iModela Milling

Here it is, the complete low polygon ear model with flip milling.

Hello.

So a big part of milling 3D models is the 4th axis, W.  The iModela cannot do this out of the box, originally I was going to use (and am half way through milling) the Chevy (again, from the Roland forum) 4th axis job.  However, this is taking ages to mill and I'm not convinced from the first parts that it's milling correctly, so I decided to try something simpler.

So here you can see I've drilled two 3mm holes into the bed (spares are available at £10 each) using the iModela itself, and glued (carefully) in place two M3 threaded rods.  The holes are 7mm in from the X axis edges and in Y are bang in the middle.

To use this you simply drill two 3mm holes in the same place in your material, if you have a spare bed (I dont yet) you can do this with the mill but I do it with a Dremel in a drill press.  You mill the first side, then flip it, and mill the second.

I have nothing new to show but I have learned a lot.  I've not put that many hours in over this last week due to real work and a few niggling problems.

1: The standard M3 Grub Screws that come wit the unit are poor.  Buy yourself some stainless steel replacements, either 3mm x 3mm or 3mm x 4mm (length).  They work oh so much better and are incredibly cheap on eBay.

2: Dont just clean the movement screws wit the little brush and hoover it clean, but lubricate it with the supplied grease too.  I was doing this once a week but have now taken to doing it after each main job.  I lost a 7 hour job 10 minutes from the end because the X axis screw jammed and the part got ruined.

3: If you need to drill 3mm holes in Polycarbonate which is 5mm thick, use a 2mm slot drill and mill them because the iModela doesn't have the power to drill them.  Or do as I do, order a Dremel and drill press stand, use a 1mm drill in the iModela to drill pilot and guide holes and you're good to go.

I'm currently milling the Chevy 4th Axis Flipping Jig (found on the Roland iModela forum) so expect updates in about a week. It's 17-ish hours to mill the parts, then I need to learn it.

The first parts out of the iModela.  Now I need to cut 28 more of the little ones... :)

This is the 3rd time I've tried milling this piece, and it's still gone wrong!  But not so bad that I can't rescue it.

This time I combined two jobs into one model and had a go at setting up separate jobs in the Player software to speed up the process of milling.  

The roughing process.

You can already see on the front left I left an indent, on purpose, so that if (when) I mess up and the walls get milled away by accident, I'll have a piece of the material left to get my origin on.

Here's the parts after the 2mm ball finish.

Here are the parts after the final 1mm tooling finishing pass.

You can see my screw up on the centre of the left part, the faint square outline is where I ran the 1mm tool over the middle part to cut the finer details.  The Z origin went slightly wrong because the part started to lift from the bed by about 0.2mm.  It's light enough to be got rid of by hand after I'm done.  I have one more pass I'd like to run which is a second 1mm square tool pass on the same central point, but this time I'll do an outline only rotary cut which will stop the top section being re-milled.  I only just discovered this, that's rookie mistake 4 now I think?

I am thinking of doing some more fine work milling with my 0.5mm conical tool on the four fixing points, but I'll see how the next pass goes.

Total milling time for this in 5mm forex has been 6 hours.  I didn't surface cut the forex first as it would have taken a long time, but now I have a 3mm square cutter for fine surface cutting I may try that next time.

The problem of the lifting material I think can be solved with better double sided tape, this weekend I'll take the time to invest in a few types.  I have some of the Techsoft tape which I will try, at the moment I'm using the tape that comes with the machine.

So it seems you can find 3mm shank tools for less than £25 each!  All the way from China, my new carbide tools.  £15 for the set, free postage.

Well, still waiting for my new mill bit I decided to use a 2mm square bit to finish off some inner cuts that needed work after the 2mm ball.

Disaster! The iModela went mad and lost its origin.  The parts are ruined sadly, I was so close to getting my first finished 3D parts out of it too.

No matter, I learned another rookie lesson: don't start a job unless you can finish it.  By this I mean, if you'll need to leave material on the bed whilst waiting for tooling, don't bother starting until you have everything you need.

Also, even though this didnt work, I learned more and will re cut these parts tomorrow as I've been promised my new 1mm tool.

I'm impatient so decided to not re cut the ear and instead attempt something much harder.  I acquired lots of new materials and some tooling from an unhappy iModela user who was selling up so now have the 3mm ball tool, another 2mm square tool and also a very sharp pointy tool which I think is for engraving.

A long time ago when I was a 3D artist I created a model for a game that got canned, so I decided to take a look and see if I could mill it.  It was more complex than I remembered.

This is the rear left section of the chassis showing the 12 cylinder offset radial engine on the swing arm, powering the twin wheels.  This model was built in Modo, in many parts, as it was destined for 3D printing as well as being used to create maps for a game resolution model.  But even those parts were too complex to mill (for me) so I decided to take the engine concept and start again, keeping each part simple enough so be milled with a flip operation.  Here's where I've got to; the main blocks, cover plate, cylinders and heads.

Here is the cover plate.

Here is the rough cutting.

And here it is with a 3mm ball finishing cut.

Rookie mistake number 2: I thought I was using a 2mm ball cutter, not a 3mm ball cutter.  Notice the small odd bit on the front support?  That's where I cut too much away, I cancelled the job and set it up again with a 3mm cutter*  It then cut fine.

At this point the postman came and didn't deliver the Techsoft 1mm square cutter I was expecting to arrive today, so I couldn't complete the cut, meaning the material was left on the bed and I couldn't do any more.

But then I noticed I had unused material on the right of the bed, so decided to cut (rough and first finishing path) 4 of the heads.

Here they are in Modo.

Here they are being rough cut.

And here they are after the first finishing cut.

Now I really am stuck until that new tool arrives.  But this has been a good day of learning, as the iModela cant handle tools larger than 2.85mm in diameter so I had to figure out how to use a 3mm ball cutter, and I learned how to flip the origin around so I could start from the front right, not front left.

For my first 3D model I took an ear I had created years ago in Mirai, recreated it in Wings3D, and exported in as an OBJ into Modo, where I exported to DXF.

The reason I go through Modo is that is had very capable and accurate tools for modelling to real world scale.  My plan, as this was going to be a 2 sided 'flip job' (mill one side, flip the material, mill the other) I would also model the block of material, cut out a hole, place my ear in, model support structures and get cutting.

Here is the 3D model in Wings3D.

Here is the rough cutting taking place.

Here is the top side after the finishing pass.

And here is the ear after the side 2 roughing.

Oh dear.  So lesson 1 in my journey, do not believe the material dimensions suppliers give you!  I didn't bother to check, just set the machine cutting, and it turns out the block was 6mm thinner than it says it is.  Rookie mistake.

Tip 1: buy yourself some digital (£20 range is more than enough) callipers. You can use a ruler, but I'm always in need of callipers so I took the plunge.

They arrived yesterday, so I have now measured the material, placed the ear into a correct block, added more supports and the model is ready for milling.

So, the iModela comes in one fairly large box, considering the mill itself is tiny.  I ordered some spare materials to go with it, although Techsoft (the UK suppliers) are kind enough to throw in some test material to get you started, along with a nice 3mm shank 2mm spindle square tool (Techsoft upgrade the iModela to accept 3mm tooling instead of the 2,3mm tooling which is sub standard).

For scale, that is an Apple 27" monitor.  Inside the main box you'll find a nice Peli case holding the mill and it's bits.

It cam with a cutting matt, double sided tape, a milling tool, power supply and the materials on the left I ordered to get myself started.  My advice off the bat is dont order too many sacrificial beds, you can re use them a lot and 5mm thick balsa sheet works just as well, and is cheaper.

And here is the iModela iM-01 set up ready to go.

The mill comes with iModela Player, iModela Creator, iModela Controller and ClickMill along with all required drivers.  You'll need an internet connection to get ClickMill and you may be asked to do a firmware update.  I am still on 1.0, I haven't got round to updating yet.

Controller is like the dashboard for the mill, you can control the mill directly from this little app.  This is what you use to set up your origins, pause the milling process, cancel a job etc.  It also gives you machine diagnostics, motor running time etc.

Creator is kind of a cheap Illustrator knock off, but not as capable.  You use this for simple 2 axis jobs, cutting out things from flat sheet etc.  You can import Illustrator files into Creator though if you want more power.  Creator lets you cut all the way through the material (use a sacrificial bed to do this!) or engrave.  It's a nice little tool.

Player is the software I use all the time, as I want 3 axis milling.  This software lets you configure the material, tools, import 3D geometry (I import DXF files from Modo), set cutting paths etc.  This is where you'll spend most of your time if you want to do anything more than simple 2 axis milling.  Considering it's free, it's fairly powerful.

ClickMill I know nothing about as I've never used it.  In fact I only just downloaded it.

For my test of the machine I wanted to use the free piece of acrylic I was given, and wanted to follow the tutorial, but did not want a flower.  So I created a rocket.  I wont bore you with how, just follow the tutorial (exactly, do not skip steps) and replace the flower with an imported Illustrator file. Job done.

From delivery to this being made was about an hour.

Welcome to this place of stuff, I just took ownership of a Roland iModela IM-01 and this is where I'll diarise what I do with it.  Why didn't I buy a 3D printer, well mainly because the Formlabs Form 1 is the only one I'd buy and that wont be available for at least another 6 months, and I want them to fix the bugs first.  Also, even that beast can't get to the accuracy of a mill with a small bit, so there is room on my desk for both.