Coug Shop Machinist
Introduction
The Coug Shop is the lab where they teach the 300 level manufacturing course, machine students’ capstone projects and, most importantly, where the student employees get to play around with CNC machinery to make club parts and personal projects (thanks Kurt). I knew going into WSU I really wanted to get involved with the Coug Shop, and an Alumni of my high school robotics team, Justin Newton, worked as a student employee at the Coug Shop, which is the role I have now. Justin knew who I was and my CNC background from highschool, so he was able to put in a good reference for me and help me get the job I have now. I absolutely love this job. I love CNC machining, CAM, making cool projects, fixing and understanding machinery and teaching people, all of which are part of my role in the shop.
Formula work
Although I do not consider myself a formal member of the FSAE team at WSU, I am close with a lot of the members as they are fellow employees at the machine shop. So this last season I volunteered to help them CNC machine a very ambitious 5/8th” aluminum differential hanger.
Fixture Plate
To make the differential hanger parts within the timeline while the designs were still being finalized, I made a mic-6 fixture plate to increase the speed at which I could mill all the parts and reduce the amount of wasted stock. The fixture plate takes up almost the entire mill, has over 100 tapped holes for plate operations, and slots for mounting the fixture plate and mounting vice on top of the fixture plate, to make it less annoying having to take it off for vice work. The reason I made it is for plate operations, you would place down you plate stock on the fixture plate, then drill holes in the exact location of tapped holes around where you are going to mill your part, so you are able to fixture the plate with 1/4-20 screws and then mill the plate away without worrying about clearances of clamps and with a more distributed preload with screws. When you go to contour your outer edge, you leave tabs and then remove then with tin snips afterwards. All of the CAD, CAM and machining for these was done by me.
I made many mistakes when designing and machining this fixture plate. The first mistake was making the size the exact travel of the mill. This meant that I was unable to properly tram the fixture plate, so although it is close to square, I am unable to use any of the exterior sides of the fixture plate to establish a g54. Instead I use the slots in the fixture plate, as I am able to tram those when I set up the plate in the mill. I also had to take the edge off with a Dremel, as the facing operation didn’t reach the edge of the fixture plate as I only had a 2” face mill. meaning a plate covering the fixture plate wouldn’t sit flat if I didn’t do that. It hurt my soul, but I do what I must.
Differential Hanger
The entire reason I made the fixture plate, was to make 5 different, large, 5/8” aluminum parts for the differential hanger assembly. Rather than doing 5 individual parts in vices, which may have had 3 setups each, I was able to reduce it to just 3 setups in total for all 5 parts. Using the technique I described earlier, I programmed the CAM and machined the parts out, they turned out beautifully.
Lab Work
3D Printer Doctor
Being in a shop with many machining experts, I soak up as much of their knowledge as I can to become better with CNC. However, when it comes to the 3D printers we manage, I have somewhat cemented myself as the “3D printing guy”. I enjoy working on 3d printers and have many repairs, setups, prints and diagnoses. The repair that immediately comes to mind is when the thermistor on our Prusa MK3 said it was not being read by the computer. I attempted many different things, like reconnecting the wires, re-flashing the firmware, taking apart the sleeve of wires to the hot end to inspect for breaks, swapping our the hot end for another from another printer to see if it would read. After being very confused for a few days, I took the main board out and looked at the fuse for the thermistor to find it had been burnt. I unfortunately don’t have any photos but the size of it was at most 0.020”x0.040”. So with a new board plugged it in, I flashed new firmware and it worked like a charm.
Teaching Assistant
During the labs typically the shop manager, Kurt Hutchinson, will be at one station while another student employee is stationed at another. So I get to be a one-on-one instructor for people, teaching them how to operate CNC machinery, manual machinery and metrology tools and I love sharing my passions, hence why this portfolio website is a large bloated rant. I can be more succinct if needed I swear. Regardless, Kurt is very hands off when it comes to how we teach people, he trusts that we know intimately what it is we are teaching and I like that freedom a lot.