So I finally got my new end mills in the mail and got to the store to buy some 6061 aluminum (good prices on the clearance rack at The Metal Store!)
Anyway, here is my super simple first cut. As I said on Twitter, it feels much like the first time I made a PCB. Nothing even remotely special about this cut, just that I was the one to do it. Guess that’s the power of making.
This is the first time I try cutting anything on the new mill. It’s also the first time I have a full beard on camera (and last!).
The result was mediocre but acceptable for a first try. Stay tuned to see more cuts!
If it hasn’t already been painfully obvious, I’m trying to learn mechanical stuff. Odd for a site that’s supposed to be about electronics, but I’ll get back to that on here eventually. Hopefully you’ll stick around until then. I’ve found that working with the mill has me looking at mechanical problems in a completely different light and has made me a better system designer overall.
I’m pretty good at stressing myself out. Not for any particular reason; normally just because I find it’s more productive than watching TV. How, you ask?
Well, starting podcasts could be one. While they are exciting at the beginning, there is invariably some work that needs to be done. I’ll want to figure out how to get the recording setup to work or make the website more reliable or try and find some kind of funding for it. In the end, it’s driven by my desire to put my voice on the internet, but at the base of it all, there’s no reason I need to be doing this stuff.
I got the mill out of the box and bolted together. No calibration or leveling yet, but that will come in subsequent videos. Enjoy!
This video is showing all of the gear I purchased in preparation for getting my CNC mill up and running. This video shows just about everything except the mill, which will arrive tomorrow. Check out the links below to see all of the stuff I bought, in the event you’d like to purchase some or all of the same gear.
Many thanks to everyone who helped me along so far! I really appreciate it, even though I can’t take everyone’s advice all at once. I hope things continue to get more exciting!
Other podcasts:
Hardware I use:
Software I use:
I often find myself worried about where my job might be in the future.
It’s not that I worry that my current job will evaporate overnight (though that is a possibility for any and all of us). But it’s more of a general concern, because globalization continues its march onward. In general, I find that globalization continues to be a thrilling enterprise because I see what changes it is made in my own life and my own career; electronics really have gotten more exciting since expanding to the worldwide marketplace. The trend is most often notice is the one of general consolidation of duties of an engineer. What this means from an analog electronics perspective, is that my job as an engineer is shrinking. Many of my favorite companies (analog electronics companies) continue to make highly integrated components that I love talking about. In fact, this is why I started ChipReport.TV. I saw it is a general trend that engineers are expected to know more and more about parts without; no allowance is given for being told about them…they just need to know. So I sought to be the one to tell engineers about the parts.
So I’ve continued to keep myself busy lately. I have a new project called ChipReport.tv. I’ll be reviewing the newest released parts so you don’t have to work so hard to find them.
Here’s the intro video:
And here’s the first installment!
Around here, I hope to do a site refresh soon, since this blog has gotten a little stale. I think I’d like to transition it to more of a traditional “home page” for all the things I’m working on. Comments welcome on any of the above.
No.
You just stop that right friggin now.
Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, lawyer/investor/clueless people.
Well, if you’re a reader, go read this article from The Economist (my favorite magazine) before we proceed: http://www.economist.com/node/21554540/
The part about Google, Apple, Samsung and other handset manufacturers needing to quickly trade patents seems to make sense at first, right? But that’s not the concern. Those companies have lots of resources at their disposal and I think their rattling of their technology (light?) sabers is just bad policy; they should have figured out that stuff in private, not in courts.