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After the first face of the support yesterday, I came back to the fablab this morning to work out the second face, and the chamfer...


It was done with pockets first (and to optimise machine tool time, I could have done contours rather than pockets, something I noticed while looking at the machine working). This was done with single fulte flat end mill bit...

Then with a chamfering bit, the chamfer, step by step, proceeding with each step of the stairs starting by the lower one...


Here is the result


At the end, made the thread manually, as there was no thread milling bit for M6 threads.


This part will allow the usage of the chuck vertically to do threads milling on small shafts, and to use a FoxAlien Vice with a positionning allowing for easy correspondance with the Anchor 1 position.
My first aluminium part is done, and it is not going to be the last one

For me, the whole purpose of the H2D is dual material and prints without waste and cross polution between materials.

I did a first attempt today, by mixing TPU and PLA in a print: I have a whole set of use case I thought about relying on this, and I want to put that to test...

I sliced a Marui Shogun/Ninja/Coors battery door, V2. For the small story, until now, for me the only way to get one printed properly was relying on powder processes and online services...


The TPU is slow to print, and the print took quite a long time (in line with slicer expectations).


That was super easy to peel of...


And it is the result, with the prime tower, the waste (support and poops), and the part... The print is not perfect as I did not thought about refining the support interface on the print. I'll take note for future cases. Another note : the TPU 95A is slightly too flexible for this in my opinion... But I will still try to see if it works to keep the battery in...

The print quality of the X1C was great... The H2D sets the quality to another level... This is an ABS print, and I never had such great quality with the X1C or the A1 mini...

Really nice and fine print.

The exhaust port was installed, and I connected a pipe to an Xtool AP2 air purifier. I got the laser combo as my wife has some light requirements for a laser. Laser module installation is very straigth forward : you just have to put the module in place, plug it, plug the air assist tube on the module and the printer, and change the build plate. It takes about a minute, and after a quick calibration it is ready to work.



Next was to do some laser engraving or ethcning in this case. The material is stainless steel and it's part of the provided material sample in the combo box.


The view of the work in progress is available on the screen. Somehow, I wish this was also the case when 3D printing as the green doors are not that practical for viewing inside the printer.


Bambu Suite is quite straight forward. but somehow, I messed up. I engraved the two faces of the medal, I started by the other side with the phone numbers, and then I turn the medal to change the exposed face, and I forgot to recapture the image to position perfectly the work to engrave, which resulted in someting not perfectly centered. But beside this, it's perfect, and the dog would not care about this anyway


I still have to consider what I can do with this laser in the RC field, specially considering I do not make planes or boats (for which there is definitely straight forward use cases with some very light wood). The laser combo comes as well with a cutter/plotter accessories which can replace the laser module: for those I definitely have some use cases for masking and eventually create some home made stickers using proper pens on white or transparent vinyls, but I did not tried them yet.

A classical use of the simple characteristic "PLA and PETG don't stick together"


Bambu Lab PLA Matte white as Support interface (3 layers, 0 gap in Z)
Sunlu PETG transparent with Generic PETG profile

Worked like a charm, no oozing, no cross material pollution. Beside the supports and support interface, almost no waste, and a print which is just slightly longer than a mono material print.




The H2D shines in this type of uses cases.

The Makera Carvera Air arrived yesterday, about 3 months after the order...


Had no time to unbox it yesterday, I did it today...


After removing the protecting plastic, it looks like this...


And a bit later, it's started, and the network configured with the Carvera Controller from the PC.


Yes, i've not done anything with it yet... But soon...

Installed an old tablet to use Carvera Controller without using the laptop, so I can have access to the machine easily, without having to move the laptop.


Yesterday, I launched one of the demo projects and I noticed that the machine is quite noisy during roughing operations. I stopped as my son was sleeping in the room next to the room where is the machine. I slightly modified the settings when restarting to z-probe somewhere else as the carving has already been started at the place where it probed the Z the first time.

After the Z probing, done with a wired probe with the Carvera Air, the work is paused and it is time to put the tool number 1..
Then it restart once you have confirmed the tool is changed.


Here is the stock at the end of the roughing operation...
The status bar light is lightened with 2 blue light to indicate we need tool number 2. The lever is used to change the tool and it is quite fast (no tool needed).


Again, operations restarted with the new tool, now for the real detail relief with a tool for this...

A bit later (not looked at the time, but more than one hour later), the detail operation is done and we get a prompt to change tool again...


Here is the detail before the cut operation


I changed tool, and it restarted to finish the project.



Last I cut the tabs with the provided small hand saw...
And here is the final result...


I can now think about more complex. And at this stage, the more complex might not be the CAM software, but really what tool, what speed and how to fix the stock on the machine so it doesn't move. Lot more to come in terms of experiences, but that first project is a good start to see how the machine works with a prepared project, how to deal with the tool changes, and the initial setting of operations : the instructions while very limited are enough to understand how to deal with it...

After the first test, I wanted to do my first special part...
But before, as you have number for tools when you prepare the work, I went to makerworld and found a perfect storage for the tools to be used in a work...

(makerworld.com/...bit-holder)

Next was to deal with some headhache : fixing a 300x200 fiber carbon plate on the CNC bed.
It's easy to position and do not pose any issues with the sensor for the Z probe. But fixing will require either custom made fixture or double face tape with strong tack. That's what I opted for. For the story, I consider doing a cut and some holes on this plate to fix it (the rear end of the Carvera Air can be opened to allow a cut on a long plate). At the end, double face tape is easy and convenient.


In the package, I did not find any drill bits (that something I'll have to supply). To overcome this, I considered a hole is a pocket and used for that a 2mm corn bit which will be also used for the countours. And I planned for the Chamfers before the outside countour... I already cut a fiber glass chassis at the fablab, but it was without the Carvera and using another software... But at the end it is not that different. I included tabs, but at the end they were useless since the double face was doing the job perfectly (I did add operations after the part was cut to remove the tabs).



I can say this is a success, hopefully the next work will be as successful...