To wrap up the year and kick off the new one, I'm offering 30% off ALL licenses for HSMAdvisor and FSWizard Machinist Calulators

• All license types

• No restrictions

• Limited-time holiday offer

Thanks for the support this year - happy holidays and smooth cutting in the New Year!

I have just learned about the passing of Bob Warfield, the creator of CNC Cookbook. Over the years, our friendly competition helped us both improve our products. Bob's contributions to the industry have been invaluable, and I hope someone as capable and driven will continue his work. My thoughts are with his family, friends, and everyone affected by this loss.

It is very sobering and scary to realize how suddenly mortal we all are. Although I hope to have decades ahead of me, I have made changes to ensure that my customers are not left hanging should anything happen to me.

Gonna leave it here because someone might find it useful and my googling didn't come up with the answers that I liked.

So. I successfully switched my TerraMaster D2-310 from RAID1 to SINGLE mode, where each physical drive corresponds to a distinct logical one. Despite multiple sources stating that such a switch requires wiping the drives, I found a method that worked for me. Keep in mind that results may vary, and this might not apply to all enclosures.

Here are the steps:

1. Power down the enclosure, disconnect it from your PC, and remove Drive 2 from the enclosure.

2. Connect Drive 2 to your PC motherboard using a SATA cable.

3. Turn on your PC and ensure Drive 2 functions properly, allowing you to read and write data.

4. With the enclosure powered off, switch the MODE setting on the back of the device to SINGLE mode. WARNING: Do not, DO NOT press the Reset button, as it will most likely wipe your drive!

5. Power on the enclosure with Drive 1 inside and connect it to the same PC where Drive 2 is already connected.

6. Windows cannot mount Drive 1 due to its signature matching that of Drive 2, which is desired.

7. Open Disk Management, locate your "Offline Disk," right-click on it, and select "Online." This action changes the signature of Drive 1, effectively removing it from RAID.

8. You can now navigate to the root of each disk and delete any hidden folders containing RAID information. I removed the 2 folders starting with a "." (dot).

That's it. Aside from other obvious benefits of NOT having to tie 2 drives together, I believe I will get better longevity of my second drive now because I will use it to back up only the important stuff once a day.

Thinking about getting your self an affordable desktop CNC?

Check out this Shariff DMC2 designed and built by my fellow Canadian!

I wanted to purchase the first version about a year ago, but his Kickstarter campaign has ended by then and I ended up buying a used Prolight 2000 with auto tool changer.

This looks like a quite rigid, fast and a very powerful (3HP, 24k rpm) machine.

Certainly has better accuracy and power than my old heavy desktop machine with  0.001" backlash and just 1hp, 5k spindle.

Not affiliated in any way, by the way. Just looks like a great product all around.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/e5TsK2Sp-aM

Ever since getting my benchtop CNC running, I have not been very happy with the lack of manual control over overrides and buttons.

This DIY Engineering video gave me a great idea: build one myself.

I wanted the smooth speed and feed overrides, so I decided to not go with HID device, but instead with a full serial control paired with a custom plugin on the UCCNC side.

Here is the Fusion design of the enclosure:

And here it is 3D-Printed.
Acrylic face engraved from the back side and painted.
And all buttons and controls mounted:

All I have to do now is wire the Arduino board, program the plugin, and test it!

Update:

Here is the video of the pendant in action:

1. PCB Design

Design notes:

• All resistors used were 10K
• Speed and Feed potentiometers are 10K
  Their pinout goes Wiper->ground = 0%, Wiper -> +5V = 200%
• Axis and Handwheel Increment rotary switches are 4-position and their pinout goes like this:
  Axis select 1-X, 2-Y, 3-Z, 4-A, C-Common (+5V)
  Handwheel Increment 1-0.0001, 2-0.0010, 3-0.0100, 4-0.1000, C-Common (+5V)
• All function buttons such as Jog +/-, M1, M2, etc are sending +5V signals to the digital pins D2-D12
• D13 digital pin is connected to a LED indicator and is used to tell the user that the Pendant is allowed to send signals to the plugin.

Design files:

• Electronics Design: https://a360.co/3NGWRTP
• https://a360.co/3NLhfDk
• https://a360.co/3JObaVh 

2. Enclosure Design

https://a360.co/3fG3jgI 

If you don't have a 3D printer and/or a CNC Mill, please contact me and I will send you a 3d-printed enclosure and the 3d-printed or milled acrylic face plate:

• 3D-Printed Black PLA Enclosure (shown in pictures): 30$ + shipping
• 3D-Printed Black PLA Face Plate (optional): 15$ + shipping
• CNC Milled and Engraved unpainted (clear) acrylic Face Plate (shown in pictures): 30$ + shipping

3. Arduino Setup

• Install the Full Firmata library onto your Arduino Nano (Or any other Ardiono that supports USB Serial Communication): StandardFirmata sketch used for Arduino NANO is also added to the release package

• Please note that you might need to install Arduino USB Driver in order for your Arduino to work on the target computer!

4. UCCNC Setup

• Download the latest LEETArduinoPendant from the releases and extract it to your PC.
  https://github.com/swindex/LEETArduinoPendant/releases
• Copy the LEETArduinoPendant.dll plugin file to the C:\UCCNC\Plugins directory!
• Copy the Solid.Arduino.dll file from the Solid.Arduino release folder to the C:\UCCNC directory.
• Please note that you might need to install Arduino USB Driver in order for your Arduino to work on the target computer!
• Launch UCCNC.exe, go to Settings->Configure Plugins, and mark the LEET Arduino Pendant plugin as Enabled and Call startup
• After everything is installed, Arduino is connected and UCCNC is running, press the "Enable" (+5v to D2-B-ENABLE ) button that will tell the plugin that the pendant is ready to send signals! D13 (LED+) will then have a continuous +3.3V signal alerting you of that!

Hardware Acquisition (Amazon)

Fusion F360 desing files Size:2.55 MB

The job of a software developer is to solve problems.

So naturally, when I wanted to easily edit a screenset for UCCNC motion control software, I decided to create an app for that!

You can find it here: https://snapwebapps.com/uccnceditor/

Read More 

Since my garage/shop has a limited workspace, I have long wanted to upgrade the big and clumsy computer I used to drive my little Prolight desktop CNC to something more elegant and convenient.

TL;DR: You can read about the printing settings and download files on Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4754968
Here is the shared Fusion Project: https://a360.co/36UhI15

After quite a bit of googling, and testing the UCCNC control software that i already have I decided to re-use my old Z83 mini-PC with Intel Atom processor.

Then I ordered a SunFounter 10.1" touchscreen monitor with a nice resolution of 1200x800 from amazon.

Since the display does not come with an enclosure I decided to design one myself.
A good opportunity to dust off my 3d modeling skills:

30% off!

Not affiliated in any way.

I just bought a 3-year license for myself.

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/pricing

On the other note.

HSMAdvisor is also 30% off!

https://hsmadvisor.com/

In my days machining blow molds there were lots of parts where I had to make a completely through hole. Sometimes those were up to 4 inches deep and I had to go from both sides!

The trick to machining cores like that is to leave about 0.05" on skin all around AND pick milling direction and start point such that when the last bit is milled through, the core gently pushed away from the cutter instead of jumping out.

Small stripper plate. 1.75" high Big stripper plate. Also 1.75" high