Printed R&P X/Y/Z Platform from MPCNC junkbox

Just starting to play with the machine a bit, I’m focused on v-carve inlays at the moment. My first attempt wasn’t too bad but did suffer from a couple of spots of chip out that filled with glue and… so, didn’t look too bad from a “proper viewing distance”.

Doing “easy” laser inlays, of course, they never suffered from chip out as there was no physical contact between the material and the tool and the waste material burned/vaporized and was exhausted out as soot and smoke. Not so, here… the need for dust collection rears its ugly head…

I had wondered some time early on in MPR&P development, that if I ever needed dust collection, could I somehow use the Z-conduits since they’re already running right down to where the bit is? Maybe something similar to how I did dust collection on an early BuildYourCNC-inspired machine… before I ever knew enough to stuggle with design of a dust collection system? Well, that’s the inspiration behind this first SWAG dust collection system…

A couple of printed nozzles that lightly friction-fit into the bottom of the conduit, next to the bit, and can be swung out of the way (or removed) when changing bits…

And a printed manifold of some sort tightly fitted at the top of the conduits…

and that also receives the vacuum hose end that just drapes down and over the whole machine.

I need to get back on the inlays now and see how this works. It’s finally dawned on me the importance of surfacing the stock before cutting any inlays and have been playing with Jamie’s surfacing pattern generator to surface my small bandsawn planks.

I’ve never really worried about a perfectly uniform thickness of my bandsawn planks for my laser-cut, finger-jointed, boxes before as they were always “close enough” for what I was doing and also lent a handcrafted look to the finished product… but not so with v-carved inlays. The v-carve depth geometries involved are very tiny and uniform material thickness is crucial in order to achieve a proper inlay fit.

Later.

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I’ve rethunk my MPR&P dust collection system. The small pick-up nozzles couldn’t catch the coarse sawdust when surfacing a plank… each time the direction changed the waste would be sent forcefully in a different direction. So I decided a dust skirt would be needed in an attempt to contain the spray of sawdust. I used Onshape to design and print a magnetic dust collection pick-up head that incorporates a groove to hold some skirt bristles that @gadgetmind had posted to Thingiverse. I had some TPU on hand so printed the skirt as well… and sized the groove to take a double wall of bristles.

I also sketched and printed a new shorter transition piece for the vacuum hose where it enters the upper manifold…

My wifi has been acting a bit strange as well recently… but seems to have stabilized. I’m going to give RPi4 and UGS another try. I really liked being able to use my phone as a pendant rather than exposing a laptop to the sawdust…

Later.

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Alright! Surfacing a small catalpa plank with 1/2" dovetail bit (used as a surfacing bit)… with the new dust collector and skirt. It’s not perfect (the bristles could probably be a little longer when using this bit)… but it greatly reduced the amount of sawdust left to clean up and picks up almost all sawdust when completely over the workpiece.

I’m pleased with it so far. Now I probably should rerun the job using the unaltered Longmill gcode for the IDC feather… just to see how effective it really is.

Later.

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