Modular.

I didn't get done fiddling until around 3am. I ate my dinner and went to sleep.

Tonight I game with my friends, so I am mostly going to have a day off. However, I did do at least something.

I needed a way to distro the power to the fans and pump in the cooling box. All small jobs, but all need doing. The only thing I had was this.

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Which I was not sure would work. It takes power through a SATA connector and the connector on the right side is only the tacho and pulse from the board. So I was concerned that even if I shoved it with power nothing would happen unless it was getting a pulse signal from the board. I also was not sure if it had a controller on it as I don't want to peel the thick foam off the back, and thus if I shoved power in it would it blow up?

Seems not.

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I didn't have any spare SATA connectors or pins so I just soldered on using this.

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Hence why the solder touches more than one pin. It's fine, and it offers a more secure anchor. I might even solder the PSU directly to it, if it ever arrives. "Totally in the UK honestly" and then your parcel spends two weeks "On its way to courier"

Yeah. From BLOODY CHINA.

My only last concern with it was "Will it be able to take reduced voltage". Yes, yes it will. Here it is with 5v going through it.

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So that is done. Won't fit it in the case yet as like I say I will probably lop off the barrel connector and solder the PSU directly to it.

Oh and Gareth and another engineering pal pointed out the end mills I had bought were not end mills but burrs. Both showed concerns. However, Gareth, being the super star he is has mailed me some end mills (real ones) so that's sorted.

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IIRC the spoil board and vacuum head come tomorrow. Though I am not in a rush to start destroying valuable acrylic, so slowly wins the race.
 
ALXAndy said:
I will look into that, cheers
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You'll need something that can do massive squeezing force like an Arbor press. My half-ton arbor press does the job, but a one-ton would be easier.

Best of all is actually a standing hydraulic press for consistency and also no issues getting your workpiece into position (the arbor press can get in the way), but we're talking silliness now for some limited use.
 
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I can't have anything like that sadly. So no drill press either.

To put it in perspective? I am currently modding out of a 2.5x3m room. With a bed in, 150cm desk, pedestal with a huge A3 printer on, dresser, etc.

Sadly I have 15 bikes in the loft, and it is not a walking loft. So I can't put anything else up there lol. Well, unless I want it in here.

At home? I have a very small flat, and it is visited by a care worker every week. So making a mess there isn't an option either.
 
Update ten - I nearly broke something.

Any way, before we get to that let's go back to last night. Last night I fitted the fan hub and left the power wire hanging out the back for the new socket I will be fitting.

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And wired it in.

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Our test subject.

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Today the spoil board and vacuum thing finally came. Though I was a bit concerned about running it with the dust shoe on being first cut. For some reason at first I could not get the spindle motor to start in Easel, and I accidentally started which dragged the bit along the perspex making a sickening sound. Thankfully I chose to use a crap bit that came with it (big old fat bugger) and so it didn't snap.

I then cut it.

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And it worked perfectly. The only bugger? it left tabs on there and I don't know if you can remove them. I did not know it was going to do that, so in my haste I cracked the piece trying to break it out.

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Though thankfully because of what it is? it doesn't matter any. I will have to take those off, though, which is annoying as they are about 2mm thick.

The only other thing? it's really, REALLY loud. Like it totally surprised me just how sodding loud it was. I am going to have to try and do something about that. Get something under it to stop it making the floor vibrate.

EDIT. OK so I found out how you remove the tabs. Cool. That will save a lot of headaches going forwards.
 
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Yes....and also, no. What, you were expecting simple?! :D The reason for the tabs is that it keeps that piece from moving about when you cut it even approaching free. The problem with that is if it fouls the cutter and either causes it to deflect into a piece you didn't want cut, breaks the cutter or the cutter fling the loose piece at you. If you can hold the loose piece down so it won't move you might get away with it. If not, you might be able to cut the inside bit out leaving the tab on the remain bit and if you can get it back in exactly the right place (you'll need two stops) then you can run the program again (or part of it) to remove the tabs....or just use a file :D

If you're putting it up on something to stop the vibration transmission, perversely you want to make sure it's not too soft. If the bed can twist, things may move while it's cutting and you'll lose precision.
 
That tape is strong. Like, really, really strong. I don't need the tabs tbh, at all. It also didn't foul up the bit so I will deffo just be taping everything down.
 
Update 11 - "I'm not perfect, but I'm perfect for you".

OK. So after yesterday's attempt I was feeling really down. Mostly because I am a noisy bugger and I don't mind noise. Problem is the machine was beyond noisy. And I mean, so loud I did not want to operate it. Which left me feeling gutted, and almost had me ditch the project. Even at home that would have been worse than my 15" sub.

I figured I would give something a try. So, I grabbed the enormous rubber desk mat that came with my desk (bit too young for me) folded it up and put the machine on that. Bliss. Seriously, I ended up turning off the hoover because it was twice as loud as the machine.

So, with my confidence restored a little I designed the IO for the water cooling unit.

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OK, so what is going on there? well, there is a 25mm carve. Like, 2mm deep. I wouldn't have done that and it made the cut take 30 mins, but the through fittings are not deep enough to be able to be done up on 5mm acryl. So, I got fancy, and carved them in 2mm.

I have also changed the settings. Instead of trying to go all the way through and continually hitting the spoil board (which DOES make noise because its on an alu bed) I cut at 4.8mm deep.

I did have a serious issue. For some reason the software doesn't understand my dust shoe, and it was refusing to go anywhere near the acrylic. In future I am just going to tell it I don't have one. So I did mess up at first and wrecked a 20mm square in the bottom right corner. That's OK, as I just jogged the machine over past it, and it probably would have ended up as waste any way, being so small.

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So, that is a 1.4mm burr in action. Might be a burr, but holy crap it's doing amazingly well !

After 30 mins.

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Success. I just need to crack out my Dremel sanding barrel bit as I am afraid of cracking the 3mm area. Will do that in a bit, and possibly get that fitted into the cooling box a bit later.

Oh BTW. I think what I cut last night was extruded, 'cause it didn't look like sherbet to me !
 
The burr should cut the acrylic but you can see the melting you're getting around it. Looks like it cleans up ok in this case but with a proper endmill you shouldn't get that - or if you do, your feeds (too low) and speeds (too high) are wrong.
And result looks good and that's the main thing.
 
Cenedd said:
The burr should cut the acrylic but you can see the melting you're getting around it. Looks like it cleans up ok in this case but with a proper endmill you shouldn't get that - or if you do, your feeds (too low) and speeds (too high) are wrong.
And result looks good and that's the main thing.
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Feed rate. I only ran it at 250mm. It took 30 mins to do that, but the holes were pockets. But yeah, baby steps. It's OK wrecking the corner of one piece but not a whole sheet. Next up I need the socket for the back (another very small piece). Which gives me more time to learn.

BTW are you sure that is melting and not the wrap on the acrylic?
 
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Update 12 - "Hmm, I am pretty sure it's not supposed to do that !"

OK so today's task was to finish drawing the reservoir and pump mounting brackets. Be nice, I am new to this. Besides, these are functional items not meant to be pretty.

I cut the reservoir one with no issues. I had increased the feed rate and cut depth though. Problem is the bed is not level (I don't even have a level, let alone a level surface) and it shows. When it goes to the right it cuts deeper. This, combined with my faster feed rate *and* deeper cut depth *and* the fact I should have used more tape to stick it down resulted in an all out failure on the pump mount.

Basically it cut the four holes for mounting, then went to the square in the centre. It cut that out completely, then it flipped up and got stuck on the spindle where there are no cutting teeth. When I freed it? it obviously lost its bearings and just started yamming through the acrylic willy nilly so I hit the stop button.

Reverted back to previous settings, but reduced the cut depth too much and thus when I snapped it out it left the edges a little ragged. TBH by this stage I was done caring, I just wanted my mounts.

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A short while later.

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So pretty, wish I had some spare cash to grab one of my own and have a play.
ALXAndy said:
Problem is the bed is not level (I don't even have a level, let alone a level surface) and it shows.
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Perhaps, or equally likely your acrylic stock isn't flat. Cast acrylic never is, and the thicker the stock, the more wavy it can get. I've seen manufacturers give tolerances of 10% + 2mm before now, and have had 5mm stock be over 6.2mm thick in places.

I worked out my printer's plate was warped using the side of a metal straight edge and testing the nozzle touching the plate at a known depth with some cheap feeler gauges. But you can compensate for that in 3D printing, not such much with milling. I wouldn't know where to start in suggesting how to tram your wee unit.
 
Ideally what I need is something softer than MDF to go on top of the spoil board. That way when the bit goes through it will just eat through it and not damage the bit. Will need to think about that before I cut the rear panel, which will be the hardest part to do (it will also take about 1.5 hours). I am also sure that if the bit was not a burr that wouldn't be so much of an issue, and IDGAF about the spoil board. But the "bit" I have on there *really* doesn't like going through MDF. It also makes a really horrible racket !

TBH dude this thing really is my dream toy. I've been waiting 15 years for it. I will also get the larger bed too (it's £50) because that will enable me to go from ITX to MATX lol. One tiny piece left to do, then some plumbing, and the cooling box will be complete. I fitted the pump and res earlier so yeah...
 
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If you wanted to get fancy you could always make your own spoil board with a boat load of mounting and reference points for screw mounts and pegs out of Acetal. Helps massively with repeatable positioning if you did fancy things which required two-sided operations or you had to remove the work piece to do something manual and put it back. Plus you can face it all down so it's flat and trammed to the motion of the spindle.

Plenty of places on eBay do offcuts of various sizes and thicknesses for not stupid money.
 
Hardboard works quite well if you have any. Hell, you might even get away with cardboard providing you don't need tight dimensional accuracy.
As for level and tram. Two totally different things. Neither is going to make much difference if you're moving it about though - as soon as you lift it, the frame will twist and when you put it down, it'll settle in a different position. You'd only see that with a dial indicator or a dial test indicator (first is a plunger, second a needle).

First question is are the feet of the frame made so you could screw them down to a piece of MDF to make the whole thing more rigid and stable? Next question is whether they are adjustable to level the bed.
That might get you a level bed and once stable, you could mill it flat (if those endmills have turned up). The tram, you'd need an indicator and a mount but you'd need to check whether the spindle tilt is adjustable anywhere; no benefit in knowing that its ****** if you can't change that.
 
Loving the mill work here! We've had a laser cutter for a few years (partner makes acrylic jewellery) so I had to learn 2D design. Like you, 3D eludes me but I can do technical drawing and vectors on paper, so adapting to Inkscape wasn't too painful.

I was eyeing up one of these little CNC mills after trying to make distro plates and reservoirs on the laser. No way to do blind channels for o-rings consistently. And gluing clear acrylic so it's water tight, is almost impossible to get pretty.

Looking forward to seeing the finished box :)
 
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