Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Shop Update - Modeling Again

Since I can't find anything in the tech news worthy of writing about, back to my modeling of the parts of my motor driver box. 

I had to move things around, as has always been the case.  This results in the back panel looking like this:

The DB-9 connectors, which carry the motor drive signals, are now in row of four at the top, instead of a 2x2 array between the holes for the fan and that square cutout.  That cutout (for the DB-25) at the right has moved a bit, as I changed the way the breakout board will mount.   You probably already figured the array of holes is for the cooling fan, and that's right.   It might help to compare this to the last picture here

I've located every hole that I need to make, and will use a combination of my Sherline CNC and old skool layout with squares, rulers, and pointy scribes.  This is the bottom.  The front is very easy. 
You might notice that the bottom drawing here includes ordered pairs of the center of each of the holes.  Makes it easy to enter into Mach3 to drill the holes (G00 X4.54 Y4.15).

The odd part to this story is that I haven't actually drilled any holes yet.  I've had a few distractions.  Nothing bad, but one of my intents when I retired was to fish more.  Between my rude introduction to gout in April and my emergency surgery in June, it was a very inactive year and we haven't had the boat out at all since I retired!  We fixed that Monday by taking a few hours to go chasing the elusive fish, and then a few hours to clean up.  You'll note that I said "chasing", not "catching".  I've also had to adult a bit. 

The next few days look good, though.


4 comments:

  1. It looks like the time spent on modeling equates to a much lower scrap metal rate.

    Looking forward to the post on fresh caught fish recipes.

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  2. Looking good. I don't know what CAD package you are using, but have you looked into Fusion 360?

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    1. I haven't looked into that. I'm using Rhino, and have been for about 10 years, from version 3 to 5. They're working on ver. 6, which I'm free to play with. It would take a pretty good combination of features and price to pry me away from them, I guess.

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    2. Fusion 360 is free for hobbyists and startups and companies making less than $100,000 per year. And it is both CAD and CAM.

      NYCCNC on YouTube has a bunch of videos showing the capabilities of Fusion 360. AutoDesk (of AutoCAD fame) apparently is going full bore after Solidworks.

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