Let's have a general (subtractive) CNC thread, post shit you've made/designs you've seen/etc.
Mills, routers, laser, and punch presses are all welcome.
In the meantime, my dad is wanting me to help my youngest brother get started learning AutoCAD, and being that I am the resident CNC-wrangler I figured the best way to get him started would be designing something straight-forward that can be made (I'm sure it will be a huge help to stimulate interest in the subject), so if I could find some simple, cool things to get him to design and me program it'd be great.
A tad limited on what we can do though, our CNC machines are geared towards bigger stuff, but we've got a punch press (For sheet metal), a 2.5 axis mill (Metal only due to coolant recirc), and a plasma table (Big and messy)
Gonna start out by posting my little personal project at the moment, machining some aluminum grips for an old pistol I've got. (Will get fancy with engraving/anodizing once I get a set made and verify that's dimensions are good)
>>945988
I taught myself autocad in 12 hours and learnt how to write scripts for it.
I have ideas and many many pictures i've turned in dxf's, I want to turn into lights and other arty shit, I might have a guy to build me a cnc, i've been thinking about it for a year or so, i'm just not a precision kinda person or electrical, but he's quoted me £3,000 for a 1x1.5 meter work area cnc miller of plasma.
It would save me spending £25 on N E S W every-time i make a compass
>>946056
>12 hours
>>946071
Hey, back off. This guy is clearly the smartest person you've ever met. He also has 18 confirmed kills and was the captain of his football team.
>>946056
>taught myself Autocad in 12 hours
>not a precision kinda person
Solidworks is what everyone's using these days.
>>945988
my first cnc project was programming and cutting out a kant twist style clamp on a prototrak.
it doesnt get much simpler than that.
>AutoCAD
No.
Go learn a real 3D CAD package. You'll thank me later. Parametric modeling is 9001 times faster.
Options:
>Pirate SolidWorks or pay $80 for a Student license if you qualify
>Get a free student license to Autodesk Inventor Professional. You don't even need a .edu email address anymore.
>use Fusion 360 for free, completely legally as long as you make less than $100,000 if used in a business environment. It even has CAM built in. It also has real parametric modeling capability.
>>946116
>Solidworks
While Solidworks has more market share, that isn't a good enough reason for a hobbyist or student to start with it. You can start with Autodesk products completely free and legally.
If you know either Solidworks or Inventor/Fusion, transitioning to the other is trivial. My girlfriend has used Inventor for 5 years and in a couple hours was able to use Solidworks. She didn't even need to search for tutorials because the usage concepts are so similar.
>>946071
>>946084
It's just simple drawing and maths, if you can use a mouse and count to 100 you can use autocad.
Learning the commands and remembering what they do is the hard part.
I meant I'm not a precision builder, anyone can be precise on a computer program, it's just maths.
>>946116
Yes I taught myself how to use solid works and how to write tap files, solid works is a lot better for 3D work. Have not actually used it to produce anything and probably wont.
>>946190
You can get everything you need from TPB
>>946190
I guess I'm to used to talking with my boss, but when I said AutoCAD I was referring to the whole AutoCAD shebang.
I do all of my design work in Inventor, use regular AutoCAD to translate sheet metal flat patterns into CNC punch press and CNC plasma table programs, and use AutoCAD Electrical for our electrical designs/Electromechanical links.
And yes, parametric modeling is godly, and I'm getting a hang of all the especially neat shit I can do with it.
>With an earlier system a "standard" door was created
>It was a goddamn nightmare of references
>Go through, rebuild everything to not only be flexible, but build themselves based off of a reference part (via deriving)
>Now I can use the iCopy command to create new doors, and throw in parameters that makes the door reconfigure based on opening size, window size (if any), what style window, how high the window is off the ground, and what side the door opens on
>For all parts that change, iCopy makes new instances of them but reuses all other parts, while even retaining the drawing files and changing drawing references as needed
>My doors when
Only thing I have to do to make a new kind of door production ready is hit iCopy, then make punch press programs
>>946352
>You can get everything you need from TPB
You can get CATIA and PTC Creo and everything else too. I see no reason to steal something when there are alternatives that are just as good freely available.
>>946387
I even do "2D" shit with Inventor and export faces as DXFs. AutoCAD is nearly useless. Why isn't there real parametric functionality in 2D CAD software? I know you can make parametric drawings in AC, but it's a lot of work.
>>946482
Yeah AutoCAD is pretty useless, merely a relic of days gone by
The electrical setup is pretty good at least
