Last modified: 2026-10-29 23:09:02
< 2026-10-28 2026-10-30 >I have this:
Servo drives and power supply are screwed down to the plywood, which is screwed down to the stainless box, and the box has 3 holes in it for cables to pass through, one is really big to accommodate the connectors for the servo feedback.
I don't have a grommet for the big hole, am planning to either line it with a good few layers of tape or else use a pair of smaller grommets cut in half and wedged in place, unsure.
I need to make some standoffs for the FluidNC board and the relay board, then screw them in place, then connect up all the wiring. Not forgetting to fit the power switch and LEDs on the front panel of course, and earth both halves of the control box.
Wiring always takes so long for what it actually is. I already have it perfectly clear in my mind which pieces need to connect together, but cutting cables, stripping wires, crimping, operating screw terminals, it's all so annoying and time-consuming.
Let's try Solidcraft for the standoffs, should be a trivial part.
That was just as easy as FreeCAD. Draw a sketch with 2 circles on the origin, dimension them, extrude, chamfer.
And 3mf export worked perfectly.
Most of the internal wiring done:
Still needs:
I shut the lid and powered it up and was able to talk to FluidNC with my phone from the other side of the room, so the box is not blocking WiFi, which is good.
OK wow, Solidcraft has an integration with codex and you can ask codex to make modifications to your model. Let's give that a go.
I asked it what we were working on and it was really confused because it thought it needed to look at the filesystem or find a git repo or something. I then clarified that we're working in Solidcraft and then it used the Solidcraft tools to take a screenshot and correctly described the spacer I'm working on.
I then asked it to knurl the outside of the spacer and it worked for a really long time making dozens of tool calls and then the Solidcraft UI locked up.
OK, locking up the UI is apparently down to boolean operations being extremely slow in Solidcraft and also blocking the main thread while they do it. I think it is actually working.
It's tempting to profile this and see if I can improve it but Solidcraft is developing so quickly that it may not be worth it. May be worth it for fun regardless, probably give it a go.
Although https://github.com/tangency-labs/solidcraft/issues/1597 this issue says the kernel is being replaced so speed-ups are not wanted anyway, meh, forget it.
< 2026-10-28 2026-10-30 >