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Anyone interested in my Roland MDX-40 milling machine story?
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CrazyFool
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Joined: 07 May 2008
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

PROJECT 01 UPDATE: 2008-08-20

My training kit did not show up on Wednesday 08/20. Either DHL did not stop at my building, or I missed the driver. Trying to be patient. Grrr....

CF
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CrazyFool
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just found out why the Roland MDX-40 training kit I ordered on 08/06 did not arrive yesterday. BECAUSE ROLANDOUTLET.COM HAS NOT SHIPPED IT YET!! They simply printed a DHL shipping label on 08/13 (which is now invalid) but never scheduled a pickup so my training kit is still sitting in their warehouse. ARGH!!! I cannot express how unbelievably mad I am right now.
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ahillworks
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I hate it when they do that!. No worrie man it will be there. Give you more time to play around on that 3d program =) Think positive man Think positive! Very Happy
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CrazyFool
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 3:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The training kit I ordered finally arrived in the mail. Woohooo! Truthfully, I was a bit underwhelmed when the kit arrived. I'm not sure what I expected, but the only unique thing on the CD is one Flash video with no sound. However, it is a pretty long video and it could help a lot. The rest of the CD basically contains the (very spartan) user manuals in digital form, which I already have. The two drill bits ('mills' or 'tools') it came with are nice and the yellow blocks are some kind of super lightweight sculpting foam. The training project is to sculpt what looks like a basic 'BlackBerry' or 'Palm Pilot'. I hope to begin sometime this weekend.



My biggest reservation at this point is that my Roland MDX-40 came with zero training materials and it's been very difficult to find anything online. But... I've been thinking about it and my hope is that the manuals are thin because operating the machine is fairly simple. That is my hope anyway, but it might be true. If so then the bulk of real work is not on the CAM side of your project but on the CAD side (where you sculpt a design with your chosen 3D software program). That does make sense. Well, here's to hope!

CF
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Stomper
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

WOW... cool!


What are the dimensions of the "milling bed" (for lack of a better name)? What is the approx. maximum sized piece that could fit in that thing? I know somebody who has some computer files of a DC-17 (Republic Commando) blaster he wants to have CNC'd for a master mold...
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Tony Krewson
FEAR... is not my god!!
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CrazyFool
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 02, 2008 3:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I got absolutely slammed at my 2nd job (apartment manager) over Labor Day weekend. Some guy split with no warning and moved to Russia with his mail order Russian wife. I think he's going to teach English there. Whatever. In addition to stiffing the owners for August rent he also left behind EVERYTHING that he owned (including years of dirt and grime). I swear, I don't think they cleaned their bathtub once in 3 years. And the toilet was so bad I pulled it out and installed a new one. Anyway, it ruined my weekend and I have more work to do today so I'm behind schedule again on this thread's project. I did manage to pick something to sculpt though so that's good news. I will share the design here soon.

Stomper,
Thanks man! At this point I am only eager to work on projects of my own as I've had this expensive MDX-40 machine over a year and haven't even made anything for myself with it yet. Argh! I'm not sure when (if ever) I will be taking requests from other people. But I might be able to point your friend to a forum where other machine owners could potentially mill the object for your pal. (PM me.)

CF

P.S. I'll have to check the bed measurements (or whatever it's called - I don't know either!) Laughing
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CrazyFool
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

We had a 6th month old baby abducted at the apartment building I manage. At the same time I was asked to start making more vacuformed signs for the Gotta Lube oil change business. Sigh. I can't seem to catch a break here, but I still hope to go through the MDX-40 training CD this weekend.

CF
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jegner
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Keep chipping away at it. I know I have projects lined up that IF I were able to work on them every day, it would take me a couple of years to catch up, thats how far behind I am. LOL.

Jim
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Stomper
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hope they found that baby!!


Jim... I'm in the same boat as you.... YEARS TO GET CAUGHT UP!! LOL


I still keep getting request almost EVERYDAY for new projects on top of that... but I have to turn them away as this has become almost an "obsessive grind", instead of a relaxing hobby! Shocked
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jegner
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Stomper wrote:
Hope they found that baby!!


Jim... I'm in the same boat as you.... YEARS TO GET CAUGHT UP!! LOL


I still keep getting request almost EVERYDAY for new projects on top of that... but I have to turn them away as this has become almost an "obsessive grind", instead of a relaxing hobby! Shocked


Tony, man I know what you mean. BTW, I hope you had a good 'holiday'. No one bothered your stuff while you were gone, I hope!

JIm
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CrazyFool
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

!!!VERY FIRST OBJECT SCULPTED!!!

I vowed to finish this first carving over the weekend and boy did I do everything BUT start. Finally, at 2 am on Sunday night (Monday morning really) I sat my rear down and went for it. I'm just finishing up now at 1:30 pm Monday afternoon. That's an 11 1/2 hour marathon. But hey, mission accomplished. Actual carving time was about 2 hours. The rest was installing software, calibrating the machine and ((cough))("choke") reading the instructions. Wink


Roland MDX-40 carving front surface of object

Sounds a bit loud in the video but it's quieter than my laser printer.


4th Axis Unit rotating object to carve back side

Try watching this one 'full size'. It's easier to see what's going on.


Very first finished object!!! (Hand held PDA mock up.)



PDA mock up rear view



One thing to note is that this was just a beginner's practice project. The material was a fairly porous foam and the two tools (drill bits) used were very large at 0.125" (1/8th inch) in diameter. One tool had a flat end for roughing and the 2nd tool had a round end for finishing. I have much, much smaller tools (e.g. 0.003") for super high detail and am looking forward to trying them out on materials like wax to create some (hopefully) really cool finished products of very high quality.

CF

P.S. OK. I'm taking a shower and going to bed! Laughing


Last edited by CrazyFool on Tue Sep 09, 2008 4:48 am; edited 3 times in total
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jegner
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cool!

Thanks for sharing. What sort of material is the part made of. Resin? Urethane Foram? Seems to have a texture surface, is that intentional?

Again, cool stuff, and thanks for sharing!

Jim
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CrazyFool
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks man! It's some kind of Styrofoam that came with the training kit. They didn't specify exactly what it was. It does have a slightly bumpy surface. Not my choice for a production project but okay for practice.
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Indigogyre
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I thought the videos were cool and it seems quiter then an old fashioned dot matrix printer. Yes, I'm that old that dot matrix printers were the hot new printer back in my day.

When you design the part do you specify the path the tool takes or does the machine translate that for you?

Oh, I loved the fact that you stayed up all night and then took images of the part in front of the coffee pot! Smile

Thanks for sharing and I'm excited to see what you start to do after your first few tests. Good job on the part and the efforts you are making.

Dean
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CrazyFool
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 09, 2008 1:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Indigogyre
Hey, up until a few years ago a place I worked at still used a big dot matrix printer! Man was that thing loud. It had to be fully enclosed. When the 5 layered reports came out you had to feed them into a 'decolater' to separate the 5 copies. Blech!

I was very worried that the Roland MDX-40 would be way too loud, but thankfully it's quiet. I even took a short break to eat and watched part of John Carpenter's "They Live" while it was cutting. Cool

When you design a part in your 3D software program of choice you save (export) the object as a .DXF or .STL file. These files contain no data other than the object's shape. They contain no lighting or motion or color data. They look like wire frame drawings. Then, whatever CAM software you are using (my machine came with something called 'Modela Player 4') looks at the exported file and creates a tool path automatically. You have to tell the CAM program the dimensions of the material you will be cutting, what kind of material it is (wax, wood, etc), what drill bits you plan to use and some other stuff. I'm still learning all of that. There are a lot of options. If you don't like the tool path you can also modify it. And you can cut with most milling machine's like mine manually. Say you finished sculpting a part and wanted to drill a quick hole in it. You can move the drill bit with your mouse and cut a hole manually.







All the blue in the last image is in reality many blue lines that represent cutting passes the drill bit will make over the material. There are so many passes in this fan example that it looks like one big, blue blob.

CF

P.S. The baby abducted from our apartment building was found, but the mother is still working with the police to get it back. A relative snatched the baby and took it out of state.

P.S.S. About coffee. It was a 'Destroyer' white chocolate (with peppermint) quad shot mocha from the local espresso stand that made this post possible. Shocked Very Happy
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