CNC Mill or computer numerical controlled milling device is used for automatically milling or cutting away at materials like wood, plastic, or softer metals such as aluminum based on a 3D computer model.
Akin to a 3D Printer, the CNC provides the ability to work with objects in x, y, and z dimensions. However, it provides subtractive manufacturing, rather than additive.
The sudo room sign by the intercom at the old 22nd st entrance was milled on such a machine!
The Noisebridge wiki contains much knowledge about using CNC mills for example TO MILL CIRCUITBOARDS: https://noisebridge.net/wiki/MaxNCMill
Our CNC Mill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIGDspzMHD0
We have a real CNC Mill as of January 2015. It belongs to Pam and is on-loan. It is a myDIYCNC link cnc thing
Problems: For some reason, LinuxCNC thinks "home" is at 5.5", 0", 0" which is not where I would home it. I put sharpie marks to indicate the center of travel for X and Y, which is 6.0",3.5". I set the proper numbers in the configuration but it doesn't do what it should. Whatever.
You need to boot the computer to the LINUXCNC operating system, not the Ubuntu 14.04 installed by Big Ed
The USB adaptor it came with is total garbage, and the software offered by "my DIY CNC" is proprietary, so it is plugged into the parallel port of a desktop computer instead, and we are using LinuxCNC software as seen here: http://www.linuxcnc.org/
We'll be learning how to use this and adding more documentation here.
The Past
- JacksMill In the past jack lent us his CNC mill which we used to cut wood. It was at the old SudoRoom. It is no longer at the SudoRoom but it left behind some awesome memories.
