What's Crack-a-lackin' my dogglets,
About 2 years ago or so I bought a DIY mini CNC milling machine/engraver. It came in about 500 pieces. You had to read the Chinese instructions and pictures, figure out just what in the hell they were trying to say in a very badly translated document, and attempt to put it together. Then, once you figured out you screwed that up, you had to take it apart and put it together correctly. I'm pretty handy with a tool or two, however after a while ( a year maybe ), of failure., I gave up and called my Buddy Jack. Yay! CNC 1, Mike 0
One weekend a few weeks later, a Sunday I think, Jack came over and assembled this machine for me. I acted as his tool bitch and his gopher and handed him tools as needed, went and got ones I hadn't thought of, and did all the grunt work it to put it together. Even with a superior mechanic (Jack I mean, hell not me) willing to work on my "science experiment" on his only day off in a month, it still took the better part of an entire day to assemble this beast. All I had left to assemble after we were done was to hook up the circuit board, and since I was the computer guy, I figured no sweat. It turned out I didn't have the right power supply cord and had to order one. Yay! CNC 2, Mike 0
So I waited four or five days and Amazon delivered the power cord. I plugged it up to the board and immediately "let the smoke out" as they say, watched the pretty electrical arcs fly, flipped the breaker to the room, and then watched the board melt. Yay! CNC 3, Mike 0
I unplugged the machine, reset the breaker, tested the power supply and it was still good and figured out I had forgotten to use the standoffs (little parts that elevate the piece away from the frame) as I installed the board, which grounded the entire board at once. This is what led to the meltdown, and it was entirely, 100 % my fault. No big deal, I didn't appear to have actually damaged the machine so I went online and figured out where to get the board from on the manufacturer's website. They had extras listed so I'm guessing this might have happened before. I saw a couple of different kinds, read that they all used the same input power and thought, OK, while I am here I will upgrade the board and ordered the model that was one "better" than the one I had roasted into fine PCB powder. In Amazon time, the new board was delivered and I carefully assembled it, and installed it to the machine. I got to messing around with the CNC Machine learning the various elements of it and such and thought, let me see if I can test cut something. I sent the appropriate commands and the machine started to make efficient humming and moving sounds and started to trace the outline of the text file I had sent it. Wow, I thought, I am finally getting the hang of this thing. Yay! CNC 3, M .....wait a minute. Hmmm, that's strange I wonder why the cutter isn't turning. OH I forgot to plug the cutter motor so the spindle of the cutter won't cut because there was no power supplied. Well let me just plug this thing In and we will be on our way. So I looked, and looked and couldn't figure out where to plug it in. I went back to the manufacture's website to see if I could find a schematic and `voila, nope sorry no `voila. Little tiny letters "To power the spindle please obtain a separate 12 VDC power supply", curses foiled again. Yay! CNC4, Mike 0. This thing is kicking my butt, I bought it about 15 months ago and ain't done crap with it yet.
So, I researched and bought a separate power supply. It came about 30 days later because Amazon had no way of getting it here quickly and I wasn't taking any chances. I didn't bother my older Brother with it, although if I had he could have probably made me one with the stuff in his junk drawer that would have been faster and would have performed just as well, but what do I know. I'm just an anxious crash test dummy that is trying to learn something sort of fun and new. I'm trying to not let my brain atrophy sitting around watching reality TV all day.
So once the power supply came in, I hooked it up, the spindle came on immediately and ran at full steam. After unplugging it and diagnosing where I screwed up now, I corrected my wiring and plugged it back in. The spindle issue was solved. I got back to the point I was at about 1 month ago where I was going to try a test cut and it was at this point where I just knew I was going to have the help of somebody who was more patient, had better diagnostic skills and didn't want to start beating this piece of crap with a hammer, which is where I was mentally at this point.
The cutter came on, the machine started up, the test file was the one they supplied and it started cutting. A minuscule less than 1-2 mm representation of the outline of the test pattern that was supposed to be almost 3 inches wide is what was coming out of the machine. I pulled the plug on this thing, pondered what to do, almost picked the whole thing up, and headed for a trash can when it struck me I knew what I should do. I should have called Bob. He is my brother and asleep with a cold he could have made this thing do his bidding. Yay! CNC 5, Mike 0
At this point I have owned this thing for 18 months or so and have put it away several times in order to let my brain cool while I contemplated how to best set it on fire and watch this damn thing burn.
After a couple of more weeks, I called my friend and great diagnostician PJ. She was in the Navy and was used to making old pieces of crap perform at a high level and she worked on Navy Machines too, and she was pretty patient and might even view this as fun. So she agreed (did I mention she is the wife of the guy who put this thing together for me?) and we made arrangements for the upcoming weekend I think it was and we would get it running. I'm ok with google, However PJ makes google her bitch, and she was able to diagnose what the problem was in a couple of hours. We had to reset the globsnobinator to read the right whacketyflackit scale or something like that, and once we did that the test file ran perfectly!!
Yay! CNC 5, Mike 0, PJ 1. It's a friggin blowout ladies and gentlemen. Mike is having a bad outing and everybody is hitting home runs except him.
So anyway fast forward to today, 2 years into this one purchase, I am nothing if not persistent. There has been a total of 4 boards (Its a long story) and new upgraded software twice and a whole different board setup (Like I said It's a long story), learning to use software to create my own designs and I am hooking everything up and discover that the NEW board, even though it says it runs on 12 VDC, that's actually down stepped (or whatever it's called) from what it really takes which is 24 VDC, and guess what? I have to have another different power supply cord which I am currently patiently waiting on Amazon to deliver.
Yay! CNC 40, Mike 0, PJ 12
Gee, I hope they don't ask me to write a review for this thing.
- Did you know that there are literally hundreds of Coronaviruses? Have you heard of SARS, MERS, the common cold? These are all variations of the same kind of spiky virus. There are at least 4 additional ones like those that circulate in humans that cause some level of distress, and some level of sniffles, sore throats, and body aches. Scientists have estimated that there are more viruses in the world than there stars in the universe. Luckily, most of them are harmless or we have learned to deal with them.
The dangerous thing about COVID-19 is that our species has never met it. The biggest difference between this virus and most others is that it can remain active on some surfaces (like countertops) for as long as 3 days. I believe this part because they have also identified organisms that somehow don't need oxygen to stay alive and some that can survive the vacuum of space. - One group, I feel empathy for in terms of the disruption to their lives (and I haven't tried to consider everyone) is folks who were part of graduation ceremonies that should have happened this spring. High school and college kids that won't feel the pride of "I did it", that won't get the handshake, that won't get handed the empty diploma frame. High schoolers worked 12 years for this culminating event and then what? A zoom speech where you wear the cap and gown on camera? It beats dying of starvation for those of you who would deride my train of thought, to be sure, but it still sucks to work that long and then have it pulled from underneath your feet. I agree it had to happen, I'm just noting, for the record, that I agree that it sucks.
- In Minnesota, a man shot a $1900 drone out of the sky. I am not 100% sure of the circumstances, but he wasn't at home, it wasn't about privacy per se, and he was just pissed about it being there at his workplace I believe. He has been charged with criminal damage to property and reckless discharge of a weapon with the city limits.
He should have shot it in secret and not announced he was the one that killed it. - The Rocks 18-year-old daughter Simone has signed a contract with the WWE, making her a fourth-generation wrestler from her famous family. He says he is very proud of her. I'll bet she does a great job and makes a ton of money.
- I just read where Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, is going to be the world's first trillionaire. I wonder if he is the "they", that all the conspiracy nuts are talking about? He must own the Illuminati too.Click here to read about --->The Invention of the Illuminati"They wanted to bring chaos back into society to shake things up, and “the way to do that was to spread disinformation. To disseminate misinformation through all portals – through counter-culture, through the mainstream media, through whatever means. And they decided they would do that initially by telling stories about the Illuminati.”
Later Tamater,
BigMike
I would have used it for target practice
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