The project I was tasked with completing through the use of the CNC Mill was the creation of a brake bracket. Using both the Inventor and Fusion 360 in order to design and create my bracket, I was able to cut out a foam brake bracket.
I was given a detailed blueprint of the brake bracket, and I was able to use this to remake the design. I fully recreated the brake bracket in Inventor, which was the easiest part of this project mainly because of all my experience with the software.
The hardest part was up next. I had already used Fusion 360 on my last project, but that experience sadly was unable to help me out a lot. I still struggled a lot with the setup, and especially the tool path. At one point the entire class got stuck at the same part, which actually ended up being because of an issue with the instructions sheet. Luckily the rest of the instructions on the sheet were correct, and after a lot of trial and error I was able to correctly set up my brake bracket in Fusion 360.
I was given a detailed blueprint of the brake bracket, and I was able to use this to remake the design. I fully recreated the brake bracket in Inventor, which was the easiest part of this project mainly because of all my experience with the software.
The hardest part was up next. I had already used Fusion 360 on my last project, but that experience sadly was unable to help me out a lot. I still struggled a lot with the setup, and especially the tool path. At one point the entire class got stuck at the same part, which actually ended up being because of an issue with the instructions sheet. Luckily the rest of the instructions on the sheet were correct, and after a lot of trial and error I was able to correctly set up my brake bracket in Fusion 360.
After saving my Fusion 360 set up onto my flash drive, I was able to move onto the final step in the creation of my foam brake bracket. The set up on the CNC Mill proved to be more difficult than that of the CNC Router, but it was not too hard. I didn't have an instruction sheet, but I was able to remember parts of the demonstration from the instructors and was also able to get assistance from both classmates and instructors during the process. The CNC Mill was very similar to the CNC Router in that once I started up the machine, there wasn't much to do besides watch and have my hand over the space bar in case something went wrong.
Because the design was made for us, and only required us to recreate it, I wasn't able to have any big effect on how the foam brake bracket turned out. It came out just as expected, and there were no noticeable issues with it in the end. Although this project was pretty limiting from a creativity standpoint, I can definitely see many useful and practical uses for the mill. The fact that it works with so many different types of material and is able to create a 3D object creates endless possibilities. I think that it is one o the more useful machines in the innovation center, just due to wide range of tasks it can perform. Even though I did not enjoy using the software that went along with the machine, I would not hesitate to use the CNC Mill again