新车间 [XinCheJian]

James Coombs and Alex Cureton-Griffiths are building a CNC machine (what is a CNC?) at Xinchejian. James is doing it because he wants a tool to build space-grade components for micro-satellites. Alex is in it because he likes smacking things with tools, and is forging a great relationship with a sexy little socket wrench… We have Lio to thank for helping out with the Arduino code. Alex’s attempts at this were non-existent, and James’s were…sub-optimal. Lio was the lightning bolt to our Doctor Frankenstein. We put the body together, but he wrote the code that made our monster LIVE! Well, at least jiggle about a bit before devolving into a grinding mess. We’re mostly making up things as we go along at this point (and for that matter, throughout the whole project), and last night we just got the X-axis gantry installed. If only the coupling was a bit smaller we could attach our grunty little motor and get things moving properly. The way it is now, it just grinds away, rattling against the axis of the ballscrew. Next steps are to get a decent coupling and attach the gantry so that it doesn’t wobble like a drunken jelly trying to disco dance.]]>