If you have a stronger and more rigid machine you can definitely go faster without introducing chatter and vibrations.įor the tool we're using a 90 degree engraving cutter. Then again, if you don't push it enough the milling operation will take absolutely forever. The Roland MDX-40a mill has an overload protection, so if you push the mill too hard, and the tool can take it, it will jam and shut down. Be prepared to ruin a piece or two while dialing in the correct settings. This is where you're going to have to experiment a bit to find the speeds and feeds which work for you. Make sure everything is tightly held down and move on. In the mill use this mark to set the X and Y zero points. Using the four holes we drilled in the stock, find the centerpoint and mark it. Since we're going to mill both sides of the coin we need to be able to make sure that the back is aligned with the front. This will be a rigid enough setup for the machine not to vibrate itself to pieces. If the tape doesn't come loose entirely it will still not be rigid enough to hold the stock still, and the resulting vibrations will make the end result quite rough, not like you'd want to see on a coin.īecause of this an entirely new bed was made for the mill using some thick aluminium plate, into this four holes were drilled and tapped at known positions, and corresponding clearance holes were drilled through the stock to mount the brass in the mill. Don't repeat my mistake, as when milling metal you introduce much more force and vibration into the machine. I made the mistake of trying that, as can be seen in the image using the thick aluminium block for a base. Unfortunately this mill was not intended to mill metal, not even soft ones like the brass we're using, so we need to make some adjustments to make it work like we want.Ī word of caution! Since this mill is made for softer material it's usually enough to use double sided sticky tape for the work holding. To mill this coin we're going to be using a Roland MDX-40a CNC mill.
HOW ENGRAVE AUTODESK 123D DESIGN SOFTWARE
You may need to go back and forth between your 3D software (I will cover this in the next step) and your photo editing software to fine tune parts as you're working on it. For hair, it can be a good idea to isolate it on its own layer and invert the values, as that will make it stand out (as long as the person has dark hair). Using burn and dodge can be a great way to push those values around. There is no magic to it, just a bit of work. Then you need to start to manually push and pull values in the photo to become brighter, and darker, to get the depth map to how it should be. In your photo editing software, start by converting the photo to black and white, adjust the contrast and brightness. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to simply convert a photo to a depth map, just converting it to grayscale won't work. The closest part of a subject to the camera is colored white, the furthest away is black, and everything in between is a gradient of gray. The idea behind a depth map is an image where things are brighter the closer to the camera something is.
HOW ENGRAVE AUTODESK 123D DESIGN MANUAL
Making a depth map is quite a bit more intensive, and does require a fair bit of manual labour as well, but will give great results if you take your time.