It took a total of 5 Operation to machine the ejector assembly that consists of a ejector retention plate and the ejector plate. The two plates sandwich the return and ejection pins.

1st Op - Machine stock (~12" x 4" x .5") to size (~7.8" x 4" x .5"). (2x)
2nd Op - Face mill mating surface. (2x)
3rd Op - Machine ejector retention plate.
4th Op - Machine ejector plate.
5th Op - re-machine ejector retention plate with proper orientation to fix a design error.

Peck drilling with a smaller peck distance and slowing down the feed solved the drill breakage problem.

Original peck drilling: G83 G98 Z-2.12 Q.6 F19.0
Revised peck drilling: G83 G98 Z-2.2 Q.1 F9,5

With the revised peck drilling parameter, the spindle load is barely noticeable.

The meandering interest returns to the Simple Ejection Molding, picking up from a year ago, the building of the ejection assembly. 1/4" return spring pins and 3/16" ejectors pins were chosen.

The machining operation consist of spot drilling, then drilling, then reaming. The return pin holes went smoothly, but the drill snapped on the drilling of the ejector pin holes.

First it was the Patriot Act, then the National Defense Authorization Act and now Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). When will irrational fear finally end?

Dear Congressmen, Congresswomen, and Mr. President, when can we have our freedom back?

The baby TIG welder has arrived and a tig cart is being drawn using OpenSCAD with py2scad.

Miller Diversion 180 is a great portable (230V/120V) budget entry level air cooled tig welder. It's relatively inexpensive, comes with a 3 year warranty, and is Made in the USA!

For more information, Miller has a few videos explaining the Diversion 180 tig welder on their youtube channel.

Time flies. The little gang tool block for the Haas TL-2 took a whole day to complete. The gang tool is primary for drilling and tapping operation on the lathe. It's another small step toward automating the TL-2.

Another ~140sqft was added to accommodate the sewing machines. The Tippmann Aerostitch is up and running, though the tensioner still needs some fine tuning. It's a pretty unique American made pneumatic powered industrial sewing machine. How does it fit in with the cnc machines. . . donno. . . .

The little Lincoln SP170-T MIG welder and the abrasive chop saw are probably the oldest equipment in the shop while OpenSCAD and py2scad are two of the newest tools.

The table and square tubing profiles were first drawn in qcad then extruded and assembled using py2scad for output to OpenSCAD. The tabletop was machined using the Haas SR-100 cnc router and will be bolted to the welded metal table frame.

The table is for a Tippmann Aerostitch pneumatically operated sewing machine. It's one of the few American made heavy duty sewing machine available in the used market. The table still needs to be thoroughly welded, primed, and painted. However, by using open source cad packages, I was able to design, view, and modify the conceptual model and also dimension the parts for machining and cutting.