First board nigh ready

Post date: Jul 14, 2014 1:51:49 AM

Just finished milling the first fretboard. A bit of an adventure given that I'm kind of new at using FeatureCam and the CNC mill. I encountered some systematic errors that are either due to the mill (it's a cheap mill) or more likely, there's an offset that's being applied that I haven't picked up on. I ended up milling the pockets slightly larger than needed, but that shouldn't hurt. I also ended up manually milling the perimeter of the fretboard. The cheap CNC mill only has 12" of table travel, and the fretboard blank is 12", so that's an issue. For the next version, I should cut off the unused parts of the fretboard to make it fit the mill better. Also, the drilling should be done when the pockets are milled, rather than doing a separate setup. And the order of operations should be changed so that the thickness is milled first and then the pockets added, that should lead to less breakouts between pockets.

I also ended up manually milling some additional features to allow space for wiring. One important thing to note is that in some of the pockets, I broke through into the space where the fret wire will go. Given that's a conductor, I need to make sure that it doesn't end up shorting anything important. Also important to note is the shelf that I had to mill on the bottom of the fretboard is getting very close to breaking through the fret slots as well. That would be awful, but certainly fixable.

Another thought is to eliminate the molded inserts and simply fill the LED holes with epoxy from the front. This would make a simple seal, but if there are any imperfections, it's pretty much game over. Starting to lean back toward the light pipe, since my first mold samples are not looking all that great. Too many bubbles, and the mold release isn't working so hot. Probably better to mill a better mold, but I'd need to get thicker Teflon.

In any case, here are some pictures and some videos of the milling process.