I’m Ricky Shepherd and I’m the Technology Integrator at Tribosonics. I work in the prototyping and development facility at Tribosonics implementing our technology in products, running tests, and getting into R&D.

The idea of solving a problem with an innovative solution is what gets me up in the morning. Often a light bulb moment at home can trigger a fantastic solution for a project at Tribosonics. This is the subject of my first blog.

A while ago, I set out on an ambitious project to convert a benchtop milling machine into a CNC mill. I love making things and have undertaken many projects, many of which are audio gadgets for recording studios and guitar. The long-standing challenge for me, however, is the length of time and cost to make or purchase PCBs and metalwork.  It sometimes meant that my projects were built for the price of the parts with little or no profit. I wanted to work more quickly, more agile; by doing more of the work myself. 

I had seen many articles and online videos of other people’s triumphs and failures and thought this could be achievable with some careful planning.

There are a few companies who provide kits for the ball screw and motor plates, but the price would have blown my budget for the project and so, decided to build from scratch.

Let’s begin…

I started by modelling the mill in Fusion 360, a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) package. I managed to find a CAD model of a similar mill and started work tweaking it. During the design phase, my thought process was to start with the X-axis and complete it before then moving on to the Y-axis and finally the Z-axis.

For around 6 months my free time consisted of trying to balance work and family time with trying to source parts and scrounge/buy materials for what I could machine the following week, machining this week’s parts and trying to figure out how linuxCNC works (linuxCNC is an open-source CNC machine controller that can drive milling machines and other machines such as lathes, 3d printers, laser cutters etc.)

I learnt quite a lot whilst designing and making the parts for the machine. There were limited measuring tools at home so finding weird and wonderful ways of using these tools to measure, set up and machine parts were a lot of fun. Then, by thinking, ‘how am I going to actually fit/make that part accurately?’, I could add features to parts to allow easier alignment and even made tools to machine and align the ball screw mounts.

Afterward, and a lot of sweat and a swimming pool worth of tea (cheers Rinni), I got the table moving. Obviously, the first thing to do is stick a biro in a collet and draw a smiley face. That was a big *GRIN* moment. Then, getting to a point where the hardware and software were talking to each other and doing as I had asked was a great feeling. The finish line was in sight!

What happened next?

I then thought to myself, ‘if I could temporarily wire this up, I could make some parts on the machine…for the machine’. This was the light bulb moment where so many possibilities opened up.

I was a little nervous about this idea as without any limit switches, it could go wrong…pretty quickly. As part of the temporary wiring, a big Emergency Stop was in hand at all times, just in case.

Then, with the risk assessment completed, I decided to go for it. It would really speed up the build. Consequently, I also thought it would be a good way to tune the motors, get some time using the software and get a sneak peek of what the machine was going to be capable of in terms of speed and accuracy. The limit switch mounts still needed doing and a spindle lock to speed up the tool’s changes. I was pretty nervous. While making the X-axis limit switch bracket, I lost the first end mill (RIP). As CNC mills do exactly as they are told, it took a bigger bite than it could chew and “PING”. This was at the very end of the program and was definitely a human error.

The Y-axis parts were much better quality all by using different machining strategies. 

I also made a table surround to keep the chips contained within the machine.

The project is now 90% complete with the Z-axis limit switch brackets to make, the final wire up of the machine, and painting. This is in progress and have the X & Y axis motors and limit switches working great.

The first customer was my son George who ordered an Ironman arc-reactor!

Undertaking a project at home like this from planning to design, iteration, and then to manufacture gives me the freedom to think completely outside of the box. Thus, it builds a greater understanding of problems that arise because I have to sort them out and build additional experience to design for manufacture.  As a matter of fact, having manufacture in my mind in the design stage can really help cut down on prototype iterations and reduce parts going in the scrap bin. Therefore, this process allows me to understand the whys and hows of design and machining which then feedback to my work at Tribosonics utilising this experience in customer projects.

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Tribosonics is an innovation-led scale-up with a strong challenger mindset, driving transformation by using its unique sensing technologies to address challenges in tribological contacts (wear, friction and lubrication).

Located and forged in Sheffield, it serves global markets in Transport, Power Generation, and Manufacturing.

For further information or to arrange a discussion about how Tribosonics can add value to your business, contact: Christina King, c.king@tribosonics.com