It is hard to believe that it was almost ten years ago I witnessed a CNC router in action for the very first time. I was fascinated with what I saw and simply had to have one! Although I had been in the creative end of the three dimensional sign business for most of my life I didn't really know what I would do with one - but I just knew it could do fantastic stuff.
Through extensive research and LOTS of hands-on practice I quickly found out that my MultiCam router was capable of just about anything imaginable.This journal will chronicle that journey to date and continue each week with two or three entries as I continue to explore just what is possible with this wonderful tool... -dan
Showing posts with label Four axis router - first project. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Four axis router - first project. Show all posts
Today, being Saturday was sort of a day off. Janis was busy with horse stuff and so I had the time to do what I wanted in the shop. It has to be fun! And what could be more fun than doing the last of the painting on the balloon and then hanging it in it's permanent home in the studio.
I dragged my tallest step ladder in from outside then drilled some holes in the vaulted ceiling and securely fastened in the strong aircraft cables I had bought for the occasion. Then it was time to 'fly' the balloon into position. This balloon was definitely heavier than air! It didn't take long to secure everything perfectly. A few touchups made it all ready for the photo shoot.
The first four axis routing project is now officially done!
The ballon will be 'towing' a wavy banner that has our name on it. This is advertising after all.
I decided it would wave both vertically and horizontally for maximum effect. And a quick measure showed a 4 foot long banner was the right size. I created the basic vectors and lettering in Illustrator and then imported these to EnRoute.
The next step is to size everything (as one unit). Then I added a border around the letters using the outline tool.
I created a flat relief and then imported a bitmap called Splotches from my TEXTURE MAGIC collection. I selected the banner and the bitmap to light up the button shaped like a mountain and sky. I put in a value of 0.15 to create a subtle texture over the entire surface.
Then I selected the banner and the lettering outline to raise this area slightly from the background. If I had wanted this area to not have texture I would have built a separate relief and merged them later.
Last up was the slightly domed lettering which was raised 0.15 off the outline to make it easy to paint later.
The new MultiCam took care of the routing in a hurry. Then it was time to do a little bending. I had bought a heating blanket some months previous. It is controllable and will heat to 400 degrees. I put it under the banner with it raised off the table and let the heat soak in good. A full bucket of paint and block of Precision Board provided the weight I needed to provide the bending force.
When I was happy I turned off the heater and let things cool. The result was a banner that looks like it is flapping in the wind.
I mocked it up behind the balloon to check it out. And it looked pretty cool. Now it is on to paint.
I assembled the nose cones with screws and PB Bond 240 - a one part glue from Coastal Enterprises. It is activated with a spritz of water and tends to expand some as it cures. this meant I would have to do a little cleanup and shaping with mu die grinder but this was no problem as I intended to cover the nose cones with some Abracadabra Sculpt to add some details.
The covering on the nose cones as well as the hand crafted cables around the balloon instantly took away from the machine made look - just what I wanted. the balloon now matched the gondola underneath.
Once the epoxy sculpting medium had cured to was time to apply a coat of FSC-88 WB primer. This primer is heavy bodies water base primer from Coastal Enterprises. I applied it by hand with a small brush to introduce a little more texture over the entire surface.
And once the primer had cured it was time to start in on some color. I'll be using all acrylic paints as per our norm. The metallics are from Modern Masters and look great - even on the first coat. Everything will get a second cot and then I'll start in on the glazes to add depth and some aging. It makes me giggle when I see it in the shop. It is going to look pretty cool against our blue ceiling in the studio library.
For the nose cones of the ballon I decided to use the 3 axis part of the router. It was a quicker way of doing things in this case. I first measured up the balloon to determine the angle and size of the nose cone, then began building the file in EnRoute. I would use the revolve tool to build a mesh and then convert this to a relief. The red lines below show how I lined things up to a box of known dimensions.
The screen shot below show the settings I used to create the mesh. I skipped the first screen where I selected the contour to be revolved command.
The mesh lights up red when selected and the view button is turned on.
I then drew a vector box around the mesh. I used this to create a zero height relief.
I selected both which allowed me to select the merge mesh to relief button. The round option allows the relief to be smoothed as desired. I left the smoothing amount in the middle. I also selected merge highest.
Then I hit apply and the screen capture shows how the red of the mesh peeks through a bit. I know the procedure worked as intended. I then deleted the mesh.
The next task was to create the slices I needed in order to fit my nose one pieces into a piece of 1.5" thick Precision Board. The screen shot below shows the perimeters I entered to create two slices. Doing s creates the slices I need without touching the original file.
I pulled out the two slices I needed and selected them and then moved them to the bottom of the plate.
Then I duplicated them to make four copies. I flipped over the top section so they fit together nicely.
I created an offset vector line of 0.7" around ill the pieces and then made a zero height relief. Then I merged the pieces of the nose cone to the new relief and then deleted the cone pieces.
This created the routing file I would need.
I tool pathed the file with a single pass using a 3/8" ball nose bit and an 80% overlap.
With the relatively large tool it didn't take long for the MultiCam to cut these parts.
Next up we'll glue them together and onto the balloon. After that is is time for a little sculpting to make it look like everything was hand made. Stay tuned...
On Friday it was time to put our first real project on the four axis MultiCam and give it a whirl. IT would be the hot air balloon. We would cut it from a large block of 30 lb Precision Board measuring 14" x 14" x 20 " long. We had previously drilled a hole in the center of each end and driven in a pipe. This would be our clamping point for the lathe. The routing operation would be in three phases. The first was the true lathe mode. Here we would assign a steady feed rate for the y axis. The z feed would be done in three passes as a straight line across the piece each time. The second operation was the roughing done in four passes. This was done with a half inch ball nose bit with a 50% overlap. The final operation was the cleanup pass done with a 3/8" ball nose bit and a 95% overlap. A higher than typical overlap was necessary because the piece had a big diameter and the degree of rotation meant a greater distance corresponding to the distance from the centerline. Here's a short video showing the various passes...
As soon as the piece was done I removed the steel pipes, drilled a hole and mounted it to the driver's cab. It was looking pretty close to my illustration already.
in the next installment we'll be designing and routing the nose and tail cones for the balloon to finish off the sculpting process. Then it is off to the paint department. Stay tuned...
Today was a day of WHAT IFS! Sean Kirsch and Craig Sior had worked out all the hickups on the MultiCam fourth axis machine and now it was time to start figuring out the things that were now possible. We started with a basic barrel shape. A raised and bevelled letter A was added for good measure.
While this file was proved on the machine someone asked for a bent branch with textured bark. It took some figuring out how to achieve it but using a mesh created in EnRoute and then merging it to the relief and then adding healthy texture from the TEXTURE MAGIC collection we were able to achieve it. Each time a file was sent to the router everyone would rush from my office to see the MAGIC happen first time on the machine. As the file was slowly revealed by the router a high five would be the celebration and a new idea - even wilder than the last was immediately brought forward to raise the bar once more.
Then Mark Hurt asked the question whether we could fabricate a column with Rapid Texture wrapped around it... matching perfectly on the join line and on each end so they could be stacked. It ooh a little head scratching but within a short time the file was ready to test on the MultiCam. Huge grins and high fives were again the order of the day as this test was successful.
With the setting up and numerous tests now complete our minds race to the future. Each step fuels wonderful ideas of the next step and the step after that. A whole new world of possibilities suddenly opens up. What is possible?
Six years ago I clearly remember the day we pushed the GO button on our first 3D project on our new MultiCam router. It was with pure wonder and amazement as I watched the router magically go back and forth on our block of Precision Board and revealed a piece of art within.
This week we were privileged to host a gathering of some extremely creative and intelligent people, some of the leaders in the routing world. We were joined by Jeff Hartman, one of the creators of EnRoute Software, Shawn Kirsch, head of product development at MultiCam, Craig Sior, motion control engineer from MultiCam, and Mark Hurt, a MultiCam power user from Hawaii. The purpose of our three day gathering was to both start the first 4 axis projects on our new machine and to talk about what is going to happen from this point forward.
Machine parameters had to be set, dependent on how we were going to use the machine. Every possible facet of the four axis operation was discussed. Initial goals were modest and logical but it wasn't long until more and more complex projects and possibilities were being tossed out. One idea led to another and to another and to another. All was done in good humor and good company.
The first project we put on the new machine was an oversized Coke bottle. I had designed the file a while back, but now was to time to prove the theory and make it all real. As it happened six years ago when I watched the MultiCam route our very first 3D piece the MAGIC was about to begin once more. We chucked up the block in the rotary attachment and set the machine in motion. Here's what happened...
We first used the router in full lathe mode to round the block. Then we used a 3/8" ball nose bit to create the Coke bottle. It took some experimentation to determine overlaps needed to provide a smooth surface. Once the machine had dome it's first pass at the magic we ordered a second pass on select areas with a 1/8" ball nose bit to clean up the lettering and bottle cap.
While far from perfect, the first piece off the router was cause for great celebration. We had gone from zero to sixty in only two short days. Tomorrow the discussion and dreaming continues. Most of the technical talk goes far over my head. No matter. It is one of the greatest of opportunities ever. The new software and capabilities of the four axis MultiCam and EnRoute software will be driven from both an artistic and technical point of view. The creators of the machine and software are working together with myself and others to go far and fast towards endless creative possibilities.
This week five folks put their heads together to see what is currently possible and more importantly to discuss the future direction things will go. This is but the first of many pieces we will do. Already there are far more exciting projects in the planning stages. The folks at MultiCam and EnRoute are working hard to figure out ways to make it possible for us to bring these visions to life on the CNC router. While I watched in awe the first time I saw the machine magically operate six years ago, this time around is even more wondrous for I now am starting to understand the hard work, endless trial and error, and incredible behind the scenes labor and thought required to make this magic possible.
The three days together will only be the starting point of this exciting adventure. Now the real work begins as the folks at MultiCam and EnRoute create a working software pared with the machine to allow myself and a host of others to create our artistic visions relatively easily by inputting our ideas into a simple interface on our computers. It will certainly take considerable time and effort to achieve.
Back in May I posted this how-to. Since then I've reworked it a bit with a better understanding of how it all works. In a few days we get to try out the file!
Like the files we currently build in EnRoute for our three axis MultiCam, I am discovering there are no end of solutions of how it will be done for the four axis router when we get it next month. Many of the four axis tasks will build on the capabilities of the current software. In many instances the files can be build as they are now and then the reliefs simply wrapped to form the fourth axis files. A thorough understanding of the current software will give us a leg up on what is to follow.
In the last months I have been searching the net to find out just what folks are doing and how they are doing it. What I have found out is many are using '3D clipart' and simply modifying the files to route in the round. It's not that much different than what is happening in the 3 axis world of routing. But I want to do a whole lot more than that. I want to build anything I can dream up. Even with the very limited things I have thought and dreamed up so far I believe I will be able to use EnRoute to achieve most of what I imagine for the four xis router. And since I've discovered that many things that some told me would be difficult or impossible to do on a three axis machine were indeed possible - imagine what will be possible with the four axis machine now in my shop.
As I sipped a Coke and did some sketching it occurred to me how difficult something like a Coke bottle would be with a three axis router. Difficult but not impossible. But with a four axis setup it suddenly became relatively easy. As usual it is as simple as visualizing the various bits and then combning them for the finished result. Let me take you through the process...
It only took a few seconds to locate a good picture on the net of the Coke bottle I wanted. It was the old style with embossed lettering. I also located a bitmap Coke logo. I did a vector trace of the bitmap image of the logo and hand traced the bottle profile in a few seconds more. EnRoute is very good at that task.
Sweep to rails is a task I am now familiar and comfortable with. It looked like a flattened Coke bottle already. This was merged with a zero height relief.
Now it was time to add the flutes. I lined the Coke bottle picture up with the relief and drew two appropriately sized shapes...
These were then duplicated across the bottle. I counted the number of flutes on a real bottle and then sized and spaced then accordingly. I then modified my relief to form very subtle flutes across the bottle.
The lettering was next. Unfortunately I neglected to grab a screen capture of the vectors for the next picture. I squished them together to deform them horizontally. The thing to remember is that as we wrap around the center axis the thicker part of the bottle will stretch out the surface (by virtue of its distance from the center axis), bringing the lettering back to it's proper shape.
The bottle cap was next. I created a zero height relief and then modified it with the oval shapes. I made them 1" tall and domed steeply. The parts sticking off of the zero height relief were cut off sharply when I merged them of course.
I checked the side view and saw they needed tapering at the top.
I chose to modify them with a fade bitmap It worked out to be 0.6" that made them blend into the top of the bottle cap.
The next shot shows how the blend bitmap affected the ridges of the bottle cap.
I then resized and positioned the file before merging it with the original relief. Except for wrapping it around the center axis the file was complete. This screen shot shows how the lettering was squished horizontally in the original file. As it wraps it gets stretched out appropriately.
The MultiCam drivers will convert the flat file I made in EnRoute to wrap around the centerline of the bottle instead of moving in the X axis like it does on a flatbed router. Until I show the result on the router here's a simulation of roughly how it will look.
