Hi everybody! Here's my project!

[davidbue]

Hello everybody!

I've been hooked on cnc machining ever since I saw a running cnc mill 3-4 years ago.

Last year I decided to build on myself, and instead of joining the communities on the internet, I just sat down and designed my own CNC mill. I designed the hardware system, the rail system (I thought I got a brilliant idea using ground rods an ball bearings, but now I've found out that everyone use that setup), the motor control electronics, everything but the software to run the g-code.

I found the Mach3 CNC sofware at an ealy stage while searching google for controller software, and simply just designed my own stepper driver board based on a PIC18f2220 and some rather beefy FET transistors to comply with the port/pin configuration options in the Mach3 software.


Everything runs great! It's a small table top machine designed for micro-milling of light alloys such as aluminum. I just got my tool spindle up running this week.

Here's a video of the cnc mill before I got the tool spindle bolted on. In this video I've taped a pen to the gantry and use the mill as a pen plotter:

http://www.volunteerlabrat.com/cnc-innovus.mov


Here's my tool spindle:

http://www.volunteerlabrat.com/images/bosch.jpg

And here's a milled logo in wood: (Did not want to just start running in metals the first day I got the spindle up running.)

As you can see the logo is a bit rough, this is because I still run the shareware version of Mach3 and it only ran the first 1000 (or so) g-code lines

http://www.volunteerlabrat.com/images/innovus.jpg


Anyway... I'm making all sorts of other strange projects in my spare time. I've built a 3D scanner, and an industrial laser beam analyser and much more. You can read about these projects on my website:

www.volunteerlabrat.com

Hope you found my little post interresting.

Best regards
David

[project5k]

I'm impresed... i love the ziptie holding the pen... looks like something i would do...

[davidbue]

Hi again!

I've added a page on my website with further documentation and some videos of the CNC mill. I've got my tool spindle up running and I've been milling away in wood. I've made some initial testing in aluminum with great success, but I won't be able to produce metal parts before I've found a way to seal up the linear motion rails.

See the pictures and videos here:

http://www.volunteerlabrat.com/cnc.html

Regards /David