Above: Following lines of code, a CNC router produced a TechFarms logo, etched in a sheet of test material. Photo by Valeriia Radchenko.
On the job, Kurt Morris is never far from the leading edge of things. As an employee at TechFarms, he has worked closely with ArroTech’s GEON E61 metal-detecting drone project.
He has helped entrepreneurs move product ideas beyond drawing boards. At TechFarms and at Gulf Coast State College, where he teaches classes and was once an employee of the school’s advanced technology center, Morris has become adept at additive 3D printing and manufacturing.
Now, he is becoming familiar with subtractive manufacturing and machining techniques and computer numeric control (CNC) technology.
A CNC machine was recently added to the prototyping and fabrication shop that is being outfitted at the TechFarms campus. While 3D printers produce objects by adding material layer by layer based on a digital model, the CNC machine is, well, more traditional. It creates by taking away.
The table-sized CNC router at TechFarms can accommodate large sheets of wood, plastic, sheet metal, carbon fiber material or fiberglass that are then carved up into component pieces ready for assembly.
The machine obeys G-code, which is generated based on computer-assisted designs.
“The code tells the machine where to go and what to do,” said Morris, who explained that a project may involve thousands of lines of code comprising what amount to x and y coordinates on a grid and z coordinates, which dictate the depth at which a bit will proceed.
Different operations require different tools — drills, end mills, bits with square tips or round ones. Morris also sets the speed at which a tool will travel, typically 60 to 100 inches per minute.
An early “customer” of the CNC machine at TechFarms is the developer of a Daily Adventure Box — a smart locker that works as a self-serve dispensary of recreational and beach-going gear.
Morris turns the CNC machine loose on 5-foot x 10-foot sheets of polyethylene plastic and 30 minutes later is presented with the parts that make up the shell of the adventure box, set to receive hardware and come together.
Morris worked using handheld tools to produce an adventure box prototype, a process that yielded results far less accurate than those produced by the CNC machine.
The prototyping/fabrication shop and its CNC capability already have attracted the interest of nearby businesses including ATOR Labs, a startup in TechFarms Capital’s portfolio and a product of the TechFarms business incubator.
The shop has begun to produce parts for ATOR’s OMNICHECK machine, which is used to test breathing aids such as the self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBAs) used by firefighters.
Having a fabrication shop as a next-door neighbor will come as a big help to ATOR as it works to ramp up manufacturing and meet demand for its product.
“Most anything we can design we can cut,” Morris enthused.
With four-decimal-point precision.
