fusion 360 – Page 3 – Woody's Workshop

August 6, 2022August 6, 2022

Gadget Builder Drill Point Inspector

A 3D Printed Version of John Moran’s Drill Point Inspector

John Moran has an excellent website that details all manner of engineering projects. He is a keen advocate of four facet sharpening of drill bits and he details a Drill Point Inspector device for checking grinding results. I quite liked the concept and thought it would also be a useful asset for checking the condition of milling tools. The design uses a small inspection eyeglass magnifier lens that can be flipped from end view to side on view for tool tip inspection.

Those who know me through my blog will know that I am of a lazy disposition which tends to cause me to step back and look for an easy way to manufacture something. John’s design immediately suggested to me that a conversion to a 3D printed equivalent would be a practical solution. I also picked up on a comment that John made that you needed good light to be able to view the drill point clearly. As a result of this comment, the 3D design evolved with the addition of a simple LED illuminator. I also added a ‘right angle stop’ so that when hinged for side viewing, the lens was held more repeatably.

Because the inspector will only be used now and then, I opted for two small hearing aid batteries as the LED power supply together with a single resistor and switch. I printed two slots in the cavity for a pair of nickel silver battery contacts to sit in.

View into the battery and switch cavity. The battery contacts are bent pieces of nickel silver or tinplate

The design was modelled using Fusion 360. The two parts of the body were 3D printed. The Perspex viewing graticule was CNC milled to size and the reference comparison lines were also engraved on the CNC. The inspection lens is available from many sources on EBay (x30 21mm). The inspection screen mounting holes are 3D modelled. Here are a couple of shots of the finished model.

3D Model of John Moran's Drill Point Inspector showing the model flat for end viewing of the tool — Model hinged flat for end viewing of the tool (the LED is just visible)

3D Model of John Moran's Drill Point Inspector showing the model hinged at right angles for side viewing of the tool — Model hinged up for side viewing of the tool

Note that the addition of the LED illuminator needs the modelling of a cavity on the bottom surface of the main body. When printing this part it will be necessary to have the printer provide support structures. I also printed a cover for the cavity but this could be an offcut from an old credit card or similar thin plastic sheet.

Once printed I found the parts needed slight ‘fettling’ to remove any surface striations on the V block section, in and around the hinge section and around the eyeglass mounting slot. That aside it printed fine and the parts went together easily. More to the point it works well and is a useful tool to have to hand.

The Fusion 360 file and STEP files for the main two model parts are available in the following ZIP file. If you need additional information please get in touch.

drill point test jig v11 Download

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July 23, 2022July 23, 2022

3D Printed Knob Variations

How I Create Robust 3D Printed Knobs

First of all an apology … colour has arrived as I have finally migrated to the WordPress Guttenberg editor from the Classic Editor. The Classic is due to be phased out in the near future so I thought I had better jump before I was pushed. I can see the advantages this offers but I am still getting to understand the different way of working.

That aside, onto the post …

The problem with creating 3D knobs is that they can lack robustness unless they are made less dependent on the printed material. There are various ways round this but the easiest method I have found is to embed a conventional metal thread or nut combination. This allows you to be as stylish as you want with the shape of the knob while knowing that the core locking material is resilient to twisting.

A couple of good examples that I have produced recently are a replacement knob for holding the cover of my BK3 bandsaw in place and one to allow hand tightening of a U bolt clamp to a pipe.

The BK3 clamp required a protruding thread (male) while the U bolt clamp needed a female style. Both were designed in Fusion 360 and embed either a nut or a thread and nut combination as the following images will show. The basic form of the knob is similar in that is has a cavity for the chosen nut size and for the female form may or may not have a through hole. The 3D printed body can be as fancy as you want to make it. I have been pleased with the basic shape shown below as it allows a firm grip to be applied.

Depending on how tight you can make the fit of the nut, the female form may need a dab of SuperGlue to hold the nut in place in the printed body and the male form will need Locktite on the thread and nut.

While both of the versions shown above have a boss for the nut cavity, this could equally be inset into the main body of the knob so it finishes flush. Next time you shorten a screw, save the thread offcut for future use on a knob.

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April 4, 2022April 4, 2022

Windows 10 upgrade surprise

The desktop computer in France was running on Win7 and Fusion 360 needs Win10 or above. I brought the machine back with us to the UK and decided to upgrade it to Win10. I’m not yet prepared to step up to Win11.

As part of the upgrade I took out all the existing drives and fitted a 500GB SSD. I loaded Win10 which went to plan and used the same email address and PIN entries for the user ID as I use on my UK machines.

Win10 came up with the usual generic blue opening screen and I then sat and began to plan what programs I needed to load for use in France. After about 15 minutes the blue Microsoft desktop screen disappeared and was replaced with the same desktop image that I use on my UK screens.

So tell me how does the new SSD and Microsoft know that this is my go to image for a desktop ? It can only be registered in the Microsoft cloud storage against my account details. Which is slightly worrying.

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February 9, 2022February 11, 2022

Experiences CNC machining Aluminium Composite Material (ACM)

I had a recent request to machine some panels in 3mm thick ACM. This has a polyethylene core sandwiched and bonded between two thin sheets of aluminium. The sizes of the various panels requested could not be easily accommodated on my Tormach PCNC440 CNC mill so I had to dust off my CNCEST 3040T baby router. Five out of the six panels would fit inside the 3040 working footprint but the sixth required me to revert to a two setup movement of the workpiece in the Y axis. My write up of this stepping process for oversize objects can be read here.

The CNCEST 3040 has a maximum spindle speed of 10k RPM and is controlled using Mach3 with all the frustrations that brings to the party plus manual tool changes etc etc.

I received DXF drawings of the panels and these were imported into Fusion where they were simply extruded to 3mm before processing in Fusion Manufacturing. Each CAM operation was exported as a separate function into Mach3 regardless of tool changes. This gave me step by step control.

I used a 12mm thick MDF sacrificial (spoil) backing board to mount the panels. As all the panels were of the same general dimensions this made mounting the panels a repeatable process using a fixed matrix of woodscrews into the MDF. The 12mm depth of the mounting board made the tooling pin reference holes for the Y move much more rigidly fixed and as a result more repeatable to use.

The main problem encountered was that the ACM does not readily adapt to machining with conventional end mill cutters. I tried using my stock 2 flute parts and these would skim on the top aluminium surface while the plastic underneath deformed to the Z axis increasing pressure. Once sufficient pressure was exerted the tool would finally bite into the aluminium and punch through into the plastic with a noticeable ‘clunk’. This played all sorts of havoc with the Z axis height referencing and also lead at one stage to the Z axis stepper coupling working lose.

The solution was to go to a single flute spiral cutter style. These were purchased from APT Tools (UK supplier). Hot knife through butter comes to mind with the result of this change.

Single flute spiral end mill from APT Tooling UK — The single flute spiral end mill from APT Tooling UK

For straightforward hole cutting I used standard PCB carbide drill bits from Drill Services (UK supplier). These are nice to use as all have a standard 1/8″ shank which makes tool changing a little bit easier.

Once all these frustrations were overcome the process became much more repeatable albeit with one or two curved balls due to Mach3 lock ups. Have you ever enjoyed trying to manually re-reference a half finished job ? …..

The finished largest panel that required a two step movement in Y axis

More accumulated knowledge gained and lots of black plastic swarf (chips) to clean up before it could migrate everywhere into the house.

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December 5, 2021

Haimer Taster and vacuum table retrospective thoughts

Today while in the workshop running a CNC metalwork job and then following this with running a quick PCB artwork, the following came to mind.

These days since I bought the ITTP Hallmark probe I rarely use my Haimer Taster to do my referencing. It still has its uses but less and less so. A good example is when remounting the CNC vice on the tooling table. I use the Haimer to give me a running check on the vice jaw axis tracking. Beyond that the ITTP in conjunction with PathPilot probing routines meet all my referencing needs to a level of accuracy that suits.

The other thing that stuck me is how automated my process for milling printed circuit board prototypes has become. Fusion 360 Electrical module becomes more familiar to me with each passing project. It exports my PCB designs as Gerber files to import into FlatCAM. After a few clicks in FlatCAM I have a GCode file for drilling and routing. The PCB blank is gripped on my small vacuum table ready for milling and the ITTP probe references the spindle. My recent use of kitchen anti-slip material as the sacrificial layer between PCB and vacuum table top surface has made the grip on the vacuum table so much easier to achieve. The overall PCB process, whether single or double sided, has become quick, easy and repeatable. Once the board is milled I can get a reasonable looking tinned finish using a hand soldering iron and copious amounts of flux.

Techniques almost subconsciously evolve and sometimes you need to step back and see how far you have come along the road. The alternative view might be that this ‘lazy man’ has just become even more lazy.

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