Spindle Camera

While trying to drill very small holes in punches I thought it would be easier to align the drill bit with the centre of the punch if I had a camera that could be used to do the alignment. There's quite a few spindle camera designs on the web, and I found one that used a particular webcam, so I bought one. I then dismantled it:

The PCB had its microphone removed and also the LEDs that could be used for illumination. The problem with them was that the didn't fit in the case I found on Thingiverse, and also that the LEDs were not pointing at the subject when looking at very small items.

I then printed the Thingiverse spindle cam case I found, after I'd modified it for the smaller collet nut I have on the engraver.

The PCB is held by the two halves of the case which are bolted together.

The collet nut slides into the back of the case and there's enough friction there to hold it while adjusting the alignment.

This is the camera on the spindle:

I used some dots on a white background and the trails feature of the camera script that was on Thingiverse. It seemed to work well once I had printed a holder that was a tighter fit on the collett nut.

It was then fairly easy to align the spindle on the end of a punch, then put a 0.1mm drill bit in and have a go at drilling a hole:

You can see some chips at the base of the drill there. The first attempt snapped the drill bit on removal just as it was nearly done. Not sure why, maybe too fast an extraction speed on the peck cycle.

I had another go and all worked well that time. This is a video of the camera output while drilling another punch hole.

These pictures were taken with the camera out of the spindle and held in a marking base I recently bought:

Bergeon Platax Punches

Bergeon Platax Punches

I've been gathering watchmaking tools for a while as they are useful for making small things, and especially useful for fiddling with watches. I have a project watch that I want to work on and having the right tools is always a good idea. One tool I recently bought is a Bergeon Platax tool which is used for dismantling balances.

Unfortunately one of the punches that it came with was broken, so I decided to make some more. These are not easy things to make, as they have various holes in the end of 0.1mm, 0.15mm and 0.20mm.

I used 3mm silver steel for the punch body, and some EN1A rod to make the stop rings. I'm using the CNC engraver/mill to drill the holes in the end of the punches using carbide drills. I created a tcl script that writes gcode with appropriate feed speeds and pecking cycles. It took a few attempts to find something that works, but I seem to have that now. And a pot of broken drills... The results are pretty good:

That's mine on the right and the original on the left. This is the broken 0.20mm punch on the left. The hole is about 1mm deep, I've no real idea if that's the correct depth, but it seemed to work on the balance I had a go at dismantling. The silver steel isn't particularly hard, but then, if it wears out I can make another punch...

One problem is the accurate positioning of the hole in the end of the punch. I think I may have to build some sort of something that I can use for positioning the CNC spindle when making small things. Trying to do it manually by poking me head round the spindle just doesn't work very well.

You can see the hole here, and the fact it's a bit off centre:

I've also ground a used D bit down and used it to create the rounded edge to the hole that the original Platax has on its punches. I may have to do something more accurate for that too. Somehow.