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College CNC Projects

Nate 1013

Plastic
Joined
Jan 30, 2013
Location
Mississippi USA
I am looking for some help and information. Ive been asked to help with some college cnc classes. What would be some good topics and simple projects to do for cnc millls and lathes. Ill be teaching on a Mazak vtc 16, Haas VF2, Haas SL20, and TL-1. Im wanting simple but usefull projects to keep them interested cause it doesnt take long and they get restless and get off track. Any information would be appreciated, thanks.
 
Locomotive (Steam engine style) with coal car and caboose.
Intricate Brass Hammer with aluminum handle
2-part aluminum heat sink type laptop base
 
I'm setting up a shop for a locate college...Being a Design School we are letting the student make what they want...
The kids and thier projects will have to meet some requirements before going to the machine...
All kids must first be able to use and understand "MDI" for drilling, facing and end cutting...Before learning CAM program...We are more concerned that the kids understand G & M code than push a buttom...
One hour of machine time for projects...All project sizes must be no more than 5" x 5" x 1"
All code must be verified before loading in machine by the instuctor...
All parts will locate zero top left (just a cnc mill)...This will keep set-up time down
One Hour of Machine time...15 minutes for set-up, 1/2 hour for run, 15 minutes for cleanup...
No pipes/bongs or sex toys can be made...
 
I'd say let them make simple tools first, like table stops, screw jacks, etc. You can make a lot of cool small tools pretty easy, maybe they can keep them and use them in the future.
 
I'm setting up a shop for a locate college...Being a Design School we are letting the student make what they want...
The kids and thier projects will have to meet some requirements before going to the machine...
All kids must first be able to use and understand "MDI" for drilling, facing and end cutting...Before learning CAM program...We are more concerned that the kids understand G & M code than push a buttom...
One hour of machine time for projects...All project sizes must be no more than 5" x 5" x 1"
All code must be verified before loading in machine by the instuctor...
All parts will locate zero top left (just a cnc mill)...This will keep set-up time down
One Hour of Machine time...15 minutes for set-up, 1/2 hour for run, 15 minutes for cleanup...
No pipes/bongs or sex toys can be made...


I would do something like this.

Maybe throw out some suggestions. Keychain, candlestick, scaled up firearms cartridges (9mm, .45 auto, .223) unless the college would frown on this
 
All the ideas are great and I agree on really pushing g and m codes. I also want to show them what they can do on mazatrol and the ips. I really appreciate the ideas if anybody has anymore please share.
 
Man, I looked errwhere but somehow I've lost them... Fairly simple geometry to draw up in CAD. I just had the main body drawings, came up with my own pins, bolts, handle, and base.
 
Back in the early 90's this was the class project for the "Manufacturing Processes" class in the ME program at DTCC. 3 cylinder air powered reversible motor. 1/10000000 hp
With varying degrees of skill and interest different people were assigned different "jobs" and also shared responsibilities.
Originally all the parts were to made with manual machines with a goal of 1 motor for each student in the class of 12(?) the whole group of motors had to work for the class to pass.
I had just taken the cnc programming basics class and was able to convince the teacher to let me run the "block" and the "finger" on a Bridgeport w/Boss 2(?) controller

working as a team taught everyone the importance of all the different skill levels, and we put together about 30 working motors in 4 weeks of night classes. Teacher gave the extras out as gifts to the other teacher
 

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I'd have to ask first, Whats the purpose of the class?

If its to train machinists then making useful machinist tools makes sense. Though kind of boring.

If its a manufacturing class that is part of an engineering program, 1-2-3 blocks or sine bars are kind of useless.

My friend/college room mate and now business partner taught the intro manufacturing course here at the university for a while. He decided that the
nutcracker they had been making for 30 years was kind of boring. His project was pretty cool, they made little battery operated cars and raced them.

They vacu formed the body (he had the mold made), they lost foam cast the frame, they machined the frame and turned their rims, and then had a race.
Money was pretty small, I think he was at like $6 for the tires, crappy little motor and the deal to hold a AA battery or 2.

When I was in college, the CNC machining week or so, each group got a block of wax, 1 hour on the machine (or maybe it was 45minutes), 1 tool change,
a 1/4" endmill and a 1/8" endmill. All hand coded, we made a man, with swinging arms and legs. Wax pins didn't work so well, I think we came in 3rd place
in the class, and I think we only got that because it fit on the 1st place groups motorcycle perfectly.
 
Twice a year or so, we would get broken up into teams of 4 or so, and have a week or two to build a model engine of some sort. That always kept our interests.

You didn't give us any clue as to what prerequisites they might have accomplished, that would be handy for suggesting what we think they should learn. Do they know how to use measuring tools yet? Thats rather important.

Feed, Speeds, Depths of cut.

Setting work and tool offsets; the college I went to didn't teach us to touch off Z from the spindle nose, setting TLO's made much more since to me after I started working in a shop that did.

A good foundation in G-code, it wasn't until the end of my first year I got to play with a CNC machine, the only program we got to run that year, was a simple name plate, with our names on it, It had to be programed entirely by hand.

If you are setting up a class aiming at graduation people capable of CNC set-up work, All students should graduate with a 4" block suitable for touching off the spindle nose, and a 1" block for touching off the tools, in their tool box.
 
The class is in machining, there are three cnc courses that they have to take. 1rst one is more speeds and feeds, offsets, and g code. 2nd one is getting into machining and third is an introduction on cam machining. They do know how to use gauges and are knowledgable about manual machines and how they work. Just tryin to figure out the best way to start them on a good path with some fun projects to keep them from straggling off. Any suggestions are great, could always use another point of view.
 
I would vote for the vise stop and indicols with different clamp diameters.

Never had any college, but in high school metalshop I designed and built a 20HP 50 ton log splitter, two 21 foot tilt deck car trailers with winches (one for me and one to sell to pay for mine), a boat lift to raise a ski boat out of the river with air for one of the teachers and made a bunch of small stuff like a fixture to mill drill and tap small block chevy heads for rocker studs, built a few 9" and Dana 60 semi floater rear axle housings, splined many axleshafts, redrilled axleshaft and brake drum bolt patterns, made a snap-press for auto trans work, made a puller to remove the pins from GM tilt steering columns.

I still use the log splitter and trailer a lot, but wish I'd have made 10 each nice vise stops and indicator holders when I had nothing better to do. I wouldn't have appreciated that stuff back then, or for a lot of years after, but I sure would have used those in the past couple years.
 








 
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