FEZ – Frederico Entertainment Zystem (5) – Back cover
Previous articles: part 1 – part 2 – part 3 – part 4 Progress! I’ve done a ton of work on the handheld over the past few days. I actually did mock something up in In... Read More
FEZ – Frederico Entertainment Zystem (4) – handheld test
Previous articles: part 1 – part 2 – part 3 It’s been a while since I worked on this, but now I have some time to spare, so i’ll try and get a prototype working. It’s go... Read More
Semi-automatic rubberband gun
I’ve been toying with a rubberband gun design I got from an Inventables forum member. The files needed some slight tweaking in order for the gun to work properly, but after a few iterations I... Read More
2-sided milling in Rhino – THE EASY WAY
I’ll let the video speak for itself on this one. But in case you were wondering, the hole was not intentional, it was a zeroing mistake. Mach3 still holds a lot of secrets … The script ca... Read More
V-carve: Aztec Sun Stone
I always like to do a V-carve when I test the performance of my machine, because it needs all three axis to work in perfect unison in order to get a decent result. But I just tuned my motors to the ma... Read More
Bamboo soap dish
One of the first things I ever tried to mill was this ‘Grunblau soap dish’ design I found by accident on the interwebs. It turned out that the project had too steep of a learning curve for... Read More
2016 upgrade roundup
Here’s a summary of the whole process of upgrading my machine from a pretty much vanilla setup to the beast I have at my disposal today: 1. X-axis stiffening 2. Y-axis and more 3. Re-assembly ... Read More
Shapeoko upgrade (12) – wasteboard + closing up
Last but not least, I decided to put a new wasteboard in place. I had 2 pieces of 6 mm MDF cut to 750 x 750 mm panels. Then, cut a hole pattern in both of them that matches my threaded insert spacing.... Read More
Shapeoko upgrade (11) – new Makita mounting brackets
Ever since I installed the linear rail Z-axis, my spindle hasn’t been mounted perfectly perpendicular to my bed. The old mounts were a tad flimsy and not 100% identical.  The widening of t... Read More
Shapeoko upgrade (10) – Gecko G540 / Mach3
I actually almost forgot to write a little something about maybe one of the more substantial yet invisible upgrades: I ditched the whole Arduino/Gshield setup and bought a real CNC controller: theÂ... Read More
Shapeoko upgrade (9) – Drag chain bracket
Next project on the block: making a new drag chain bracket. I actually made one ages ago mostly with hand tools, and it worked to a degree, but there definitely was some room for improvement. So here... Read More
Shapeoko upgrade (8) – Aluminium Z-plate
A new day, a new project. Today: cutting a plate for the final version of my Z-stage out of 4mm aluminium. Why have a plate and belt drive at all instead of direct drive? Well I mentioned this before:... Read More
Shapeoko upgrade (7) – New belts, pulleys and idlers
Ok, so now that I have the much more powerful 276 oz-in NEMA 23 motors driving my machine, I went on and replaced all the pulleys and idlers in order to have them accept 9mm GT3 belting. I do this... Read More
Shapeoko upgrade (6) – New motors
Phew. It’s been a while! As I mentioned earlier, I did some traveling and I also needed to do some projects around the house during summer, so there was hardly any time left to put into hobby... Read More
Getting lathe
A few months back, I bought a used cnc lathe. It is a converted C6 that -sadly- has been collecting dust since. You know how it goes, life gets in the way sometimes. Included in the deal, I got a shi... Read More
Leaving on a holiday…
But I couldn’t resist showing the upgrades I have in store when I come back. 🙂... Read More
Shapeoko upgrade (5) – Z-axis
Originally, I was going to start using my Shapeoko again for other projects after having completed the last batch of upgrades. But for some reason I got it in my head to order some more parts and kee... Read More
Gearing up (4) – my automated 360° rig is ready!
Previous articles about this project: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 After 2 days, my Shapeoko Z-axis bearing locked up again, so while I wait for a replacement, I figured ... Read More
Shapeoko upgrade (4) – First cut
Well it is finally time to test out my upgraded Shapeoko. I finished it by adding an LED strip underneath the X-rail and put the enclosure back over it. So here it is in all it’s glory: I must ... Read More
Shapeoko upgrade (3) – Re-assembly and troubleshooting
Final day of my Shapeoko rebuild. Once again, I did a lot of small modifications and corrections. First of all, I took out the locked up bearing I noticed the other day, and pried off the shielding. ... Read More
Shapeoko upgrade (2) – Y-axis and more
Today I proceeded with the Shapeoko upgrade. Nothing massive, but a lot of small things that took some time anyhow. I checked, and where necessary, fastened all screws/bolts. I flattened all of the ... Read More
Birthday card
Felix turned 1 yesterday, and since my SO2 lies in shambles, I cut a little card with the laser cutter. It’s the first time I used this type of foam cardboard on the K40, but it turned out perfe... Read More