Hi All,
So I’m documenting / posting some pics of some of the stuff Ed has brought into the metalwork area recently
First the welder
This looks like its in a much better state and is more adjustable than the ancient small red mig I brought in a while back, so I’m all for keeping this one
Appears to be made in Germany and comes with a better mask than what we’ve got as well (although tbh if I was using this I’d probably use my own mask)
Next on the list is the kilmn
The frame looks like it’s been tack welded together, there’s nichrome wire inside, a thermostat on the top.
I think it’s just missing some wiring and a door to be honest.
Size (outside) is around 16 inches front to back, 14 inches top to bottom, 13 inches left to right
The frame elevates it around 4 inches up
The firebrick is around 1 inch thick
Inner dimensions are around 11 inches front to back, 8 inches top to bottom, 7.5 inches left to right
If we avoid the topic of smelting, I’m thinking it could be used for hardening metal (making custom cutting tools for the mill / lathe) or blueing
(2) Home Machine Shop Tool Making - Making A Versatile Bluing Tray - YouTube
Metal CNC
The 4th Axis is defintley a keeper, since those go for around 100 quid on amazon and that would be useful on more than one cnc
Rather crude PSU on top
The control box provides speed / adjustment for the spindle and stepper drivers
but there’s no computer in there, just a usb input from whatever device you want to connect to it (such as a pi or a laptop)
I’m guessing internally it’s using one of these for the control
https://buildyourcnc.com/item/electronicsAndMotors-electronic-component-breakout-Mach3-USB-Board
Its in a box with a plastic door on the front
I think this is a 12V pump for the spindle, maybe running oil through it
Gave it a bit of a clean down with the vacume / air compressor
There are manual knobs on the steppers on the side, although the one on the Y axis is unreachable while in the box.
Not sure of the spindle specs so far although we do already have a bag of ER11 collets that should fit it (the existing wood cnc is er16, but we had an old shapeoko no longer with us that was ER11)
Notes for myself in case we need to build a bench
Wood Box 620mm front to back
500mm top to bottom.
450mm left to right
The psu stands about 240mm upwards from the wooden box
Control box is around 320mm front to back
330mm left to right
170mm high
total height would be 500 + 740 = 640mm
Random bits
There was also some random bits including a leather jacket, some screws and an angle grinder
Did a bit more digging on the cnc
I think the spindle is powered by a vfd sitting in the control box (similar to our wood cnc)
It’s labeled PRT-E800W so I think is a 800W motor
The machine itself has the “CNCEST” logo on
I think it’s one of these - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/324775808117
4 Axis CNC 3040 USB Port 800W - £800
looks a bit like this but smaller
Being a smaller axis might actually work in it’s favour as far as cutting metal since it’s more rigid.
I think water cooled spindles can go to lower rpm’s but I’m not sure of the torque
I suspect it should manage aluminum at least
Resistance on the nichrome wire on the “Kilmn” is around 17.5 ohms
230 / 17.5 = 13.1A if wired direct to the mains
Thermostat appears to output to an SSR although we don’t have one of those at the moment on this
So there’s an SSR missing, and it may need some power resistors to increase the resistance of the wire. I’m not exactly sure how these are setup normally
There’s also the cost of the electricity to consider.
Another option might be to just drill some holes in the sides then push some blowlamps through
Looks like the controller board is a bit of a pain
it’s only supported by mach3 under windows
or https://drufelcnc.com/ which is free (Windows again) but only for 5000 lines of g-code
although it would be easy to replace with something else (little red board with screw terminals at the back)
Currently googling options for linuxcnc on a rpi
Remora (linuxcnc driver) on a pi4 with a Bigtreetech board looks like a cheap option
Overview — Remora documentation 0.0.1 documentation (remora-docs.readthedocs.io)
I have a couple of 4 axis esp32 CNC boards if that’d be any use, i think they cost me about 50 quid all in for part cost, happy to do one to the space for 30?
I’ll chip in the 30 quid for the board, assuming we get the ok to put the cnc in the metal area.
Since it’s a team question, I just need to wait on confirmation before starting to build a bench for it 
So current discussion in the team metalwork is we have it located in the cnc room, since the wood lathes are moving out, sent a message to the cnc telegram group for comment.
I’m thinking we could stick it on the desk in there temporarily until the wood lathes are gone.
