17 week wait time and another 12 days while UPS “incorrectly sorted” my order… But it arrived this past week and I got busy.
Laser leveled, trimmed, trued and surfaced. I designed and 3D printed the dust shoe along with a bunch of clamps, hold downs and bench dogs.
I’m still learning the Aspire Platform, but I designed the spoil board with a bunch of modular pieces that index on to the spoil board. I hope to never need to surface it again.
Looks great and very happy for you! Very well organized and ready for work it seems!
I recently decided on a larger job that had me thinking of a similar plan for the modular pieces. Not quite as fancy and thought out as yours but similar 
The clamps, hold downs and bench dogs is still a part that eludes me and I need to take more advantage of. So far I’ve just been clamping an intermediate waste board down on the t-tracks and either screwing or glue/taping the work piece to the intermediate waste board.
Incidentally, this weekend I 3D printed a different dust collector for mine, as opposed to the provided 80mm one. Kind of similar to how yours looks except the brushes fit around the entire oval on the bottom-side. No clue how well it will work but hopeful. I do need to find or design a hose holder for the top of the spindle still.
Help help!! Stop that monster! Someone chase off that monster!
It’s licking my eyes!
Yes, the first dust shoe I printed had the brush around the whole bottom. But I noticed the dust collection hose would lose the suction as the extra brushes moved off the material I was working on. I felt the smaller area the brushes had to cover, the better.
I noticed that after surfacing the entire spoil board, there was virtually no MDF sawdust left on the table. So I was pretty happy with the way the dust shoe worked.
this one, not as good
I appreciate that feedback - I may hold off gluing the 2nd set of magnets to the shorter brush set until I test then.
Nice! Man am I jealous!
Where did you get the casters if I might ask?
Thanks, I’m pretty happy with the set up. I got the wheels from Amazon. The mounting stud is like 1/2" so you will need to drill the holes in the legs just a slight bit bigger. I knew that going in, but it wasn’t a big deal.
Wow! Very nice! I just received my final box late last week. I think I experienced the same UPS sorting you did, but happy to have it and shipping all the way to California, USA - I’m not complaining. Great work on the dust collector. Will certainly use that for inspiration!
Wow! Nice build. Thank you for the photos. I just ordered an Altmill 4x4 yesterday. I’ve been struggling with where to place it in my workshop. I’ve never seen those castors before. That’s something I never considered due to the levelling issue with normal castors. I also like the toolbox idea for storage. I have lots to do in the next few months so the 12 week or so delivery date is not an issue for me. Looks like this is not your first rodeo with CNC. You are off to a flying start with the Altmill. Looking forward to seeing your projects going forward.
Cheers
Brian
First CNC… I do have a couple of laser engravers. I’ve been framing super high end custom homes for 42 years. I’m retired now and have a bunch of free time. I don’t ever let a computer or machine beat me. Sooner or later, I get it figured out.
First CNC! Your setup is impressive! You are certainly well organized and sweat the details. Those are both great talents to have in the construction industry. I am also retired but from the Laboratory instrumentation field and although I serviced all kinds of equipment and instrumentation I have never owned or run a CNC or 3d printer. I retired after 39 yrs of troubleshooting and solving instrumentation issues. I would never say I’ve seen it all in terms of failures but I have certainly seen a lot. I hope that experience will be of use to me when setting up and using the Altmill. It is a retirement gift/ part time business opportunity for me to give me something new and challenging to focus on. I also like to build stuff, from wood, aluminum, steel or whatever so the CNC should make that easier. Please keep us posted on your experiences with CNC.
Just wondering why you’re using two wasteboards? Or am I misreading what you’re stating?
I have a piece of 3/4" mdf screwed down to the AltMill’s x-rail oriented extrusions and on top of that are the individual segments of 5/8" mdf pieces screwed down to the base 3/4" mdf, with t-track sections between each of them. I surfaced the one and only spoilboard (the 5/8" sections) and yes from time to time I mill down into that surface by .01mm or so. I haven’t yet had to resurface the spoilboard, as it’s still perfectly true and none of the milling marks are anything to worry about.
I guess my view of spoilboards is that they’re “spoil” boards and it’s no big deal if they get milled a bit from time to time.
Am I making myself clear?
Glad to see that your AltMill has arrived and is set up and ready to go.
My main comment pertains to your dust shoe. I have the stock dust shoe and am reasonably happy with it… except I’d be happier if it was capable of automatically positioning itself vertically so that the brushes were just touching the surface being milled at all time - even as the spindle lowers and raises during operation. Yours appears to be set up to operate just as mine does.
I love your organization!
I also have a comment about having rollers at the bottom of each leg. Is that because you anticipate having to move your machine around the shop? I would caution that unless your shop floor is extremely level (mine sure the heck isn’t!), then there’s a strong likelihood of having to relevel it whenever you move it. Please comment on that issue.
Again, nice organization and all the best with your CNCing!
Cheers,
Marty from Kingston, ON 
I too would like to hear about the levelling - that is the reason I have not yet put my mill on casters.
2 waste boards… just a me thing. Probably for the same reason all of my workbenches get a layer of white formica on them. Clean and consistent.
13 posts were split to a new topic: Level and plumb discussion
