• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

CNC, LASER and 3DPrinting Section Needed?

M

meccarroll

Nordic Pine
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Hi Mods and forum users I am just putting it out to the moderaters and forum users that this forum lacks a dedicsted CNC/LASER/3D PRINTER section and just wonder why?

All of the above equipment have become very well intergrated with the woodworking industry in recent years.

A lot of DIY woodworkers use CNC machines and Lasers too and some make accessories using 3D Printers so there is an interest for a dedicated section.

I do use a CNC and a laser machine at times for woodwork and am sometimes asked by contractors and individuals to use them to produce woodwork items so just asking if the mods and forum users on here agree a dedicated section would be in the interest of the Woodhaven2 users?
 
Personally I would prefer, as we do now, to see how these tools are used as part of ongoing projects rather than have a dedicated forum. The forum home page would become very cluttered, IMO, if we had a separate board for each of the many tools that can be used. We do not for example have a dedicated router board.
How these machines can be bought, set up and used has been covered well, I think, in the Machines and Power Toolery board.

I have asked the question of the team and welcome further thoughts and comments from the wider membership.
 
I agree that it's probably not worth having a separate section. The volume of content on this forum isn't that great. I tend to at least scan read almost everything posted whereas on other forums I only follow a limited number of posts/sections. Which section of the forum things are in hence doesn't really make much difference to me.

For the "Workshop uses for 3D printing" thread, I posted in the "SketchUp & other 'CAD' Tools" section. I guess a compromise could be to rename that area to something like "Computer Aided Design / Manufacture" and hence broaden it's scope to be CAD and making stuff designed in CAD (via 3D printer, CNC, laser or some other similar means).
 
CNC production and computer numerical controlled machines are a world apart from the everday operator controlled woodwork machinery that we operate by feeding in timber by hand and in person.

A CNC machine is programmable equipment that can autonomously performs operations, once programmed, such a machining components drilling etc all on one machine without the need for an operator. Normal woodwork machines do need an operator so are a world apart from a CNC woodwork machine.

CNC woodworking, Laser and three D printing coveres a huge area in which software such as CAD, CAM Software is used along with CNC machinery and Machine control software such as Mach3 etc. None of this really covered under the heading of Machines and Power Tools.

I think if you do use a CNC machine and go through the process of learning how to operate one you can appreciate why it it is advantagous the have a dedicated section.

I guess we will have to see what evolves.

Happy new year to all. Mark
 
Dr.Al said:
For the "Workshop uses for 3D printing" thread, I posted in the "SketchUp & other 'CAD' Tools" section. I guess a compromise could be to rename that area to something like "Computer Aided Design / Manufacture" and hence broaden it's scope to be CAD and making stuff designed in CAD (via 3D printer, CNC, laser or some other similar means).
Click to expand...
There is a difference between CAD: "Computer Aided Design" and CNC: "Computer Numeretical Control" in that one is for design and the other is manufacture controlled machines by numeretical control.

CAM: "Computer Aided Manufacture" software is what is used to produce the toolpaths for a CNC machine to be able to operate, it produces the codes necessary for a CNC machine to know where to go and what to do next but and can also be used for some of the design work too so in some cases there is no need for CAD specific software.

I know you know your stuff Dr.AI and are very competent in the sofware field so my reply is more generated to woodhaven2 users in general than specific to you.
 
Those are helpful distinctions... I have both CNC and several lasers and use them regularly...

I think the key question before we make a decision is what is the benefit to forum members?
- I read the forum through the new posts function - so it doesn't really matter where the post is, I will see it... how do others use the forum?
- do people trawl through individual forums - such that when not interested in these topics, too many of them intrude and get in the way of reading other discussions?
- is there a value in having the similar discussions in one place so that someone new to the topic can read them together and not have to search for them amongst sharpening topics etc.

I don't have a strong view, but too many disparate subjects in one sub-forum is not a good approach, but equally sub-forums with low posting levels will not attract others
 
Hmmm.

I use a CAD/CAM program and a CNC machine to accurately manufacture components for my instruments, confident in the knowledge that I could never consistently produce components to that level of accuracy or repeatability solely using hand tools which gives me the satisfaction of knowing that as I continue to build my instruments using traditional and modern hand crafting techniques, that each instrument will be equally as good as any other I have crafted in that season's build.

Doing A Level Woodwork in the 60s, I had to draft my own drawings in orthogonal and isometric sections using different grades of pencils for different parts of the drawings, dimensions, etc. Yet many makers here, I suspect, but I may be wrong, if they do create drawings for their works, probably use a one of the many drawing applications, some freely available. I have used Shetchup, Inkscape, and LibreDraw myself.

Each application requires the learning of a new skill, and indeed I have had to learn the CAD/CAM software to design and draw the components I need, and then to choose the appropriate tooling, including feeds and speeds appropriate for the material I'm milling, in order to manufacture the components. Isn't woodworking after all timber engineering, and although I hate this expression, doesn't the end justify the means.

And if the continued use of hand tools throughout the work is what the user is seeking to achieve and enjoy, then that is the same for me enjoying the use of a mixture of hand manual tools, hand power tools and a CNC machine to achieve my goal of a piece of work .

I am inclined to think that it need not be necessary to include a specific section on this forum for machines such as I use, but it might help if the forum could identify members who do so, so that ideas, experience, best practices etc can be shared, maybe via private message if necessary.
 
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