CNC Progress

More sorting of pictures. This time, the CNC machine.
I've come along pretty far with this one, though I've had to stop due to funding and some more pressing projects, case in point the Bean's nursery. That should get finished this weekend and pay day on Tuesday, so I'm hoping to get it fully operational this week coming up.

This machine needs to run just well enough to cut the next machine. There is only a certain mark of  accuracy that I can achieve by hand. With each generation of machine cut by a more accurate machine the total end point accuracy increases exponentially.

The next machine will be of a completely different design, much simpler and cutting the parts count by more than half. The simplicity of the next design will enable them to be rapidly reproduced.

You can get an idea of the size and scale of the machine.

 Here are the motors roughly installed, the cutting bed has yet to be put in.

The cutting bed put in place and a pencil installed for testing in lieu of the Z axis.

A surplus equipment rack from work along with some salvaged equipment. Total cost on all of it. Zero dollars.

 This the the Y carriage bearing block.

Here you can see the Y axis moving freely.

That's all I have for now, more to come soon !

More R/C - The Spad XIII continues

Cleaning up some space on my phone I found these pictures of the progress on the Spad XIII.
Looks like I completely forgot to upload them after taking them.
Here you can see the progress in covering some of the control surfaces. I found the best way is to use an ordinary glue stick and litespan. The glue stick provides just enough "stick" for the litespan to be placed on the surface and then moved around without ruining it. Once the heat is applied the moisture content is evaporated from the adhesive and is cured when cooled. At the same time the mixture of materials in the litespan begin to shrink. With a bit of practice you can do this over the entire surface without it warping the balsa structure.

I have to say I'm rather pleased with the results being that this is my first attempt with this method. There are very few wrinkles, only in the tight compound corners, and everything is drum tight.

Where'd I Go ?

Wow, well I guess I need to start using these Internets more often.
Well that's a lie, what I need to do is start posting more and remember to take more photo's of my projects.
The current projects on the go are a nursery for the coming bean. It's half way done now and soon to be filled with cribs and rocking chairs. I'm in the midst of moving my computer/project room to the basement for now so I'll be losing some work space until the basement can be wired and dry walled.
I've also got 2 xbox's and a PS3 to repair, all of which are in bits and pieces awaiting spare parts to come in to resume repairs.
Here are a few picts of the PS3 in bits.

 The inner processy goodness.

 A rather smart looking heatsink and pipes.

You have to give Sony one thing, they know how to design a fan.

That PS3 was filthy inside. Here's the proof.