Air pencil engraver mount for CNC mill.

countryguy

countryguy

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I found out that my Dolphin CAM PArtmaster V12 had an engraving module.... Yahoo. I could not wait to get an air pencil to mount on my Spindle setup. (as suggested here by our faithful HM gang!) It's still in work, and we are (sond and I) really new to about everything CNC , milling, and now engraving. So parts were ordered, boxes hit the door and I managed to get something together last week. It seems work work well and we're still experimenting w/ the design a bit. That's the fun/learn part so they say? (kidding- We're having fun!) .

The red air pencil was $25 or so on Amazon. "Hey Honey....Finally something under $1,000, can I buy it?" LOL. :) ( you know the drill for us newbs and tooling startup).

CNC is so cool! The ability to take CAD to CAM and automate precision movements X, Y Z, I think is the cats meow!
I know it's basic 101 stuff- But we're really loving what you can do w/ all the software, hardware, and some imagination!. Love it!

The slide came from lm76.com What a cool site for stuff.

Ohhh Pic-
Engraver1.jpg

enjoy the fall weekend everyone!
CG

Engraver1.jpg
 
Hi Andy. It is indeed. It fits really nice on one of the quill stop braces that come off the unit.
:)
 
Update- CNC vid w/ Air pencil engraver mount for CNC mill.

Hi everyone! We'll finally had an afternoon of no chores, no IT projects and just me and my Mill! I've added to the thread w/ my CNC engraver I made from an LM76.com slide and a few parts & springs.
The Brass Token is for a member here in HM and its a work in progress. There is a new DXF to open up the facial features. As small as this is, I would say the engraver is a success overall! Wanted to share for all my fellow newbs on the site!

1) Used InkScape (free) to take a hand drawing and produce DXF output. (check YT Vids on how to Vector/.DXF output.)
2) Used Draftsight to take an R12 Ascii into Dolhpin CAD and then into DolphinCAM.
3) Used the dolphinCAM Scale and rotate to get what I needed for the size of the brass token.
4) setup in 2 passes of .0025 for the cuts.
5_ Used a Dremel very very small end mill engraver cutter.
NOTE- I could not get much from the half-round/ quarter round bits. I even tried to make my own. This seems to work best for me for starting out and learning with.
6) Some pics and a Youtube Vid below....
7) for the Z depth precision, I needed to replace my Thomson Ball Screw stainless balls w/ new precision .125 balls on the Z axis and Y axis. WOW what an improvement. The X axis balls just came in. Those go in this weekend. Before that my BL was set to .005 and I often would not even hit material. LOL :) The Mill is tuned and humming now!

Video Here: http://youtu.be/vNC4svuxgyY

CherryFace1.jpg CherryRig3.jpg CherryBrass2.jpg

CherryFace1.jpg CherryRig3.jpg CherryBrass2.jpg
 
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That's pretty cool. Would you explain the spring setup on the mount for the air grinder. Maybe it's something I need to do.
 
Thanks Jim! Kudo from you means alot! The vertical flex of about 3/4" started when I was looking for an engraver bit. (see this site: http://www.2linc.com/engraving.htm) Most of the guys here replied to my engraving thread w/ the use of the air pencil to achieve the higher end RPM's. 20K-60K. I knew from my experimenting that spring loaded seems like a great way to offer some vertical flex for certain bit types (which I've yet to master). Drag bits, and the HSS half rounds w/ super point angles .... I went w/ the best of both. Seemed like the way to go. I have a stop-set to put on if I do not want the springs in use. I'm into the practice and learn mode. I have the mill/cutter bits. I am looking for a good HSS half round to try as well. I would love to get a finer point. Been a fun project!
 
OK, I understand now. The link you provided made it clear. That concept is pretty cool, I need to think about it a bit. I'm still trying to get my head around the depth control with a spring loaded collet. Now I just need to figure out how to incorporate that into my holder system. I may have to build a special holder for my grinder, right now I'm just stuffing it into an end mill holder.

For small endmills and different engraving cutter shapes, take a look at these guys. I think they build their own products. They have just about every shape you can imagine, with tip sizes down to 0.001 http://bitsbits.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=3_68
 
Re: Update- CNC vid w/ Air pencil engraver mount for CNC mill.

Are you aware that you can use an extension in Inkscape to generate G-Codes? There's good info here www.cnc-club.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=35 I used Inkscape's fonts and ability to translate images to automatically (well, it took a little manual fine tuning) generate Gcode programs for engraving.

countryguy said:
Hi everyone! We'll finally had an afternoon of no chores, no IT projects and just me and my Mill! I've added to the thread w/ my CNC engraver I made from an LM76.com slide and a few parts & springs.
The Brass Token is for a member here in HM and its a work in progress. There is a new DXF to open up the facial features. As small as this is, I would say the engraver is a success overall! Wanted to share for all my fellow newbs on the site!

1) Used InkScape (free) to take a hand drawing and produce DXF output. (check YT Vids on how to Vector/.DXF output.)
2) Used Draftsight to take an R12 Ascii into Dolhpin CAD and then into DolphinCAM.
3) Used the dolphinCAM Scale and rotate to get what I needed for the size of the brass token.
4) setup in 2 passes of .0025 for the cuts.
5_ Used a Dremel very very small end mill engraver cutter.
NOTE- I could not get much from the half-round/ quarter round bits. I even tried to make my own. This seems to work best for me for starting out and learning with.
6) Some pics and a Youtube Vid below....
7) for the Z depth precision, I needed to replace my Thomson Ball Screw stainless balls w/ new precision .125 balls on the Z axis and Y axis. WOW what an improvement. The X axis balls just came in. Those go in this weekend. Before that my BL was set to .005 and I often would not even hit material. LOL :) The Mill is tuned and humming now!
Click to expand...
 
Re: Update- CNC vid w/ Air pencil engraver mount for CNC mill.

That is down right slick! Yet another thing on my list.
Dave
 
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