Matthew Malham

Bottom line up front: ZoneCycle reads watts, cadence, calories, and heart rate off your Rogue Echo Bike over Bluetooth and puts them on your phone in big, easy-to-read type, with color-coded heart-rate zones and a voice coach that calls your intervals for you. It is free, with no ads and no subscription.

Fourth in a series on building small iOS apps by describing them to Claude Code, one stubborn idea at a time. Previously: Weather Gnome, Times Table 400, and Softly.

My doctor is the reason there is a bike in my basement

At a checkup last winter, my doctor made the case for high-intensity interval training (short, hard bursts with recovery in between) as one of the most time-efficient things I could do for my heart. So I did what any reasonable person does: I went down an internet rabbit hole and came out having bought a Rogue Echo Bike and a Rogue Echo Rower, and set them up in the basement for a winter of HIIT.

The bike is a beast. Fan-driven, nearly indestructible, the kind of machine you could hand down to your grandkids. There is exactly one bad thing about it.

The Rogue Echo Bike’s screen is the worst part

The stock console is a small, dim, no-backlight LCD. In a bright gym it is merely dated; in a basement, at 6am, mid-interval, with sweat in your eyes, it is nearly useless. You are supposed to be pushing to a target, and instead you are squinting at a gray readout hunting for your heart rate. Search “rogue echo bike display” or “rogue echo bike screen hard to read” and you will find the same complaint on repeat: incredible bike, console from 2005.

Does the Rogue Echo Bike have Bluetooth?

This is the question that decides everything. The newer Echo Bikes (roughly the current console, ~2023 onward) broadcast your ride data over Bluetooth and ANT+ using the standard FTMS (Fitness Machine Service) protocol. Older ones (2017–2023) do not. Rogue sells the M2 monitor upgrade to add it. If your bike broadcasts, any app that speaks FTMS can read your live watts, cadence, calories and heart rate straight off the machine. Which means the display problem is really a software problem. And software problems I can do something about.

So I built the app I wanted

I am not a programmer. I build these apps by describing what I want to Anthropic’s Claude Code and iterating stubbornly until they exist. This time the itch was personal and specific: I wanted the basement bike to have the screen it deserved.

So I built ZoneCycle. It reads watts, cadence, calories and heart rate off the bike over Bluetooth and puts them on your phone in big, readable type, the numbers you are actually chasing, legible from the saddle. Pair a Bluetooth chest strap and it does the thing the stock console never could: it colors the whole screen by heart-rate zone. Green means recover. Orange means work. You know where you are with a glance, not a stare.

Why heart rate, not watts (and why you don’t need the $200 M2)

Here is a thing the fitness-tech world does not love to say out loud: on a fan bike, the watts are a guess. There is one sensor reading the fan’s RPM, and power and calories are estimated from a curve. It is a perfectly fine number to glance at, but it is not the precise, trainable power a road cyclist gets from a crank meter. Chasing “exact watts” on an air bike is chasing fake precision. Your heart rate, though, is real, and it is the number that actually tells you how hard you are working. So ZoneCycle leads with the honest metric: your heart, in color.

There is a second thing worth knowing. Rogue sells a $200 monitor upgrade (the M2), and one of the things it unlocks is on-bike interval coaching. But if you have the current console, your bike is already broadcasting everything over Bluetooth. You do not need a $200 add-on to get coached intervals; you need an app that reads what your bike is already saying. That is the whole idea: ZoneCycle is the free coaching layer for the console you already own.

Training by zones, not by guessing

Here is where ZoneCycle stops being “a nicer screen” and starts being a coach. It sorts your effort into five heart-rate zones based on a percentage of your maximum heart rate, and it estimates that max with the Tanaka formula (208 − 0.7 × your age), which the research finds more accurate for adults than the old 220-minus-age rule. Tell it your fitness level and it shifts the zone bands to match, so “orange” means the right thing for you, not for a 25-year-old athlete.

The workouts are deliberately simple interval structures: a two-minute warm-up, then repeated pushes and recoveries (10 seconds on / 40 off, or 20 on / 60 off) for 5, 10, or 15 minutes, then a cool-down. A voice coach calls the pushes and recoveries on the clock, so you never have to look down. It scores your time in the hard zones, and at cool-down it measures how fast your heart rate drops in the first minute, a genuine marker of fitness that improves as you get fitter. None of this is hand-waving: the app cites its sources in-app (Gibala’s low-volume HIIT research, the Tanaka max-HR paper, Cole’s work on heart-rate recovery, the AHA target-zone chart).

(A few things I am still building: a zone compass, smarter voice feedback when you drift out of your target band, and Apple Health export. Those are in the next update, not the version on the store today.)

What the build actually taught me

The recurring lesson of this series is that the code is the fast part, and every app has some other part that turns out to be the real work. For the weather app it was personality; for the math app, the curriculum. For a bike app, it was the plumbing: live Bluetooth sensor data is messy, drops out, and disagrees with itself, and making a number on screen feel instant and trustworthy took far more care than drawing it did. The second surprise was the zone math: getting “what counts as orange for this person” right is a real question with real research behind it, and honoring that is the difference between a toy and a tool. After several rounds of design and debugging, everything started to come together, and the app finally felt just right.

The surprising part: it is actually fun

I expected to build a better gauge. I did not expect the workout to change. Training to a color instead of a number is weirdly freeing: you stop doing math mid-sprint and just chase the orange, and the intervals fly by. The app removes friction to use, provides an easy heads-up display of your data, and seamlessly integrates a motivational coach right where I need it most. I enjoy switching between the coaches from time to time; the coaching personas Sensei and Vicky are my favorites.

This evolution has been the inspiration to adapt the platform beyond the bike: ZoneRow and ZoneRun should be hitting the App Store soon.

Try it

ZoneCycle is free on the App Store, no ads and no subscription. If your Echo Bike (or any FTMS bike) deserves a better screen than the one it shipped with, that is exactly what it is for: riverroadlabs.app/go/6790217662.

If you want more of these, my other apps are on the App Store too: Weather Gnome, Times Table 400, and Softly.

Follow-up to Times Table 400: Vibe-Coding, Round Two

The Idea

Every sleep app I have ever tried wants to fix me with science. Breathing exercises, brainwave frequencies, a subscription. But the most reliable sleep technology ever invented is a lot older than any of that: someone you trust, reading you a story you already know, slowly, while the rain comes down outside.

So that is the concept of my next app: Softly — classic bedtime stories, read aloud in a calm gentle voice, over soft rain or a crackling fireplace, with a sleep timer that fades everything out after you have drifted off. The whole thing is designed to be like your sweet grandmother or mom reading to you by candlelight (with a classic British accent):

Classic Bedtime Stories

Softly ships with eight books: The Wind in the Willows (1908, all twelve chapters, six and a half hours of narration), five Beatrix Potter tales, The Velveteen Rabbit, and a curated handful of drowsy Robert Louis Stevenson poems. All beautifully written, all timeless, all perfect for bedtime.

The Code Was Easy. Vibe Coding The Sound Wasn’t.

If you have read the earlier posts in this series, you know the setup: I am not a programmer, and I build these apps by describing what I want to Anthropic’s Claude Code (the Fable 5 model) and iterating stubbornly until it exists. And you know the recurring lesson: the code is the fast part, and each app has some other part that turns out to be the real work. For the weather app it was the aesthetic personality. For the math app it was the development of the curriculum. For a bedtime app, it is hitting the mark on the sound.

The narration is AI-generated, a soft British voice I auditioned against several candidates and then slowed to a dreamy 85% pace. Auditioning voices for a bedtime story is exactly as pleasant as it sounds, but it is also genuinely a judgment call: one candidate read beautifully but unevenly, and uneven is fatal at 11 PM. The computer cannot tell you which voice would put a child at ease. You have to listen.

The ambient sound was harder. My first rain loop had a faint electrical hum that surfaced every twenty seconds or so, it turned out to be the seam where the loop restarted, and fixing it properly meant learning more about audio filtering and seamless loops than I ever expected to know. And then there were the crickets. I wanted a summer-night crickets option, and I generated attempt after attempt, and every single one sounded like tinny white noise instead of a meadow. After three rounds I cut the feature entirely. Rain and fireplace made the bar; the crickets did not. Shipping is choosing.

Apple Said No

Weather Gnome sailed through review. Times Table 400 got questioned at the border. Softly got flat-out rejected.

The rejection letter cited “Guideline 4.2.2 — Minimum Functionality” and said the app “only includes links, images, or content aggregated from the Internet” and “does not sufficiently differ from a web browsing experience.”

I contemplated this initial rejection several times. Softly has no links. It has no web view. It makes no network requests at all, every word of every book and every minute of audio is bundled into the app. You can use the whole thing in airplane mode. Whatever the reviewer was describing, it was not the app I shipped. After two rounds of App Review being demanding but basically reasonable, this was my first rejection that was simply wrong.

The Counterpunch

Here is where the earlier lesson — App Review is a conversation, not a verdict — paid off, because the temptation is to either despair or fire off an angry reply. We did neither. We did three things, all in one evening.

First, a calm, factual response in the Resolution Center: no links, no web content, no network use, eight narrated books, native audio engine. No indignation, just receipts.

Second — and this is the part I am proud of — instead of only arguing that the app was native enough, we made it more obviously native. The rejection became the excuse to build the feature a bedtime app should have had anyway: full lock-screen playback controls. Play, pause, skip, scrub, the chapter and book title right there on the lock screen with a little moon artwork. Now the phone itself testifies that this is a real audio app.

Third, the rejection mentioned the review was done on an iPad, and the iPad screenshots were the weakest part of the listing. New ones, same evening.

Resubmitted that night.

Approved!

One day later: approved, and Softly is live on the App Store. Free, no ads, no accounts, and — as the review saga established beyond all doubt — it works entirely offline!

Some Thoughts

• A rejection is not always right. Reviewers are humans moving fast. If the facts are on your side, state them plainly and politely, with evidence. Do not despair and do not vent — neither one ships apps.
• Turn the rejection into a feature. The best answer to “this does not feel like a real app” was to make it undeniable. The lock-screen controls were on the wish list anyway; Apple just moved them up the schedule.
• The public domain is a gift. Some of the best bedtime literature in the English language is sitting there, free, waiting to be treated well. (See you in January, Pooh!)
• Every app has its hard part, and it is never the code. Personality, curriculum, and now sound. The pattern is holding: the model writes the code, and the judgment is still your job.
• Round three really is easier. The certificates, the screenshots, the submission ritual — what used to take days of head-scratching is muscle memory and a folder of scripts now.

Softly is on the App Store now! Pick a story, light the fireplace, set the sleep timer, and let Mole and Ratty row you to sleep.

The Idea

Somewhere along the way, everybody agreed that times tables stop at 10×10. Maybe 12×12 if your teacher was ambitious. And then… nothing. There is an invisible wall at the edge of the multiplication chart, and past it lies the land of “just use a calculator.”

A kid (or an adult!) who can casually knock out 14×16 in their head walks around with a genuine superpower not because those facts come up constantly, but because of what knowing them does to your confidence with numbers.

So that is the app: a multiplication trainer that goes all the way to 20×20. Twenty times twenty is a 400 square grid, hence the name Times Table 400.

Vibe-Coding, Round Two

If you read the Weather Gnome post, you know the setup: I am not a programmer, and I build apps by describing what I want to Anthropic’s Claude Code (the Fable 5 model) the way I would explain a project to a friend, then iterating stubbornly until it exists.

This time it went fast. The whole space-themed skeleton — an astronaut mascot named Mochi, quiz “missions,” a Warp Manual full of mental-math techniques, a Galaxy Chart that tracks your mastery across the grid, a 60-second Hyperspace Sprint mode — went from idea to a working build on my phone in a day. Sounds, celebration screens, the works.

The second app is dramatically easier than the first. Partly because I knew the ritual this time (certificates, provisioning profiles, App Store Connect, the Apple bureaucracy from last time), and partly because the tooling from Weather Gnome carried over. The scripts and checklists we built shipping the first app became a little reusable kit, and app number two got to ride on it.

The Code Was Easy. The Teaching Wasn’t.

Here is the lesson that surprised me: for an education app, writing the code is the fast part. Deciding how to teach is the slow part, and the AI cannot decide that for you.

Does a beginner need every fact introduced with a little step-through derivation, or is that condescending for 2×3? (It is condescending. Early testing made that obvious the app was dutifully teaching facts a kid already knew cold, so we gated the intros to skip trivial and already-mastered material.) When should a missed fact come back around? What does a technique lesson for the 17s even look like? Those are curriculum questions, not code questions. The AI drafted options in seconds; choosing what was actually good for a learner was the real work.

Vibe coding has not changed my old conclusion, just sharpened it: the model writes the code, but the judgment is still your job.

Apple Wanted Receipts

Weather Gnome sailed through review in two days. Times Table 400 got stopped at the border.

Instead of an approval, I got a “Guideline 2.1 — Information Needed” letter: seven questions about the app’s purpose, audience, content, and features, plus a request for a screen recording of the full user flow — captured on a physical iPhone, not a simulator.

This turned out to be a great example of where the human is still very much in the loop. Claude drafted a thorough, honest reply to all seven questions in minutes. But no AI could hold my iPhone and record the video that was me, on Do Not Disturb, narrating my way through a first-run setup and a multiplication mission like I was filming a nature documentary.

The other lesson: App Review is a conversation, not a verdict. I replied to the existing review instead of panicking and resubmitting, answered everything directly, attached the video and the review resumed.

Approved!

And then, today: approved, released, live. Times Table 400 is on the App Store, free, no ads, no accounts, works fully offline. An iPad version is already built and queued up next.

Some Thoughts

• Arbitrary limits are often just defaults. Nobody decided 10×10 was the edge of human capability; it is just where the chart in the classroom stopped. Build past the wall in apps and elsewhere!
• Tools compound. Everything painful about shipping app #1 became a script or a checklist for app #2. The first app is the expensive one.
• The AI writes the code; you own the curriculum. For anything meant to teach, the design of the learning is the actual product.
• When Apple asks questions, answer them. Promptly, honestly, with evidence. A review holdup is a request for information, not a rejection.
• Still budget for the boring 20%. Some things never change.

If Weather Gnome proved that a non-programmer can ship an app, Times Table 400 proved something better: the second one is easier, and the third one will be easier still. The wall is made of paper.

Times Table 400 is on the App Store now — go learn what 13×17 is and feel unreasonably powerful about it!

2025 Reading List

A Year of Reading

For the last several years during the forty days of Lent I have conducted a painfully challenging experiment where I have abstained from all social media and news as a type of social experiment. I’ll admit, it’s extremely hard at first. It’s nearly impossible to unplug from the matrix; it feels like there is always some important thing happening in the world that requires attention. It’s uncanny to realize the mindless habits one has to be constantly gorging on the news or scrolling social media. When you take a sabbatical from these things after a few days an unparalleled sense of peace and calm sets in.

One quickly becomes aware of all the free time available when these time and attention vampires disappear. This year I decided to attempt to consciously fill this time and attention vacuum with reading. Sitting down and reading a book without interruption for thirty, or even sixty minutes may be a challenge at first, but as time passed, I found I started to look forward to these nightly reading sessions.

After Lent ended I enjoyed this experiment so thoroughly that I set out on a lofty goal to continue the aggressive reading habit and read 52 books in one year! (That didn’t happen!) Not all books are equal, and some books demand and require more time spent reading and in contemplation than others. About midyear I became extremely conscious that the goal of reading 52 books was flawed and that the focus should rather be on daily time spent reading rather than the actual quantity of books themselves.

2025 Reading List

1. A Dirty Guide to a Clean Home
2. Shrimp Farming
3. Jesus Before the Gospels
4. The Pirates’ Code
5. Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now
6. Beat the Devils
7. Building a Second Brain
8. More or Less: Essays from a Year of No Buying
9. The Protoevangelium of James: The Non-canonical Infancy Gospel
10. How to Tell a Story
11. The 39 Steps
12. The Courage to be Disliked
13. Greenmantle
14. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
15. The Sovereign Individual
16. Time Loops
17. Prometheus Rising
18. Worth Doing Wrong
19. Deep Work
20. FISH!
21. The 36 Strategies of Ancient China
22. Enchiridion
23. The Bullet Journal Method
24. Areté
25. Time to start thinking
26. Imminent

2025 Reading List Book Reviews

WW2 RAF pilot reads Greenmantle by John Buchan

Now that I have my new Tormach PCNC 770 fully reassembled, it is time to get the extensive tool library that came with the milling machine imported into Autodesk Fusion so I can start generating toolpaths!

The Problem: Why Conversion is Needed

You would think this conundrum would have an easy and seamless pre-existing solution, but I struggled with this conversion! Autodesk Fusion kept giving me an error message. The internet search platforms told me that while PathPilot outputs a CSV file type tool library and that Autodesk Fusion inputs a CSV file tool library, they are not the same in column format and therefore the simple export/import model won’t work for this workflow. I asked a popular AI coding tool to “vibe code” me a python script to automate the conversion of the data, and it worked! I figured this tool could be handy to share with others that may be having the same frustration.

PathPilot, Tormach’s control software based on LinuxCNC, stores tool data in a CSV format with fields like tool number, description, Z offset, and diameter. Autodesk Fusion, on the other hand, uses a more complex tool library system for CAD/CAM, supporting formats, with detailed parameters like flute count, material, and feeds/speeds. Direct imports often fail due to incompatible structures, leading to errors like “failed” messages in Fusion.

Introducing the Tool Library Converter Tool

This tool reads your PathPilot CSV export, filters out empty entries, infers key details (e.g., tool type from descriptions like “ball end mill”, number of flutes from “4fl”), and maps them to Fusion’s CSV format. It uses defaults inspired by Fusion samples for missing data, like feeds and speeds.

• Input: PathPilot tool table CSV (e.g., “tooltable-mill-2025-Nov-30.csv”).
• Output: Fusion-ready CSV with columns like tool type, diameter, flutes, overall length, and more.
• Features: GUI for file selection (no command-line needed), automatic inference, and error handling.

It’s built with Python, bundled via PyInstaller for Windows, and completely free.

How to Download and Use It

1. Download the ZIP file package.
2. Extract to a folder: it includes convert_tools.exe and README.md.
3. Double click on convert_tools.exe.
4. Select your PathPilot CSV input.
5. Choose a save location for the Fusion CSV output.
6. Click to convert: a popup confirms success.

Import the output into Fusion: Go to Manufacturing > Tool Library > Right-click Local/Cloud > Import Tool Library. Review and edit as needed (e.g., add holders or custom speeds).

Disclaimer

This tool is provided as-is! Always double-check tool data before machining to avoid errors. The author isn’t responsible for any issues.

Happy CNCing!

Tormach PCNC 770 Reassembly

To say I underestimated the total time to completely disassemble, move, and then fully reassemble the Tormach PCNC 770 is an understatement.

Also I would like to acknowledge a big thank you to Rob, the gentleman whom I acquired the machine from, for his help and support on this journey.

Prepping the PCNC for rigging into the vertical position

Troubleshooting

My first error was not realizing the machine does run on standard household voltage but it requires a 20 amp outlet. (More on this later). When we finally got the machine upright and on its base and went to plug it in this outlet & amperage mismatch became apparent and halted us dead in our tracks on our quest to turn the machine on and bring the machine back to life. – If only it were that easy!

Some of the lubrication oil lines were either pinched or damaged during disassembly and transit and were replaced. This was relatively straightforward and easy.

The engine hoist procured from harbor freight worked spectacularly for the heavy lift elements of the assembly. I don’t need the engine hoist any longer but it was so handy to use I may hold onto it for bit longer.

Rigging the PCNC 770 onto its base

After a few months of post winter procrastination I had an electrician come out to install the required 20 amp outlet and fired up the machine. Everything worked fine except the spindle would not spin when commanded. After some initial troubleshooting I misdiagnosed this issue as a faulty C2 contactor and replaced it with a brand new one. Unfortunately this did not solve the issue.

The spindle failure troubleshooting threw me for a loop and I ultimately had chatGPT make me a comprehensive voltage test point checksheet which helped reveal the spindle door latch safety interlock as the culprit. The spindle door latch wiring had come loose assumingly during transit and was not working correctly and in turn preventing the sprindle from rotating. Fortunately this was an easy fix to reconnect the wiring spade to the terminal and restore its operation.

I thought we were out of the woods after restoring spindle operation, but I was sorely mistaken. The next gremlin in the machine was that the spindle would actuate and then mysteriously trip the breaker after the spindle would be commanded to stop. I was completely stumped on the root cause for a day or two. More troubleshooting (and some luck) revealed the next culprit. I had asked for a 20 amp outlet and circuit breaker be installed previously but I didn’t realize the electrician had specifically installed a GFI breaker at the panel and this is absolutely incompatible with the Tormach PCNC 770. After the electrician returned and changed out the breaker to a normal one we solved the breaker tripping issue.

Z Axis Troubleshooting

Next, for some strange reason the Z axis’s movement began to stall and squeal when commanded to raise or lower. I initially misdiagnosed this as a lubrication or gib issue. Turns out, the Z axis brake had gone faulty so I had to order and replace the Z axis motor/brake assembly which was another fun adventure in the wiring cabinet. Routing the Z axis motor cables down through the machine internals and into the electrical cabinet was an exercise in patience, dexterity, and determination.

Now with the C2 contactor replaced, the spindle door safety switch latch repaired and the Z axis motor replaced the machine was back to full working order!

I have to give credit to Tormach for making their machines friendly for field troubleshooting and repairs and for providing ample written and video documentation to support these endeavors.

Enclosure

To fully waterproof seal the Tormach PCNC 770 enclosure to the base I used 3 tubes of Sikaflex Polyurethane Sealant. You could probably get away with doing this with 2 tubes if you are doing this in one go or are judicious with your sealant use. Be cautious, the sikaflex sealant is extremely sticky and seems to get on everything and everywhere while you working with it. You probably want to wear sacrificial clothes when you do this evolution. (don’t ask me how I know)

Tormach PCNC 770 enclosure build

Tramming the vise

Next steps are to load the tool holders that came with the machine into the Autodesk fusion CAM tool library and cut a soft jaw block as a demonstration project. Fingers crossed we are done with any more troubleshooting!

Tormach PCNC 770

My friend Shrey introduced me to one of his close friends who is also a fellow Tormach enthusiast at the 2022 Philadelphia Maker Faire. As luck would have it, this past spring he informed me his friend was moving and was interested in selling his Tormach PCNC 770. After a very brief negotiation period I decided this was an offer I couldn’t refuse on a pristine Tormach PCNC 770. Who doesn’t love 10,000 RPMs of CNC awesomeness! 

PCNC 770 moving and rigging Adventures

Why hire professional movers when you can create your own adventures? They say there is no such thing as a free lunch and I should have realized this fact when we discovered this move would require rigging the 770lb CNC and 400lb base out of a basement through a challengingly small basement portal door and down several sets of concrete yard steps to the street in Philadelphia. This evolution turned out to be much more challenging and labor intensive than I could ever have imagined.

It’s one thing to watch rigging, it’s a whole another experience thing to be the one doing it.

This endeavor was going to require an engine hoist, a truck with a lift gate and sweat, … lots and lots of sweat!

Harbor Freight 2 Ton Engine Hoist

If there is a convenient place to rent an engine hoist I could not find it. I did see that sunbelt had rentals but none nearby that could be a pragmatic solution. A quick scan of internet forums suggests these are frequently purchased and resold on Craigslist or other online forums. I decided to acquire a 2 Ton foldable engine hoist at that bastion of DIY’ers – Harbor Freight. Coming in around $300 and change it was a good deal. I also added a hand winch, a shackle, a six foot piece of webbing and thirty foot piece of heavy duty recovery strap. This 2 two ton engine hoist is a beauty, works smoothly and handles remarkably.

I determined that to make this move a success a truck with a lift gate would be critical so we could use a pallet jack to load the gear on the lift gate. I struggled to find a convenient place to rent a truck with a lift gate. After some hunting we found a local place did have trucks with lift gates at a reasonable price.

The Hobby CNC

The biggest limiting factor for this move was the small portal door in the basement. We broke the machine all the way down into several smaller pieces. We first removed the enclosure and then lifted the machine off the base using the manufacturers lift kit. Next we removed the Z axis head from the machine. Lastly we removed the cabinet and the Z axis from the base table. This evolution took a whole day and we were only 80% complete.

Appliance Dolly Saves the Day!

The appliance dolly I rented turned out to be a critical piece of equipment for the move. The appliance dolly enabled us to strap pieces to the dolly and then carefully lower the equipment down several successive flights of stairs. It wasn’t elegant or pretty but it worked. For some of the heavy lifts we had my son hold the recovery strap webbing at the top of the steps to help slow the descent in a more controlled manner.

This move took the entire day and we ran out of time that eve to get the X axis and the table bed moves completed. (Shoutout to Shrey who was helping us move and made a good call as a voice of reason to stop for the night before anyone got injured trying to lug the final pieces out of the basement.) We had to return a second time to get the final pieces of equipment that had been moved to a local storage unit to coincide with a house sale. We also picked up tooling that came with the sale and a few other remaining Knock-Knacks such as the monitor and keyboard base. This final evolution went smoothly. We loaded all the remaining gear into the quintessential emblem of suburban parenthood – our white Honda minivan.

Hobby CNC Moving Lessons Learned

• Rent a truck with a lift gate.
• Just buy the 2 ton Harbor Freight engine hoist. You are going to need it if you are breaking the machine down into smaller segments.
• Appliance dollies are a great option for stairs. You can rent these from most places. We used this item extensively during the move in multiple configurations.
• Renting a pallet jack from a local big box store is a tremendous help especially when combined with a truck with a lift gate
• 2 sets of webbing slings and a large shackle will come in handy when combined with the engine hoist

PC build under $2,000 for CAD, video editing, and content creation

My legacy Dell XPS died in early April. The machine had to be close to ten years old and had served us extremely well over the last decade. I had originally spec’d out that legacy machine to be heavy in the RAM and HD storage space areas because I was getting into using the Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects suite at the time for the content I was filming with my DSLR Canon 5d MkII.

I do a lot less DSLR film shooting and editing work at the current time but instead now do a lot more CAD work using Autodesk Fusion 360, especially for generating ideas and CNC tool paths for my Tormach PCNC 1100 and to create G-Code for my Prusia 3D Printer.

I watched the fun my son had saving up his money to buy the individual components and assemble a blazing fast gamer PC for himself in 2020. It was time to copy his example and build a desktop PC that would be a CAD and content creation powerhouse desktop workstation. A PC built for people who create content not consume it.

CAD PC Build Considerations

My primary goal was a PC under a $2000 price tag. We were able to accomplish that by reusing our old Windows 10 OS license on the new unit and by reusing the GPU from the legacy Dell XPs machine that had been replaced two years ago. if we hadn’t been able to do that we would have been well over our budget.

After doing research on CAD PC builds I kept seeing guidance pointing towards the computer processor’s single core thread speed as the biggest factor for CAD software performance which relies on single thread performance. Bottom Line: The higher the CPU processor speed the faster the performance in this arena. An important secondary factor is having a suitable amount of fast RAM, the type of data storage (HDD versus SDD) and the GPU.

Some other considerations. Marketers have learned they can frictionlessly jack up the prices of pc products by slapping the term “gaming” on any components that are in any way, shape, or form gaming related. Second the latest craze to add RBG LED coloring to the internal components adds an albeit futuristic look and provides a fun cyberpunk aesthetic to the overall internals, comes at a higher cost and adds no functional performance improvement. We want a boring looking machine that generates complex CNC tool paths like a knife through hot butter.

PC Bill of Materials (BOM)

CPU – Intel i9-14900K

Motherboard – ASROCK Z790 MOTHERBOARD

Data Storage SSD – SAMSUNG E 2TB 990PRO NVME GEN4 SSD

RAM – G.SKILL 96G 2X D5 6400 C32 TRGB B

Power Supply Unit – SEASONIC FOCUSV3 GX-850 80+G ATX3

Cooling for CPU – DEEPCOOL LT720 360MM AIO COOLER

PC Case – FRACTAL NORTH XL 

Notes:

I was originally going to go with the Asus ProArt Z790 Creator Motherboard but was advised against this as this particular motherboard is pricier due the thunderbolt capability which is a relatively niche use case.

The SEASONIC Power Supply came highly recommended to me as being the best of the best.

The intel i9 is reported to get hot and needs a powerful cooling system. I was anxious about setting up the liquid cooling loop system but the installation turned out to be easy.

To fit the larger cooling water loop and fan components into the PC case in this build I went with the fractal north XL case versus the regular Fractal North Case.

Model Engineering Show

I attended the Cabin Fever Expo Model Engineering Show on Saturday. The expo is always extremely engaging and a precision engineering feast for the eyes. I admire the craftsmanship that goes into making these marvelous engineering models. The clickety-clack sound of steam cylinders actuating, gears turning, and levers moving is hypnotic.