 Hey, what's up folks welcome back to another layer by layer in today's video We're gonna take a look at CNC milling some keycaps for a custom macro pad So here we go I have the lemon keypad and I CNC milled these keycaps out of some cherry and some walnut So today I want to show you folks how I set up the toolpaths infusion 360 So let's just jump into the learn guy real quick So folks if you want to make this project we do have a learn guide So you can use the code the circuit diagram and the assembly instructions to build your own lemon keypad It's a great way to support the channel and to support your maker habit. So definitely check it out I'll have a link in the description As for the CNC mill that I'm using I am using the Bantam tools desktop CNC. It's really nice a little CNC used to be called other mill and now it's Bantam tools and Really cool about Bantam tools. They have a really nice speeds and feeds kind of cheat sheet that Walks you through some of the recommended speeds and feeds for the various tools and They have two different categories here for some for some haggini, which is like a hardwood and some birch plywood Which is more of a soft wood So really nice to to use these as a point of reference for your feeds and speeds. Cool Alright, so having said that I'll be referencing that the Bantam tools desktop software is really nice I'm going to go ahead and set up so depending on What stock you have you're going to want to update your dimensions here? So I have a piece of stock I'm going to set it to what I have so it's 110 by 76 and the thickness of this piece of material is 12 millimeters thick and then for the placement. I'm using The nitto tape which is a nice strong adhesive and it's it's roughly about point two millimeters thick So that's why I have a Z offset of point two millimeters if you zoom in here looking at it from the front side You can see that there is a tiny bit of gap in between our stock and our spoil bed So that is nice to see there, but once that's set up we can go into fusion 360 and take a look at the model So in the design workspace, I have my model already kind of flipped and positioned just to make it a little bit easier I used the joint to do so so normally you would see it something like this So you can use a joint to reposition Your model so it's either flipped upright or in a better spot for you when you're setting up your Your tool paths so with that out of the way Let's go jump into the manufacturing workspace and the first thing I want to do is create a new setup for our stock So right over here in this tab you got the new setup button I'll click on that and the first thing I do is I'm going to set up my my stock point of origin and For the band some tools Going back over to it You'll see that it's actually at the lower left corner here So the lower left corner is where we want to set it and you want to pick the top of the stock here The top of the stock is that little dot there and that's where we want it under the stock tab This is where we can apply we can change the mode from relative size because right now It's just a relative size I'm going to change this to the fixed size because we do have a fixed piece of stock that has a very specific dimensions So it was 110 by 76 and the thickness of it was 12 Right, so you'll see here that our stock is by default kind of the model position is set to the middle We want to change that so that it's in the lower left corner. So I have three of these Dropdowns here that I need to update so the model position for the X. I'll set that to negative X and Then for the Y, I'll do negative Y and then for the Z. I'll do negative Z So to kind of clear this out for the X side for the X axis, I'll put zero But if you look here, it's it's kind of really really close I kind of want a safe zone So I'm going to add a little bit of offset here So I'm going to change this to two and I'll do the same for the Y. I'll change that to two so that will Push our model all the way to the lower left corner Like we need and then if you look at it from the front You notice it's still in the center and that's because that offsets built in there So I'm going to remove that offset clear that out and now we have our model The bottom of our model is now the bottom of our stock So that is how we want to set it up and then looking at it here You can see you can get a good idea of how many you can lay out in this given piece of stock So I was able to fit three by three so a total of six key caps Which is exactly what I need for for this lemon pad, right? So this is a good idea a good reference point to see how many things you can lay out here So that's why I have a fixed size box here for my model for my stock So that's pretty much it. I'm gonna hit okay and the next thing we need to do is to figure out All right So we know we have a good amount of material that we need to kind of shave off in order to get to the thickness of our model so what I ended up doing was making a face so I'm gonna click on the face thing here and This is going to really Face our entire piece of material to the desired thickness that we want because I want to make multiple keycaps on this piece of stock so I Need to change the tool so over here under select tool The Bantam tools has a nice JSON file that has a library of all of their tools So you get all their tools that are kind of stock and it's a really good way to kind of get going So you can just download that from their website import it in here and then there you go You have all your your tools so For the Bantam tools the biggest tool that I can do here that fits this part is the one eighth inch flat end mill That's this one here. So I can select that and then just say select and For the feeds and speeds. This is where you want to reference their website. So depending on what type of wood You have I was able to get away with the birch plywood stuff So over here the the spindle speed is set to 16 1,400 the cutting rate I set to 1,500 and for the plunge rate is 381 And that's really it for that for the geometry Looking at the tab you can see that yellow idelon outline This just gives you a visual indicator of what the geometry For this facing operation is it's really the stock right the whole piece of stock that we've defined That's what we want to we want to we want to just slim down that whole piece of stock So that it is the desired thickness of our keycap, which is seven millimeters under the heights, however Come down here and it's kind of already set up for us. So we need to kind of specify The top in the bottom of our operation and it's kind of already set up for us So you can see here that the bottom height is actually going to be the top of our model So that's where it's going to stop the cut is going to stop right before it gets down here And the top of our cut is really the top height of our stock So that's that's a That's right here top height stock top. That's what we we defined our stock to be 12 millimeters So that's where it's going to start and then it's going to stop right before it gets to that model So then the next thing I want to do is I wanted to find some some some some multiple Stepdowns so under the passes. I need to turn that on some multiple depths need to turn that on because they're tool I don't want to be too aggressive on this tool So I'm gonna turn that on in the maximum step down recommended for the 1 eighth inch It's actually 1.27, but I'm just gonna leave it at 1 millimeter just to be a little bit A little bit not so aggressive, right? So with that hit okay, and we'll get a visual Render of what the what the the job look like Now I've kind of forgot to add one more thing So let me go back into that so I can either double-click on that face or just right-click edit Under passes. I do want to come over here where it says step over you see where it has like 3.01625 That is the a diameter of our eighth inch tool and what I found is like it tends to leave a little bit of Access material behind in between the step over so I'm gonna make the step over tighter by reducing this number so I'm gonna put 2.8 and That makes it so that our step over is actually Ensuring that it's getting rid of anything in between the step over So I've made it tighter and that just makes it a little bit finer Surface finish I think so I'm gonna hit okay, and then we can Preview it now, and if we do a simulate there's a little simulate button here So I'll click that and then we got a little playhead arrow here So I can play that and it will just run through and increase the speed by Clicking and dragging on that little slider here. You see that it's just doing a nice tights You know the facing operation, so it's just getting our whole piece of stock to its desired thickness So that's all we're doing there, and it's gonna step down with a maximum step down of a millimeter So that's really all we're doing here in this operation We're just setting up our material to get to the desired thickness because we really want to do Multiple keycaps across this piece of material and here we can start to see our our model Kind of the top of our model shine through there All right, so I'll hit close and the next thing I want to do is I'm going to apply a 3d adaptive so I'm going to click 3d adaptive by default my 1 8th inch They're the last tool that was selected is selected here. You could click on select again just to verify That's the 1 8th inch. Yes. That's what I want it. Okay and then under Geometry I'm not going to select anything just yet for the height. I am going to change something here We need to specify the top height the top height of our cut is now not the stock But the model because we've already we've already faced our material So now we can tell this adaptive this adaptive clearing that hey You need to start right at the top here of our model and the bottom here bottom height is still our bottom model So that's set up fine under the passes I'll go ahead and turn off stock to leave because we wanted we want to get to all the stock and I want to change the maximum Roughing step down or the maximum step down from 10 and bring it back down to one So with that I'm just gonna hit okay, and this is gonna give you a visual of what the adaptive clearing is doing, right? It's basically going to mill out Everything from the stock except our model so what this doing is it's it's looking at the model and it's comparing it to the stock and it's kind of Really eating away at all of the stock, which is it really a good thing that we want for this specific piece of stock So if we want to make multiple Versions multiple cutouts using this piece of stock we need to define some boundaries So I'm gonna right-click on the adaptive hit edit and under geometry There's a little drop down here under the machining boundary I'm gonna switch that from none to selection and then for the selection I'm gonna come down here and select the inside wall or the inside Of the shell here of the keycap. So I'm gonna select that you get a green outline Signifying where it is and then for the tool containment I'm gonna change that from tool outside to the inside because all we're doing here is we're telling Hey, I just want you to focus on all of the geometry. That's inside of this selection, right? That's really all we need to do so I hit okay And now fusion is going to recalculate and figure out how many What's the right path to do? for that given boundary and You can see here that it has automatically figured out that there is some geometry in the center of this and it is Avoiding that geometry and it's cutting right where that geometry needs to be and this is the stem, right? And you take a note that the stem the height of the stem isn't necessarily flush with the height of the keycap They actually have different heights So if you were to use something like a pocket you wouldn't be able to do that So that's where the adaptive clearing works here. This is really kind of the best thing, but having a Machining boundary is Optimized it so it's just focusing on the stuff on the inside of the keycap. So that's that's why I have that set up here So now with that I'm going to need to figure out Well, how do I cut out the shape and because the shape is pretty simple the outside of the shape I can just get away with just a 2d contour So 2d contour I'll select that our 1 eighth inch tool is what we want to use and for the geometry I'll just select the bottom outside of our keycap and Then for the heights really all I need to change here is again the top height of this cut Thinks that it's it's set to the stock But I need to change that from the stock top to the model stop so we just need to make that change there and Our bottom height is already set up as our selected contours that we did in the geometry tab So in the passes tab all we need to do here is enable enable multiple depths and change Actually, so you said it's already set up here our maximum roughing step down is one millimeter now when I tried this I ran into a little bit of an issue where there was there was so much Pressure being applied that it kind of just knocked my part off of the bed Partly that that could be because I didn't use enough tape But I think by reducing this to half of a millimeter. I'm reducing the amount of pressure that's being applied So hopefully that is a little bit better here. So just making it so it's not so Aggressive here. So half of a millimeter seems to work out fine for my multiple depths So with that I'll hit okay and Then I can start to simulate this or really just look at the preview here and you'll see that that's a pretty good clean cut You can visually see how many times gonna step down and that's really it And then you can see that I have all of this extra Untouched material here. That's perfect for making multiple keys, right? So then the last operation I need to set up is the kind of cavity for creating our little stem or little cross thing here So the best operation for this one is just a 2d pocket. So I'll pull that out here under the drop down 2d pocket Now for the tool, I can't get a 1 eighth inch in here because it's just too big So I need to get a tool that is not only just Within, you know, the the boundary here, but also the depth of it. So over here. I'll take I'll show you folks This 1 32 inch End mill has a cutting diameter of Half point two inches, which is five millimeters. So I'm using this one the stock 32 inch flat and mill is actually three millimeters. So I just changed that over here. So under select I have my stock One 32 inch flat and mill. Let me find that here this one here and by default It has a cutting length of only three millimeters. So it's easy enough to right-click edit edit the tool And then you can change The the flute length here and the shoulder length you'll have to change that from three To five. So I'll put this here five And then this one five and you'll see that it gets updated here So that now is set up so that we can actually cut the full length of our stem So that that's what we need to do there. So hit apply hit select And then we'll adjust our feeds and speeds referencing the feeds and speeds in the documentation You can see here that the max depth for the 1 32 inch is actually a quarter of a millimeter point to five millimeters So that's what i'll be using here All right, so back over in diffusion Under the geometry all we need to do select the bottom surface right here. So that bottom surface there So that's selected and then under the heights I'm actually going to do for the top height. I'm going to switch this from stock top to a selection So with this selection now wants me to select something So i'm going to select the top surface of our stem. So basically this is saying I need this Cutting I need this cut job To start right here Don't start at the top of the model because there's nothing there if I were to Say, you know top model here It would start milling air because this stem is actually a little bit for lower down Then the top height of this so that's why you can say here in your top height You can make a selection here and then just select the top of your surface. Whoops Like that So that's Pretty much. Oh, okay, and then in back and then in the passes We're going to turn off stock to leave and then multiple depths Let's turn that on and change this from one millimeter to a point to five millimeter That was what was recommended in the feeds and speed settings. So I'll hit okay And then I'll get a render here of what it looks like So there we go. It is going to do a nice clean tool path. I can simulate it now You can see the head of ramp up to it. Oh, that's too fast. Let me slow that down hit play again You see that it comes down starts that That helical thing and you can see here that maybe it's starting too too high We could reduce that because it's got a really tall clearance But it no it but it's not too bad here and the the tool path is nice and concentric really optimized And it'll actually keep the tool down Which is nice Previously I tried using an adaptive clearing and that would just kind of retract every single After every single kind of step down. So it's nice that this keeps the tool down So the pocket the 2d pocket is definitely the right The right tool strategy for this for this particular geometry All right And that's pretty much it for setting up the tool paths at this point We can export these out or post them out and bring them into the bantam tool software and set them up and see how that works So once these are set up, um, I I thought about how should I export these out? And I'm a fan of kind of exporting out individual g-codes So that I can kind of take some time in between the the operations to clean it up So really I I like to export the uh the facing operation as a standalone g-code. So right click post process Make sure that the other mill if that's what you're using is selected. There's a bunch of other machines But I'll check I'll use the other mill which is the bantam tools right now and hit okay Navigate to where you want to save it And I like to name my stuff with like the tool in the beginning. So like one eighth and then face or I'll put lbl for You know lxl for my for my name here and then I'll call it the face And then also why not add like 12 millimeters as a way to define to specify the thickness of the material Um that I'm starting with so that's what I'm doing here So I'll just replace that because I already exported these out And then in the bantam tools, I'll bring in that face over here under file open file bring that out select our file And then from this drop down you need to select the one eighth inch tool And then you can use you can toggle between the different um previews here to kind of see The the paths is a great way to visualize like is that the right path? Yes, that looks about right So that is what our material or that is what the face will look like once we're done. It'll just Make our material seven millimeters thick. All right. So then back over diffusion Um the adaptive clearing and the contour I kind of want to export these out together So once the face is done There's going to be a lot of material in the other mill that I'm going to want to clean up So that's why I exported this out as a standalone gcode file So that the tool can kind of rest and I can have a moment to clean up All the stuff inside. So with that, um, I'm going to hold down shift and multi select both of these two The adaptive and the contour and I'm going to right click and say post process that way I can export both of these Uh strategies these tool cuts At the with the same gcode all in one file here. So Uh, I'll navigate to the right spot and then name it uh the 1 1 8th inch Key cap just like that and hit replace Okay, and then the last bit the 132 inch right here with that selected right click post process Same thing other mills selected hit okay navigate to the place you want to save it And then I'll go ahead and rename it to something like this 132 l lxl the key cap dot gcode. So let's save this out So now that those are all exported I can go back into the advanced tool software and bring them in So the first one the second one rather I'll bring in is the 1 1 8th inch lxl key cap Bring that in I need to specify the tool under the drop down select the 1 1 8th inch flatten mill And there it is looking really nice Cuts all the way through Cool, and then the last thing to bring in is open file the 132 inch Again under the drop down 132 inch is what I'll select and there it is notice that the um The key cap is not on the edge of our spoiler board and that's because we specified that 2 millimeter offset So that's that's why we set that up there So it's cool about this bantam tool software is you can add multiple copies of the same gcode So if you wanted to do a pattern or if you wanted to make multiple copies here We can bring in those files again And then use the placement here under the drop down placement You can add something like 34 And then let's go ahead and select the 1 1 8th inch flatten mill and it shows up right next to it You just have to um Be wary of where your 132 inch is because there are two g codes that I have to bring in here to make one key cap So right here 132 inch just make sure that these two have the same z Or or or y Offsets, so if you're going to make this 134 just make sure that the 32 is also 34 like that And that's how I was able to make multiple copies all in this one piece of One piece of stock material So that is how I set this up Um, I got lots of other ideas for making some different um Shaped keycaps, but let me know what you folks think Um, don't forget if you want to pick up anything from the Adafruit shop You can always get a discount code on wednesdays Uh for her asking engineer that happens at 8 p.m. Eastern time I'll have a link to the description um in the description of all of the playlist that we have so you can check out all of the Different layer by layers that we have But that's going to do it for this one. I will see you guys in the next one But until then remember to make a great day. Bye folks