CNC machine working!

After nearly two weeks of messing about, trying to learn five different types of CNC controlling software, we eventually gave up trying to be different and fell into line with most other CNC users and installed MACH3.

Tom from almostobsolete is our resident G-Code guru and hand crafted some code, off the top of his head, to create a drawing. After pressing go, it wasn't long before we could answer his "can you tell what it is yet?" Rolf Harris style impression.



The video was taken on Robot Steve's Android phone but for some reason the video clarity is nowhere near as good as in his previously uploaded video...

What's pretty exciting about getting the CNC machine to actually work is that we've already a whole load of PCB layouts designed, waiting to be etched. The idea is to pre-drill the copper boards, then use press-n-peel to create the etching mask. That way, we don't have to worry about boards being skewed or starting off the drilling in the wrong place and knackering up an entire A4 sheet of pre-etched copper board!

Laser cutting boxes

Here's a quick video showing the laser cutter at BuildBrighton in action.
It's cutting out a box, designed using BoxMaker, from http://rahulbotics.com/personal-projects/boxmaker/?boxmaker.
The video was uploaded from Robot Steve's Android phone no less.