Psychotic Break Build - Aluminum Frame

[@TravisFabel]

Thank you for this video. These are exactly the type of parts I wanted to use the CNC router for. Aluminum brackets out of plate that don't look like I made them in my garage with a hacksaw. Lol For the same reasons that you said you made this video kind of for yourself that was perfect for me. I really appreciate you putting it on video for us to see.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Glad it helped!

[@_desertwalker_]

Gday from Western Australia RC. Those parts look fantastic. What a lot of work you did for our benefit. Thank you very much, it is appreciated.

[@nsrstevenson]

Certaily, one of the best educational video on the net, thank you Robert. Would or could a similar job be done on a desktop smaller machine! suggestions please.

[@markselig311]

I am building a Lowrider 2 from V1 Engineering and hope to be able to do this type of work on it. Very promising to see that someone else has used a router to do Aluminum. I plan to use the Lowrider 2 to help raise the money to get a better more robust machine down the road.

[@jamiewilliams6763]

Very useful video! I've had problems with coolant and MDF. You will most definitely see swelling leading to a change in depth of cut.

[@brnktv]

Great video. Well spoken, detailed, and informative with no bullshit fluff. Thanks!

[@jamescullins2709]

Awesome job, it looks great and your description of how you did it was very good... please do more aluminum projects. Maybe show the cam setup on Fusion 360.. my weak spot. Thank you.

[@WinstonMakes]

Doing as much material removal as possible manually is an excellent tip. And I know it's only a small time savings to model up placeholder stock for the rest of the frames, but me personally... I've been known to spend 30 minutes in Fusion to save 10 minutes at the machine. :P

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I need to leave SOMETHING for people to complain about ;-)

[@JosephHarner]

Definitely worthwhile if you're expecting multiple runs of a part. For small runs or one-offs, though, yeah, you may be wasting time improving a process that was good enough.

[@Thefreakyfreek]

@@RobertCowanDIY thank you very much

[@Thefreakyfreek]

Jep I know but it's just so much fun to make it as fast as possible and see I fly true your material

[@archiespeaks3161]

Relief cuts are a must to extend to life of our tool no matter what material you use.

[@hondarevable]

Thank you I will be going forward with my purchase of the avid router. I was torn on if I should go plasma or router for aluminum. Your videos confirmed what I was hoping.

[@andrewwaters2354]

Cool parts!if you profile the cut outs instead of pocketing them it will be quicker and you'll save more (valuable as in solid versus chips) material for recycling. Chips are worth nothing compared to solid aluminium sheet/billet. I know you dont have air blast or coolant so this is just a tip that might help someone else!

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I covered this in the video. Profile cuts are slower and the cut quality is much worse. I would have saved minutes versus the adaptive tool paths. In terms of recycling the chips, the whole piece was about $10 worth of metal, so the recovered cost of the aluminum would have been minimal and not worth the time.

[@MarkSmith-ut2eu]

We use 3M 77 glue on the aluminum to spoil board. Holds great! You need lacquer thinner to get it off. That way you don't have to pocket out the whole part.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

That stuff gets gummy when it gets warm though, right? I would worry it would let go if it go too hot. I'm really liking the painters tape and super glue method.

[@thesilkkradle9558]

cool recording mate. gives me more confidence the cnc i want to buy will do what i want

[@JonathanRansom]

I bet that was fun to clean up afterwards!

[@archiespeaks3161]

Great video..nice design of the part!

[@apocalypticangell]

Awesome video! Would love to see a video on your dust collection. I see a lot of cnc routers struggling with that but yours seems to work amazingly!

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I MIGHT get around to this video, but it's an Oenida V3000 3HP dust collector.

[@masterd4712]

Great video brother. I was searching for a similar video exactly as you did and this is probably the first useful one that I found. I am considering buying a machine close to the one you have and I was wondering all this time if those routes have the "balls" to make a real and functional part and also good looking. So your video answers all my questions. Thank you so much for taking the time to show what we can expect and actually produce with those machines. Keep it up. Wish you all the best brother. :)

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Thanks!

[@createforcuriosity225]

Sooooo cool, will try to do same thing with my DIY CNC

[@luisvalencia3436]

how much do you spend in that cnc ? congrats it is working great

[@olsonspeed]

A beautiful part, too nice to send into combat.

[@rickmccaskill7888]

Thank you. You answered all my question on cutting aluminum on my home built CNC.

[@tkskagen]

Nice Simple, yet Lightweight Frame Design! Take care, 🤓 -Thomas Western Washington State

[@dcraig4]

This might be weird. Ok it's weird, but as you were putting down the frame at 0:49 I was hoping you'd insert a sound like the Tormach "logo" hitting the vise that they use in their intro.

[@ryancollins5111]

I love the 2 independent peice design I really hope u continue with that in future builds

[@RobertCowanDIY]

thanks!

[@tamapartyrentals]

Thanks so much I was looking for something like this I have a Axiom Precision Cnc, but i had never cut metal on it, I see you dont need coolant fluid to cut aluminum on flat bed cnc is that correct?

[@taavikoppel1769]

I am interested in the engineering side of this. How much weight did you save compared to just laser cutting this aluminum in 2D. Did you do simulations or generative design to come up with the areas you can cut from the plate. Are there other material alternatives that can get similar results... or how do they compare.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

There's a lot to explain here so I'll try and gloss over some of the details. If the part didn't have any cutouts at all, it was about 3 pounds PER part, which is over the entire weight budget for the bot. The pockets on the underneath side saved around 20% I believe. So without those, it would have been nearly half a pound overweight. They were significant in weight savings without having to make the structure unnecessarily thin. This allowed me to keep the width of the frame relatively high, maintain 0.25" overall thickness, but achieve the weight I needed. I didn't do any simulations or generative design. That was the original goal, but with all the videos and side-projects, I ended up not having time to do the math, I just went by intuition, and what I felt was appropriate.

[@phillhinkler3174]

Nicely put together video, the machine sounds and looks to be cutting the aluminium without to much trouble at all. Have you considered using a profiling toolpath instead?

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Others have asked this, the profiling is much harder on the tools and the mill, plus you have to go a lot slower. I chose to just clear out all the material instead, it didn't take that much more time.

[@matt_tompkins]

When you said you swapped to a single flute endmill, where did you get it and what were the specs on it? The frames look great! Well done and great video as always!!

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I'd have to dig it up, but it's an amana signle flute ZNR coated. Check amazon, nothing special.

[@jdbrinton]

I notice you were touching the milling stage when the program was running (16:48). Super dangerous. Very easy way to get hurt. I broke my hand doing something similar once.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I disagree. That's the dust shoe. It's loosely attached. There's VERY little risk of injury. Your circumstance may have been very different.

[@clinton8432]

Great video and content. Thanks a bunch

[@jamescullins2709]

Yes please do a video on Fusion 360 CAM. Thanks great info.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Sorry, I don't actually use Fusion360! I use a really old outdated version of the CAM in solidworks. I'm not sure how helpful that would be. There are some really good channels that talk about Fusion360 CAM though.

[@jamescullins2709]

Yes, there are, but I really like the way you explain what your are doing and why. Thank you great job@@RobertCowanDIY

[@RobertCowanDIY]

@@jamescullins2709Thank YOU!

[@LucidFX.]

Awesome. Were you using Air assist/air blast

[@Hirudin]

Nice vid and machine! Word on the KZbins is that buying a license for Fusion 360 gives you a license of HSMWorks too. I don't know the details of the deal, but I've heard a couple people say it, so I'm assuming it's true. I wish I knew about that deal back when I was still using SolidWorks and paying full (subscription) price for HSMWorks!

[@michaelgiraud3163]

This is true. The full HSMWorks is now bundled with the monthly, 1-year, and 3-year Fusion 360 subscriptions. Its a great deal if you have Solidworks.

[@ebeeks]

Did you have to use a special bit for aluminum? Or is it the same kind that you can use on wood?

[@dave20874]

Can you give us more info on how you made the fixture? You mentioned machining holes in it to hold the aluminum. Are the screws directly into the MDF or are you using T-nuts? And it's nailed to the base, any concerns that could tear out? I'm new to CNC and these fixturing techniques puzzle me.

[@CraigHollabaugh]

Excellent video. Thanks for putting it together.

[@thechipwelder1253]

Looks professional man!

[@robo9466]

The frame looks super cool! I have two questions: 1. Where did you buy the aluminum? 2. When I watched mechanical ninjineer’s 3lb battlebot build, he used either polycarbonate or HDPE. What’s the advantage of using aluminum?

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I buy the aluminum on eBay. It's REALLY easy to find. There's a seller in Colorado, so I get it in 1-2 days. But it's really common. Aluminum is much shinier. Try polishing HDPE! But seriously, aluminum is significantly more rigid and doesn't break as easily. Metal is in general a lot stronger than plastics, but heavier.

[@loganhughes2935]

If you use plastic in a battle bot, it will snap a lot easier than aluminum, aluminum tends to chip more than plastic.

[@robo9466]

Robert Cowan oh I see. That makes sense! Thanks for the help!

[@loganhughes2935]

I don't think that metal would be likely to "bend" in a battle bot. Put if you bend 3d printer filament or Plexi glass to far, it will snap.

[@Thefreakyfreek]

@@RobertCowanDIY and not as brittle as some plastics so it just maby sandwich alu-palstic-alu

[@tomresink7189]

Thank you! this is very helpful!

[@davidthompson9359]

Wow, you answered several questions I had rolling around in my head about the AVID CNC cutting aluminum. Great Video. Which spindle size do you have in this video?

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I have the 2.2KW spindle from them. Check out my overview video, I show my setup. It's just the NEMA34 and 2.2KW spindle.

[@tokolosh11]

Nice. Did you use any lube on the aluminium to stop the chips from sticking to the bit? Stet that you covered it later in the video...

[@imaginarypoint]

Thanks for a great vid! What size of motors are you running your your kit? nama23 or nema34? Thanks in advance.

[@FDHuston61473]

Great work! Thanks

[@LR-qi9rj]

way late comment I know but if you increase the spindle rpm to max(24k im assuming) you'll be able to cut much faster. Ive been able to cut 160 ipm using a 6mm 1 flute end mill at .125" doc

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Yeah, I've since increased the RPM, especially now that I have my coolant setup working properly now.

[@vgnfab]

I noticed we have the same horizontal bandsaw. How do you think in your mind about changing those plates out to go between horizontal and vertical? In my mind it's such a pain in the ass I only ever do it if I feel I really have to. I'd love encouragement to see it a different way. Enjoying the video btw.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Ha! I've been thinking about a way to have a 'quick release' that allows me to easily add a table for vertical operation, but I haven't thought of a clever solution yet.

[@squarehat]

Out of interest what is the power of the bandsaw and the blade you used? thanks, Steve

[@pooyamohaghegh3212]

can you use the debris leftover to melt and cast parts?

[@GaryWilsonDigital]

Thank you for making this video. Really awesome information and btw, your a great teacher. :-)

[@EleanorPeterson]

It's very beautiful. But... it's too beautiful for fighting! When I was building bots out of bits and bobs, it didn't matter when they got trashed. Rebuilding was quick and cheap, and the poor dears looked just as grotty after being resurrected as they did before getting wrecked. The death of a bot wasn't cause for solemn mourning, but an excuse to knock it back together with a big hammer. (Not a big hamster. They hate it when you do that.) Also, I thought somebody should add the word 'aluminium' to the Comment section for this (fine) video. Yes. I'm evil and cannot be stopped. Al. You. Minny. Um. Ooh, that feels good... ;-) I believe that 'titanum' was banned from combat robotics for an improper syllable count, too...

[@gearheadmetalfactory6402]

How long did it take you to build this magnificent design of a combat robot?

[@michaelsavarese491]

Love your videos. Keep up the great work!

[@jimbmakin7975]

Looks great! Love the look of raw polished aluminum. I've had some issues with clogging bits when cutting aluminum on my workbee, even with a single or 2-flute end mill. Idk if it's because my depth of cut was too low (0.25-0.5mm) causing it to use mostly just the tip of the end mill. I've since installed a cheap mist coolant system using trim mist fluid which has eliminated clogging but seeing you chew through aluminum without clogging has made me rethink my feeds, speeds and DOC ;) Also out of curiosity, could you recommend a good chamfer end mill for aluminum?

[@trialnterror]

Clogging I found is caused from heat (wrong feeds/speeds) and cheap bits.

[@CraigVanSickleAK]

Great job! Thanks for sharing.

[@TheCNCDen]

It looks like you made this had work both on the CNC and off it. Inside profile cuts, offset then a clean up pass, then you're chamfer. Less stress on the endmill, far faster and simpler.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

You're not wrong. I think my biggest mistake was carpet tape. I should have just used painter's tape with superglue. I was getting shifting with the carpet tape and that was a big problem.

[@TheCNCDen]

@@RobertCowanDIY I think they are the same, tbh the screws you used would have been more than enough to hold 6mm plate down, knack is not to over tighten. You would only need tape on thinner material where a higher risk of bowing might ocurr and the part wasn't suitable for vaccuum holding. It just appeared to me that as these were through holes and not pockets, thus a profile cut was the better operation. Sad as I am, I have even cut more parts out of bits left over, something you can't do with a pile of chips from pocket operation. End of the day the part looked great so no matter, job done!

[@TR-yn5tb]

Inspiring.

[@LG-ro5le]

What chamfer mill bit do you use? I would like to start using chamfers

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I just used a spot drill for this, works good enough.

[@kenvanness2828]

I am interested in purchasing an avid 4896. I would like to hear your thoughts on their machines. Do you find it accurate and stable. Do you notice any end play in the X, Y, or X axis?

[@RobertCowanDIY]

This is a loaded question. Is there play, yes. Is there also play on my Tormach? Also yes! It really depends on what you're cutting, what tolerances you need to hit, and what you're trying to do. For MOST projects, I find it accurate enough. I can (with a little bit of tweaking) accurately make bearing bores and cut parts with relatively close tolerances in aluminum. For wood, it's more than adequate for anything you'd need to do. I find that with a little bit of extra work, I can make parts equal to that of the Tormach, but the surface finish is lacking due to a lack of rigidity. It's a large machine and there will be some play, but if you can work around it, it will do what you want.

[@kenvanness2828]

Thank you Robert. My plan is to use it 99% of the time on wood and wood products. I will be using it to machine cabinet parts, surfacing large table tops, and 3D carvings. Thank you for your time and thoughts on the avid machine. Looks like I will placing my order within the next few days.

[@Javi_royale]

Hey rob what machine brand and model is used in this video

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Check the description.

[@donaldburkhard7932]

Do you save shavings to melt down to ingots for casting things?

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I don't. I should I guess, but I've not done casting and it's not really all that useful for the stuff I do. Cast materials are significantly weaker and not desirable for my projects.

[@istvanmaasz6771]

If you would've taped down the full part, wouldn't you just need to cut out the part and it's center parts? Or maybe leave tabs? Seems such a waste of machine time to get rid of all the material even though you would just need a line to be cut (that's why I didn't understood why you are getting rid of material in the first place :) )

[@RobertCowanDIY]

You're not wrong, but when you're cutting at 100+ IPM, it doesn't take very long. Slotting is much slower than an adaptive tool path. The chamfers too the most time by far.

[@automaticprojects]

Great video. Well worth the wait. What are you using for dust collection? I have a Jet JCDC-2 that moves a lot of wood dust but I think you void the warranty if you use it for metal shavings, so for aluminum I use a shopvac, but there’s got to be a better option for frequent metal work.

[@Thefreakyfreek]

Cheapest option is just a broom and brushes . Hear me out metal will not fly up in the air like wood usually does so no dust to speak of however for chip clearing you can use compress air or of possible a fluid flow And cheap schopvacs handle chips good enough preferred one with a metal bucket most wood collector's sucks the chips true the fan and vacuum cleaner does not do that the fan (mostly) does not grind the chips

[@erix39751]

Hi how can I get hold of someone that can make me an ashtray in SA from Aluminum billets

[@Vincent-Vega24]

Is your gantry 8 or 12 inch riser plates on the side?

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I have the standard configuration, which I guess is 8". The higher you raise the gantry, the more flex it will have, so they advised me to stick with the standard configuration.

[@Vincent-Vega24]

@@RobertCowanDIY Thank you so much for. replying!!!! Im in the process of building one of my own. I have about a 1/3 of the parts but your videos alone have answered sooo many questions I have had so thank you!!!!

[@TheScrubsfanforever]

I may have overheard it, but is there any reason you are cutting the aluminium dry? I am just starting out so I don't have much of a clue :D

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Because the base is MDF. With any moisture, the MDF swells. I now have a fogbuster and metal table for the front third of the router.

[@TheScrubsfanforever]

@@RobertCowanDIY that seems like a really good reason 😄 you got awesome results dry cutting! I’ll try it as well

[@mitchellkasdin1899]

The frame looks nice! Just finished the vid. You could anodize it for a different finish? I’ve seen it done on YT for DIYers.

[@nickhom4801]

Where do you buy your single flute end mills? I have a hard time finding quality ones.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I get them from amazon (amana tools). I also like the ones that CNC Router Parts (Avid CNC) carries, they work well too.

[@guilhermediasyou]

Nice video, but why you didn't use just contour operations instead of adapt? That way the machine time would be like a quarter of the time

[@daviddoodle]

Yeah, same question. Seems like contouring would be faster without any disadvantages, except you’d have to remove tabs.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I mentioned this briefly in the video, just plunging into the material and cutting a slot is just a sloppy toolpath. It loads up the flutes way too much and you get a poor finish. You are engaging the material on all sides, so the chips have nowhere to go. You have to run a lot slower doing this and usually need coolant, so running a really fast adaptive toolpath was actually a bit quicker for me.

[@jamesbarratt593]

Dude if you took two thin strips and nailed one behind running the length and one alongside the aluminium part, all you got to do is to slide the others in till they touch the frame you just made and press go. You have a cnc machine and was wondering if you might have to outsource the work? Wow.

[@stevenguevara3252]

you don't want those chips bunching up like that. your endmills going to recut chips.

[@josem2065]

Hi friend, can you give to me a address where I can to buy a cnc router machine? This machine its so pretty cool , so I like that. Thanks so much my friend.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Check my channel, I have many videos on my router. It's from Avid CNC, so avidcnc.com.

[@ipadize]

i have never heard of Aluminum but i do have heard about Aluminium :)

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Well, it's good that you do have heard about it.

[@robn2497]

didn't film because you didn't know it was going to work. we are all human and make mistakes show that side of things. False impressions are created otherwise. Beautiful looking parts 20:32

[@iceman1982one]

You are not machinist , you do not have to clear all pockets , cut simply . Good job

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I explained this in the video. It takes the same amount of time to just remove the material this way. Full depth cuts like this are time consuming and leave a terrible surface finish and evacuating the chips is tricky without flood coolant. And no, I am not a machnisist.

[@iceman1982one]

@@RobertCowanDIY , MAKE helical entry and then 0,1 feed on tooth

[@iceman1982one]

to avoid break of pice on outging edge leave 0,1 mm at the bottom then break manualy an breakpice .

[@donepearce]

You chose a pocketing operation for those inner features? That's an awful lot of metal-cutting. A profile cut would have been much faster. The same goes for the outside. There is no need to mill away all the waste material. You just mill the profile of the wanted item and leave the rest.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I've addressed this like a million times. I can cut a LOT faster with a tool path like this then plunging through and doing a contour. Also, then you have to worry about tabs, or the free piece in the middle, etc. It didn't really take any more time to cut it the way I did, and I didn't have any of the negatives of cutting a slot.

[@donepearce]

@@RobertCowanDIY When you cut a profile, the only cut you make is the same as the last cut you make when grinding away all the rest of the material. It is much faster Tabs: You use tabs when the fixing is in the waste material - which yours isn't. Those centre pieces are held with perfect stability up to the final fraction of a second when they come free. The double sided tape is more than up to the job of coping with that. And even if the tape doesn't stick, they won't move more than a fraction of an inch. The outer profile is easily managed with a couple of screws in the waste on opposite diagonals. This has the added benefit of preserving the lower left corner for height probing the chamfer bit. I'm prepared to bet that nobody else would approach this job the way you have.

[@RoboArc]

Expensive ahh cnc

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Outsourcing CNC has gotten VERY reasonable. There's no need to actually own the CNC unless you just want to tinker at home like me.

[@Thefreakyfreek]

My cheap Chinese spindle can go down to like 60 rpm but has no power at that rpm but from ~ 300 and up it has that's low enough for drilling so you are telling me that that pritty advanced machine can't drill aluminium 4 mm holes Hss in alu =80 mm/min surface speed

[@RobertCowanDIY]

The lowest RPM is 8K I think. The RPM range on this is just much higher. You CAN drill holes just fine, they just require a pecking operation to do properly.

[@Th3mast3r69]

Too bad you didn't comment on that chatter. I sure can hear it and you changed the spindle speed and talked over it to try to hide it. My Shapeoko sounds better.

[@RobertCowanDIY]

I was still learning the machine back then. It was one of my first bigger projects. I've figured out the right feeds and speeds. I wasn't trying to hide anything. I have full control over what video clips end up in my videos, why would I include a clip of my trying to just talk louder? I could simply edit the sound, remove that clip completely, etc.

[@Joe11Blue]

Never happened

[@gokhanceterez1043]

I hate british measurement system!!!

[@RobertCowanDIY]

Thankfully it's easy to convert!