kill. I have used and use both professionally as well as pro e. For quick and dirty work I am a fan of Rhino. It is cheap and works well for single parts and small asy's. It is not parametric but depending on what you are doing and your modeling techniques that may not really matter. Visual Mill is a simple cam package that works with it and is offered as plug in to run inside the Rhino environment. They used to have a basic free version as well. It is not as nice as master cam etc but it will get basic 3 axis jobs done. Both will run well on basic basic computers and the companies that produce the software are heck of a lot easier to deal with than autodesk.

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Had some stock pull out today... I couldnt clamp it very tight because it wasnt super square and when i clamped it tight it would bend (that was yesterdays issue) anyways, tried it and it pulled out on the first rough. Not a big deal, i stripped the vice off my mill and am just going to clamp it to the table like its a router. Bit more waste that way with the clamps but it will work

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Make sure and clamp on top of some waste material so you don't cut into the mill table. Plywood, particle board and tempered hardboard are all suitable underlayments. I prefer the tempered hardboard as it doesn't squish down under clamps and is very consistent in thickness.

Edited by Toolguy
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  • 2 weeks later...

I got to take an hour to play with my mill today. I used conversational programming to make a QD socket. I cut one on my manual mill a few weeks ago, I messed around for about half an hour cutting it. Granted, it was the first one I ever cut in an actual part, I was extra careful. After I programmed the mill, it took less than a minute with my manual tool changes. I cut it in a block of wood tonight, I am going to try aluminum tomorrow.

Edited by bmiller
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