Project Pneupack

[MechMags]

Excellent, progress, nice touch with the "etching". Looking forward to seeing the finals.

Then on to how to a get a few made for me and the wife.

[FiXeL]

iirc he does not do commercial work.

Yup. I have a very clear understanding with the shop manager: It's ok to use the equipment in your spare time aslong you ask permission and no commercial work. Maybe it's possible to do a run of these as a customer, but i doubt they have interest in this kind of work. I could also look around if there are other shops that are willing to do these, but the numbers that we would be talking about would make it either too expensive per part, or would be taking a large financial risk having these made.

I allready have put alot of time in these and thats just as far as i want to go with this. After all is done i will post all the files i have including the CNC program used to mill these. Today i finished milling 2 packs and those will be the only ones made by me.

Btw sorry i havent updated in a while.... christmass break, world or warcraft and a new computer are the culprits in this. I will have an update ready this weekend.

@ Chris Nearchos:

The mid part of the emag battery casing is an extrusion, not milled. It probably could be milled, but that would take alot of time due to the inside contour in them. (cutting depth and tool diameter limitations due to radiusses) The mid part i made for my pack took about 2-2,5 hours to mill and that would make them very expensive even in mass production. Maybe you can contact AGD to ask where they had those extrusions made. If the extrusion die is still there, they still could make a custom run for you. It will be expensive but having 2x 12 feet extrusion tube made will probably cheaper than having them milled, and you will have material for about 72 casings. The top and bottom piece will need to be milled but those are quite easy because of their height.

On a side note: AGD slug rails are also an extrusion.

Also the dimensions i am using for the pneupack are not a exact replica of the emag battery casing. This is due to the fact we use the metric system over here, and i didnt have the proper tools at home to measure the radiusses on the original pack. I've made a rough extimate, milled a test piece, and adjusted it slightly. Because dimensions are programmed in millimeters, alot of values were programmed this way to keep things simple. The program itself is a monster and probably one of the largest and most complicated programs i've ever written. (it contains all 3 parts and all setups needed in one program) Writing it in inches from the start would make it too complicated if you are used to metric values.

As for the CNC code, it will try to convert this from metric to inches for all of you. This will definatly not mean it will be ready to run on every machine out there, because there are alot of differences between machines, different programming languages, and i have some parametric programming in there that not all machines can handle (as far as my knowledge of ISO programming goes)

Also Luke sent me a PM, he wants to make something similar to what i have and asked me permission. Since i will give away my data to the community i see no problem with this.

Expect an update the next few days!

[Spider-TW]

Yup. I have a very clear understanding with the shop manager: It's ok to use the equipment in your spare time aslong you ask permission and no commercial work.

It's a good deal to keep you guys sharp. It's a shame too, the kind of scrap material that leaves a busy shop. Which reminds me, I have a pair of titanium hammers for sheridan pumps.

Are you going to finish and anno your packs?

[FiXeL]

Atleast mine will be annoed, what happens to the other one is up to the future owner. Ironicly these packs were made out of scrap material also.

And now the long overdue update you all have been waiting for!!!



V.1.0 for the bottom part... still needed the hole to adjust the LPR, and...



The ULE milling could be improved. I've adjusted the height, because 5mm is just not enough to make the holes for the cap screws. The bottom part is now 6mm high (a bit less than 1/4")



Version V.1.1 was right on the money tho... and came with:



Improved ULE milling. Average wall size still stays between 2mm, and the cap screws now fit perfectly. (not sticking out)



Also the middle part gained a slot so the macroline can be routed trough it. I went this route because the initial idea made it much to complicated to ULE mill the middle part.



Total view without any stuff installed...



My current project that i'm working on. I did hesitate to post because i am still working on the gun, but this way you will get a general picture of how it would look. And yes, rail, body and gripframe has seen some milling.



The only snag i came upon is the placing of the barb for the macroline... There's very little room in there, and the macroline fitting sits in the way. But with a plastic barb it fits ok. Also i still have to drill a hole in the top part to route the LPR airline through. I will do this on a drill press, and add the hole to the CNC program i have. Besides this hole, the program is finished and i'll put it up as soon as possible.

As for this topic, we are reaching the end. There's no more milling to be done, only finishing up and getting stuff prepped for anno. When i have the program (its on our company's network atm) i will post it here complete with a guide to Heidenhain programming (the language it is programmed in) so fellow machinists can work to make this compatible with the machine tools they use.

Thanks for all the great comments placed, and i look forward to see more of these produced!

[Engus]

that pack makes for a really clean setup, and I like the little changes you made to the body and rail. I foresee a MOTM winner.