Thinking of building a Joes CNC 2006 in Brisbane Australia

[ClaudioG]

Hi Guys,

I'm been doing a lot of reading here and would like to build a CNC Router. I've got some basic woodworking tools and haven't got any metal fabrication equipment. I mainly want to be cutting MDF with it and thin (3mm) aluminium.

I've read a lot about the Joes CNC and would like to build one of these but was wondering if someone has gone down the path of trying to build one in Australia.

I know Crocky was going to but decided to change direction due to MDF size differences and trying to get someone to cut it on a CNC for him from what I understand. It was also too expensive to ship the kit here.

I haven't tried to source 1/2" & 3/4" MDF and HDPE for the build locally as yet but believe it is available.

So if anyone has tried or going down this path in Australia are there any show stoppers I should be aware of?

Also, is there anyone locally in Brisbane who might be able to help me out with cutting the parts on a CNC router? It believe I have all the DXF files for the build so hoping it shouldn't be too difficult to do locally once I source the key materials.

Thanks

Claudio

[epineh]

Good luck with your build, I haven't seen anybody making a metric version of Joe's machine, but I'm sure it would be possible. The finished machines look very nice.

I might be getting my router fixed up a little within a month or two, if you are still looking I may be able to help with the smaller HDPE pieces, my cutting area is 600mm by 650mm.

I live just south of Cairns, not very close I know, but if you don't get any other offers give me a call, I don't mind helping out if I can. I intend to make a bigger machine within about the next 6 months with a bit of luck, might look at making a Joe2006 machine for myself with the bigger router.

Careful, CNC is very addictive

Russell.

[crocky]

Hi Claudio,

Much too expensive, the kit of parts is $600 US and then there is the freight for a carton that weighs 95lbs $$$

Good luck with getting someone to cut it for you, it would be the way to go.

I think the other thing to be careful of is, if you cannot get the exact size of mdf make sure that the gaps are changed to suit the different width. I didn't get that far with it but I had done a fair bit of reading.

Cheers,
Bob

[bp092]

If you can't get it cut locally or shipped talk to joe about a template kit. All the single parts and all the heavy duplicate parts you can just cut out with the template, leave an 1/8th inch or so and go back with a flush trim router bit by hand and make all of the parts exact. I use templates all the time to create duplicate parts without a cnc router. He could probably even make the templates out of something light, like 1/4" mdf or plastic.

[ClaudioG]

Russell - Thanks for the offer and I'll keep it in mind

Bob - The price of the kit wasn't the problem, it was the cost to ship it out which would have been as much as the kit itself.

I was hoping to avoid the conversion to metric as my CAD skills are next to zero at this stage and will probably hit other problems along the way. But there might not be a choice if I can't get the MDF, HDPE, pipes, etc. in imperial sizes. I think there are some metric versions in progress at the moment in Europe, but I could be wrong.

[gazza]

Hi Claudio,
I havn't seen the specifications for one of these routers but have you thought of getting the MDF lasercut? I am a signwriter in Melbourne and I source mainly aluminium and acrylic letters and logos, which are lasercut from my files. I have seen up to 25mm MDF cut with a laser with pretty straight edges so 20mm should be OK. Most of the time all I do is save the file as a DXF (lines and polyarc format), email them off and pick up the finished products in a couple of days.
I'm not sure what components are saved in metric/imperial but it shouldn't be that hard to alter a few dimensions to make it work.

food for thought

thanks
Gazza

[ClaudioG]

Hi Gazza

Unfortunately laser cutting isn't suitable for this design as the material needs rebates and recesses on a lot of parts.

The reason the conversion from imperial to metric isn't so easy is because of these rebates. Joe has designed and built a fairly detailed machine, so manually changing the design to metric is fairly involved. All made the more difficult as my CAD skills are next to zero at this stage. I'll still give it a shot though.

Thanks,

Claudio

[Reflow]

Hi Claudio,

I'm presently in the middle of building a Joes from scratch in Sydney. Thus far I have the 3 torsion boxes and the Z-carriage completed.

My take on the metric vs imperial issues was to build from Joe's imperial plans but with metric MDF sheets. This minimized any changes to the drawings, just need to draw in an extra line to makes any slots a fraction narrower. (In most cases I didn't bother and offset with a pencil and rule before cutting)

All the MDF I have used thus far has been a metric size in thickness (6, 12, 18) and of imperial dimensions (2ftx3ft(sold as 600x900mm), 4ftx8ft(sold as 1200x2400). As a ball-park guide a sheet is never less than the quoted thickness, but can be up to 0.2mm thicker, I've only measured in dry weather. I'd suggest measuring the actual material you are going to cut from before choosing a slot thickness.

It sounds like you plan to get a set of parts cnc fabricated, but it is possible to cut the whole thing out by hand. As suggested by bp making a lighter template from 6mm MDF and pattern cutting is the way to go. For each piece I open the drawing up, add centre marks to each hole and arc then print to scale. I then glue this to the 6mm MDF and cut out with a jigsaw to produce a template.

Thus far my total outlay on tools has been AU$50 for a cheap Jigsaw and $55 for an Ozito mini router (it's a total piece of crap, but it has done a lot of work so far).

With a bit of care the parts have come out better than I had expected and the torsion boxes went together a snug fit and very square.

I'll post some pictures tonight.

[ClaudioG]

Hi Reflow,

That's good to hear.

Funily enough, late last night my thinking was changing from wanting to make a metric CNC cut machine to making one from scratch so I started looking at some of the other peoples posts that have done similar.

Am very interested in seeing what you have done so far and keeping tabs on your progress.

Realistically, I'm probably a few months off from starting mine as I've got some renos on the house that I need to finish. And I'm off to the US for 3 weeks in about 3 1/2 weeks.

By the way, don't throw those templates out as I might need to beg you to lend them to me at some stage.

Have you sourced the other bits as yet, such as the gas pipes, solid rods, acme lead screws, motors, controller, couplers, etc.

Looking forward to your pics.

Cheers

Claudio

[Reflow]

Hi,

My thinking swayed the otherway, I started out designing one from 80/20 like extrusion & linear rails and then balked at the price. Joe's machine seems like a cheaper way to get started, but I intend to buy good screws I can migrate over some day.

A bunch of photos are attached. Sadly I didn't have a photo of the whole X-axis torsion box assembled, though it is the bookshelf looking thing in the back of the photo of the assembled carriage. I'll take some on the weekend.

In the photos of the carriage being cut, you can see my stuck down templates. If you look real close you can see the red centre marks and that I didn't even bother to resize the slots on this one. I just measure the position of my guide off one side and add my desired thickness.

I managed to trash one of my templates for the X-axis but your welcome to the rest once I'm done. Unfortunately the flush trim bit had slowly crept out of the crappy collet in the router so the bearing fell off the edge of the template and I cut right into the template and job

As for the rest of the bits. Pipe is easy it's the same the world over, most country's seem to uses the same silly system where the nominal diameter is neither the inner or outer diameter. So 25mm pipe here is the same as 1" pipe, etc.
I rescued some steppers from old printing equipment and I plan to get a homeshopcnc driver board.
I have ordered 100 bearings from VXB as Joe outlined, shipping was reasonable, and the total much better than anything I could get here.
There is an aussie fellow on ebay who sells drill rod and I plan to get some of that from him for the Z-axis if I can't find it cheaper elsewhere.
The Aluminum extrusion turned out to be quite easy too, as is typical it was an imperial extrusion, sold as it's approximate metric size. 34x34x3 or something like that I think.
The ACME thread on the other hand has been hard to find. While places like Blackwoods will get it for you, the minimum spend was on the order of $250 and they wanted $50 each for the lovejoy couplers! I'm trying to sort out some rolled ballscrews instead.

If you have any suggestions where to find any of this stuff cheap(er) I'd appreciate it.

Goodluck, maybe I'll have a machine to cut you some parts by the time you get back from the US.

--Scott

[epineh]

If you're going to the US, try to get some gear while you are there, might save you some cash, even if it is just some stepper or servo drives.

[ClaudioG]

Hi Scott,

I should have been more clear and said I was originally wanting a metric Joes machine cut by CNC (actually I was hoping to try and get imperial thickness MDF here but not luck so far) and then I was looking to do a manually cut Joes CNC. I would rather build a machine that has had a lot of thought and experience put into it and that has great following so far. Acuracy in the build is important but it seems this can be achieved manually if done with care.

Your build looks great so far. I like the technique you've used and the clever use of those packing straps! I've got a bag full of those so they'll now come in handy. The templates will come in handy too I think so put them aside please.

I went looking for pipe the other day and was fairly confident the sizes were the same, but didn't have my calipers with me.

I'd be happy to go halves on the bearings if you want, assuming you'll have about 70 left over. Did you get the 6 other 1/2" x 1-1/8"x5/16" bearings from them as well?

Thanks for the tip on drill rod and aluminium. He doesn't seem to have 3/4" drill rod listed so I've dropped him an email.

There's details on a guy in Melbourne (Matt at Sinclair M P) that makes ACME here

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showpo...3&postcount=19

Don't know what the quality is like.

Lovejoy couplers - Jaycar appears to have something similar part # YG2782 at www.jaycar.com.au $14.95ea or a bit less for quantities. Depends on how the ACME ends are machined.

If there's anything you need from the USA and you can't get shipped easily and cheaply (lovejoys, U bolts?) I'll try and get while I'm over there. My girlfriend is originally from California and we'll be staying there so I'm hoping I can get stuff shipped there before we head over. I've just got to be mindfull of weight and bulk as I'll have a fair bit of stuff with me. I would love to get one of the Makita routers (M12VS) everyone over there seems to use but don't know how it would go, given it's 60Hz would need a fairly chunky and expensive stepdown transformer.

Keep the good work going, and think about starting a build log as I would say a lot of other people around the world would be very interested in what you are doing and I think the guys who have already built them would be more helpful when you get stuck on something. A lot of work but probably worth it.

By the way, where abouts in Sydney are you as I get down there a fair bit.

Cheers

Claudio