Ping J Larkin

Got any leads to them?

John

Yeah, I got a manual mill second hand. Not sure I even got my money's worth of use from it, but it was fun. And then scored a version of the lathe with some old weak steppers and an Apple II interface free in a lab cleanup. So I rebuilt the interface for a PC parallel port, mixed up the parts of the lathe and mill (they are pretty much interchangeable) and did some PCB milling briefly. Trying to make drivers for larger steppers actually... which never worked quite right.

Living in an apartment now without room for cast iron machines, it's nice to know the pair of sherlines are fetchable from storage if I find myself needing light machining capability again.

There are some eBay vendors with complete x-y devices for about $1300 delivered (but reportedly with horrific copy-protected software).

Might be easier to adapt that and just hook into the XY steppers. I think they move a mirror (prism?) or two and the laser tube itself stays fixed. Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Then comes some agency and throws a monkey wrench in there, saying that the vent from the fume hood contains gases that could endanger the Californian mosquito or whatever.

Makes me drool, too. Your fault :-) Thanks!!

Ed

Isn't there a laser cutting company around?

martin

Don't hold your breath. This morning the paper hinted that the Fed will probably hold the line regarding further interest rate cuts.

I don't think it makes sense to laser cut holes in diecast aluminum boxes.

John

Are "die-cast" boxes thin enough to punch, or do you have to mill them?

...Jim Thompson

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An old friend used to pop down to the local engaver to cut square holes in extruded ali boxes,

martin

Mill, pretty much. It doesn't punch cleanly, and it's really hard to get a punch/die inside the shapes.

We prefer extruded boxes with screw-on flat end plates, so we can fab the ends easily, like in the links I posted. It's a lot easier to handle connector penetrations, too, if the ends are removable.

John

This thing is only something like $2K, PC included.

John

After seeing a couple of pictures i cant help but think that it is a CNC precisionized Unimat.

There's no spacer block, but the head is mounted on a slotted bar that can be repositioned on the Y axis. I agree that extending it out much will reduce stiffness. But if you spin small tools fast and don't do agressive feeds on hard stuff, it's fine. It's ideal for little electronic thingies.

John