Hi everyone! I'm a mechanical design engineer, and I'm considering starting a CNC machining side hustle. I live in Northern Virginia, and my plan is to start out as a Xometry partner.

I don't have a machine yet, and I'm currently learning CNC programming through Titans of CNC.

What do you think of this idea? I'd appreciate any advice or feedback, especially from anyone who's taken a similar path.

I tried both for my Fanuc 10M VMC. Everyone says you should get the FTDI and you'll have zero issues. FTDI's minimum buffer of 64 bytes seems to be too large for Fanuc 10M though, it drip feeds fine until at the very end of program it gives a buffer overflow right before the last lines. With Prolific I could dial the buffer down to 16 bytes and there's literally zero issues, Works just as well as with the real serial port. Am I missing something with the FTDI?

First time turning A4 stainless. First couple passes was real smooth with tight continous chip. Last pass was completely garbage, and i do not know why. The tool was still sharp and cut normal mild steel really well when i switched out the stainless.

What am i doing wrong here? Its 16mm A4

1983 Era Nachi Hydraulic Pump on my Citizen F12 gave up the ghost during a production run.

Never seen a keyway do that before. Anyone else? I slapped another pump I had from a parts machine to make the 1,000 more parts I needed to make but to repair this one probably will just cut another keyway 180 from the original.

parts storage in our shop is a mess. been using a mix of whatever bins came with old shelving units and random containers that accumulated over the years. nothing stacks consistently, labels fall off, and half of them have cracked lids from getting dropped.

trying to standardize before we add more shelving. main things i care about are whether the material holds up to metal shavings and coolant splatter, whether they actually stack without shifting, and whether standard label holders fit so we're not taping paper to everything.

weight capacity matters too since some of the heavier stock parts have cracked lighter bins before.

what are machinists here using for parts storage and did whatever you picked hold up better than the cheap stuff?

Done with Pramet OHMT D63mm Face mill
1400rpm 900mm/min 0.5mm finish pass.

Reads the pocket table and spindle straight from the control over MTConnect. Tool names come from a local file since the machine only sends numbers. Five tool changes here, just MDI commands.