Very small 4 axis mill for cutting plastic materials
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06 Oct 2025 12:39 #335916
by tommylight
Very small 4 axis mill for cutting plastic materials was created by tommylight
This is what i was doing last few days, a very small 4 axis cnc machine for cutting some kind of plastic material for clear teeth aligners, machine is fully finished (except a box for electronics and cutting the protruding HGR25 rail to size).
-The machine kinematics are simple XYZC.
-The mill bit is angled at 35 degrees from table, can be changed to 90 or any other angle
-the C axis can spin freely both directions and has a home switch, with limits at+-99999 in ini only
-table/C axis is designed in FreeCAD and 3D printed, with 120 tooth HTD3 pulley included
Below is what i have to work with:
-the file generated from their software is a simple text file (.pts extension) with values for 3 axis, BUT has no axis assignments at all, only numbers, so with a bit of help from Gemini a filter was made to open the .pts file and assign axis letters together with Feed rate and M2, all that works fine
-also made a filter that adds the fourth axis that also seems to work, but not as required by this task, C does move small amounts to account for the tool cutting angle, but this requires rotating the C axis 360 degrees for a full job
-that job is always a single cut line, always same location of the material, always indexed on C, material shape does change but never significantly
-that is the only job this machine will do.
-
The machines used for this are 4 or 5 axis, always, and they use that same file type with 3 axis values, so the kinematics or CAM must do the required changes/modifications to path, and this is where i am stuck, so any ideas are welcomed.
-The machine kinematics are simple XYZC.
-The mill bit is angled at 35 degrees from table, can be changed to 90 or any other angle
-the C axis can spin freely both directions and has a home switch, with limits at+-99999 in ini only
-table/C axis is designed in FreeCAD and 3D printed, with 120 tooth HTD3 pulley included
Below is what i have to work with:
-the file generated from their software is a simple text file (.pts extension) with values for 3 axis, BUT has no axis assignments at all, only numbers, so with a bit of help from Gemini a filter was made to open the .pts file and assign axis letters together with Feed rate and M2, all that works fine
-also made a filter that adds the fourth axis that also seems to work, but not as required by this task, C does move small amounts to account for the tool cutting angle, but this requires rotating the C axis 360 degrees for a full job
-that job is always a single cut line, always same location of the material, always indexed on C, material shape does change but never significantly
-that is the only job this machine will do.
-
The machines used for this are 4 or 5 axis, always, and they use that same file type with 3 axis values, so the kinematics or CAM must do the required changes/modifications to path, and this is where i am stuck, so any ideas are welcomed.
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