Hold down ideas for machining dog tags and business cards on a CNC

[Hilltop366]

If the tags are a consistent size you could combine the pocket idea with the vac clamp idea. the vac holds them down and the pocket stops them from sliding.

[Crusarius]

OG, I do have a lathe and I was laying awake last night designing them in my head.

Ianab, I tested by flipping the printed bottom clamp over and it did make a difference. I was thinking about trying exactly what you described.

Hilltop, I was also thinking about the pocket. I almost wondering about integrating the last 3 ideas. I would think that would give me a pretty solid setup. I am still trying to make the fixture to handle the dog tags and business cards but when all else fails I might just be better off making separate fixtures for each.

Thanks a ton guys, you have helped get my creative mojo moving again.

[Old Greenhorn]

OK, Thanks for the reminder. I just came in from morning chores (late start again) and forgot to look. When I go back out I'll pick through my old rollaway toolbox and see if I can find any remnants to reconstruct the numbers and try to make you a sketch later. This is so simple to make you will laugh at it. But as I said we ran hundreds of thousands of parts with them, and I just remembered another job I used them on, machining the jaws for the schrade multi-tool. I think we did near a million of those. Lot's of clamps  :D . I think we had 200 clamps on each of two fixture tombstones.

[21incher]

I have seen people do things like that using a Cameo 4 vinyl cutter with a scribe using the strong sticky mats not as deep a scribe thought. I am guessing Cricut can do the same. The mats are flexible so that peel fairly easy but don't slide.
Looks like you could also make a fixture using a diamond pin in the hole and sliding v clamp for the dogtags.

[Crusarius]

Ok, so I spent a bunch of time on this and think I finally have something that is going to work.

I took everyone's ideas squeezed them all together then simplified my original plan and here is what I came up with.



 

The fixture can accommodate a standard dogtag and an aluminum business card. All I have to do is move the hold down locations. Everything is drilled and ready to go.


The pockets are machined using a 1/2" dovetail cutter to 0.050" deep. The thickest card I have is 0.036" thick. This makes it so the card fits cleanly inside the angle of the dovetail. 



 

I lose a very small area around the outside but it is close enough to the edge I don't want to machine there anyhow.

The blue pieces you see are 3D-printed using ABS. the are oval shaped to give me the cam lock feature. I place the card into the pocket, the rotate the clamps till they touch the card and tighten them. They all tighten rotating towards the card. 



 

So far I have been happy with my 4 card test. The first image in this post is what I am running now. I am anxious to see the results.

It is going to be nice to be able to machine 16 cards at a time. Instead of having to babysit the machine and change cards every 10 minutes now I can just let it go.

Picture results anxiously waiting...

[Crusarius]

pictures as promised

This picture is the full layout and my first big test. Small tags are dog tags and then I have 2 business cards on there. I am using a 120 degree diamond drag tip. Loving the drag tip for this kind of stuff.


 

Action photo taken during machining. 



 

End result after a quick vacuum to get rid of the dust. Still need a rag wipe down to get them clean. Very happy with the results. 



 

Fixture is working great. The machine has been running for over 2 hours now and still going. nothing has moved!!!!

[btulloh]

Cool.  Nice solution and all done in house. It's a win.  smiley_hollywood_cool

Good score on snagging the Flintstone account too. The new tool is already paying dividends!

[Crusarius]

here are the three styles.

I belong to a four wheel drive club and we have been trying to figure out how to do emergency contacts forever. Everyone said we will just laminate a full members list and give everyone a copy. Needless to say that was not a very popular thing for a bunch of ppl. So this is my idea. Hopefully I can sell them on it and then get to engraving.

[Crusarius]

I did learn something very valuable. Since the business cards are thinner than the dog tags, I need to change the tool depth. I think I machined one blank card and half of another.

[Crusarius]

and a couple more....


I think I am starting to get pretty good at this CNC thing.



 



 

[Crusarius]

using carbide create to do the G-code. Definitely not my preferred software but its the only thing I can afford right now.

[21incher]

Here is a video about that dot peen machine I got doing the dog tags. Really fun tool  toy.
Vevor Electronic Dot Peen CNC Marker 300mm x 200mm Making Dog Tags - YouTube

[Crusarius]

How is it removing the film after its been engraved?

[Old Greenhorn]

I am very familiar with these machines, they are called 'dot peen' engravers or markers. In my previous life as an M/E I was given a project to mark model and s/n data on one line of our smaller hydraulic tools that we sold to the military. We did several models and I had programs for each. Some were steel and some were plastic shrouds that were engraved. I researched and tested a lot of machines before settling in on one particular company. The name escapes me (I think it was 'Pro-Pen') but it cost in the 5500-8k range and had the programming features we needed imbedded in the machine. (No computers needed.) I designed the fixtures to hold our tools and the operator only had to set or confirm his/her starting S/N and run the tools throu8gh, one at a time. We did thousands of them and I replicated the entire system, programs and all and sent it to our plant in MX. It came back two years later when they pulled the line out from that plant, it was a mess and missing most of the tooling I made. I fixed the machine up and put it to work for another dedicated purpose. Around the time I was retiring we had a similar project to mark bigger tools and it was given to one of the new guys. He was looking at smaller units that could be handheld in place on the tool to run the program. Those were bigger tools.

 As was said, simple tools, easy to program and run, and with a good setup work very consistently. That noise can get on your nerves after a while though. :D 21, did you mention it and I missed it, what does that unit go for? 

[21incher]

How is it removing the film after its been engraved?

Peels right off. It's funny how the film just seems to stretch. They scratch too easy if it's removed before hand. I bought some clear rubber rustoleum spray to try coating them with when it warms up outside


OGH I did mention in the description to prepare for a headache ;). This is just a crude knockoff of the machines you used. It's a fun tool toy that would be good for things like home use and craft shows. The software seems to be from years ago but works good after figuring it out.  I had a lot of fun with it. They were about $450 minus my 5% discount code a couple weeks ago but now have jumped to $495 minus the 5% if you use the code. Vevor seems to be the new Sears and Roebuck of Harbor Freight tools with pretty good quality. Most of this type of work is done with lasers today but I thought it would be fun to show different options.