Moving home [x0,y0,z0]to "Detonador Space"

For this assingment, we have moved to a space located in the district of Barranco, Lima-Peru. It's called Detonador Workshop, and it's Jose Luis's space , my older brother. Several activities related to art and architecture operate here. Barranco district is located on the coast of Lima, next to the sea, a place full of cultural, artistic life and tourist activities. In our usual laboratory Fab Lab Lima, we don´t have a CNC Router to cut wood and we don´t have enough space to carry out this type of task. Here, we have many tools for wood and metal work, plenty of space and we are outdoors for better sanitary conditions.

Detonador Space

"Otorongo XL" _Detonador

XL Bycicles_"Human Motor" Performance

I had a half-assembled CNC Router at home, I mounted it in the car and took it to Detonator. Now we have a medium CNC that we are going to implement to take on this challenge. So together, with Mayra Ascencio, and the Fab Lab Lima Team we got down to work!
First, I designed the table on which we were going to put the CNC Machine. I designed it in the class of week 2: Computer-Aided Designed, (👉here you can see its development). I used Rhinoceros and then cut the pieces in 18mm Plywood. Already in the workshop, we assembled it and installed a slaughter table, for this I bought a MDF-grooved board and sectioned it into several parts. So we have 4 pieces to sacrifice!🤩

CNC by parts at home

Transporting the CNC

Design table_Rhinoceros

Setting up the CNC

Homogeneos Residence Lab is a project under construction housed inside the Detonator workshop. It is a digital manufacturing laboratory as well as a traditional one. This space allows the artist, scientist or creator, national or international, to carry out a residency to experiment on the subject they want. At this residency, the emphasis is on providing follow-up and support during the resident's creative process. The resident will finally decide whether or not to expose their research. This space aims to provide the community with a valuable exchange of knowledge between cultures. We are carrying out the implementation of this laboratory right now, which will have CNC cutters, 3D printers, laser cutters, tools to make sculptures, electronic components and even audiovisual equipment.

The CNC Router Hybrid 000-490

Two years ago, we acquired this CNC machine, it is approximately 20 years old and it was built as part of the thesis of the electronic engineer Jorge López, we thank him very much for his contribution. It is based on a manual router, motors and belts. The entire electronic system is very old and some parts have been replaced by modern parts, such as the motherboard. Now it works based on Arduino, but the drivers are the original ones, huge! So we have a great hybrid going.

Old electronic board

Old Drivers + Arduino

The table with machine

The Router

The lab Space

Preparing the machine

GroupTask

The group assignment this week is about testing our machine, test runout, alignment, speeds, feeds and tool paths and we have to document this entire process. Next we will see the arduous process that we take to start the CNC and have our first test. For this we needed to get many things, for example, the cutters for cutting, the programs to manipulate the machine, the material that we would cut (wood), a vacuum cleaner, screws, screwdrivers and many more tools that we would probably find in the workshop Detonador.

Recognizingthe GRBL

We'll start with the perse machine. A year ago I had installed an Arduino UNO alongside a CNC Shield Board, which already had the GRBL loaded on the board. The GRBL is open source firmware that runs on an Arduino UNO that converts G-code commands into step-by-step signals. Our machine works based on 4 stepper motors, in the three axes X, Y, Z and has an extra motor in the X axis. Unfortunately none of our laptops recognized the Arduino and we could not control any axis, 0 movement. To solve this, we had to update the USB port driver on all of our computers and we were able to recognize the machine.

• 12v and 15A power source
• 1 x CNC shield
• 1 x Arduino UNOR3 board
• 4 x original drivers.
• 4 x stepper motor
• 1 x USB cable

Configuración GRBL

Error: Can´t open COM PORT

Baud Rate GRBL Controller

Baud Rate CNCjs

We tested with the CNCjs program and with the GRBL Controller program. Finally, after updating the USB port driver, the two programs were able to recognize the machine. It is very important to select the value of 116500 in the Baud Rate Parameter (this is the appropriate value for our machine) so that the CNC can be recognized correctly. To update the COM port driver, we use an Offline method. Download the driver PL2303_Prolific_DriverInstaller_v1210, install it on the laptops, and then you must go to Device Manager >> COM Ports >> Select the corresponding port (COM3 or COM1), right click >> Update Driver, manually choose Update the Version 3.3.11. This will update the COM port and when opening the GRBL Controller if it will recognize the machine.

Installing Port COM's Driver

Installing Port COM´s Driver

Testing& Drills

When the driver is already installed. We went on to test the different softwares that we can use to control the axes of the CNC machine. Here at Homogeneos Lab we work with a built-in, high-performance open source CNC milling controller and g-code analyzer written in optimized C that will run on a direct Arduino called GRBL Controller and we had previously used the CNCjs, other software from open source that serves the same functions. So we decided to try both.

CNCjs

GRBL Controller

Drills

When the driver is already installed. We went on to test the different softwares that we can use to control the axes of the CNC machine. Here at Homogeneos Lab we work with a built-in, high-performance open source CNC milling controller and g-code analyzer written in optimized C that will run on a direct Arduino called GRBL Controller and we had previously used the CNCjs, other software from open source that serves the same functions. So we decided to try both.