Aluminium Extrusion CNC Router Build

[joshendy]

Hi everyone, decided I'd finally put my CNC build on here. I've wanted to get it 100% finished before I put the build on here but when is a CNC ever 100% finished? Never I think!

Anyways the reason I wanted to put my build up on here is to hopefully educate some of the newer CNC guys out there who are thinking about getting into CNC. I was inspired by so many of the insanely amazing build threads on the zone and they gave me the desire to make my own machine.

So just in saying that I would like to thank anyone who has written a build thread, chances are I have a photo of your CNC in my 800 or so picture collection from the zone. I look through that collection and it really gets the engineering side of my brain fired up and ready to design and create.

So my build, well first things first I live in New Zealand so from the get go I knew I’d be ordering a lot of stuff from overseas which added quite a bit to the total cost of my machine. I got the idea for my CNC from Arbo’s build thread: http://www.cnczone.com/forums/open_s..._cut_area.html

So some details about my machine:

- Cutting footprint is - X: 490, Y: 840, Z: 130
- Gecko G540 with 270 oz-in steppers on all axes
- Kress 1050w Spindle
- CNC Router Parts carriages
- Trapezoidal (Metric Acme) 2 start, 12mm diameter, 3mm pitch leadscrews
- HDPE bearing blocks
- Dumpster CNC anti-backlash nuts

All in all my CNC took about a year and a half to get it as you see in the pictures below. During that time I also built a shed to put it in. The total cost for the CNC was NZD $3227.83, $509 of that just shipping to NZ. I’m very happy with my machine, I’ve learnt more than I can say building it. It’s been one of the best accomplishments of my 21 years on this earth.


I would like to also mention if your reading this and thinking about getting into CNC, I say jump in with both feet. If you think of yourself as a creative type and love to build and make things, you need a CNC!

I think the most important part of a build is the lessons learnt. You can feel free to skip to the pictures if you haven’t already but I just wanted to say something which will hopefully help any beginners out there.


First off expect to make mistakes, I made many. Wasted hundreds of dollars, time, mental sanity you name it I lost it.

Second - plan, design and learn everything you can before building, if you fail to plan you plan to fail. Without my comprehensive CAD model I drew in Sketchup, I wouldn’t have made it this far. I was able to constantly evolve my machine in CAD and test ideas out to see if they would work. My machine is a million times better for it.

Third - it isn’t going to be cheap or quick, especially if you’re a beginner like me. I would always think “That’ll only cost $50 and take me a few hours to do”, it would most always cost twice what I thought and take me three times as long.

Fourth - Tools. Not having the right tools for me was undoubtedly the worst part of making my machine. I was lucky I had my old MDF CNC which really pulled through for me and I was able to make some nice parts for my new machine. If you can try get some new or second hand tools, if you’re working with steel get a cut-off saw, if aluminium then a mitre saw with aluminium cutting blade.

Can’t begin to tell you the ways I pissed around when I should have just gone out and brought the right equipment. Luckily I brought a cheap $100 NZD drill press at the start which was essential for building this CNC and paid for itself over and over, I love that drill press.


Finally I’d say do what you want to. If you want to start with an MDF build, go for it. I did, was one of the best learning experiences I’ve ever had. I could have sat at my computer and learnt this stuff but I’m a hands on person, I like to make mistakes, learn from them and become an even better engineer/problem solver.

I started with a quite nasty MDF router, now I have moved on to my ten million times better metal router and I’m convinced the next CNC I’ll do will be just as exponentially better. Sometimes you just have to go the hard way, make the mistakes but ultimately you end up being rewarded.


Perhaps just some final notes now about my CNC. There’s a bunch of stuff I wish I did different: Used supported round linear rails, 8020, put X axis motor on the left hand side. Money and the ability to ship things like 8020 and round rails to NZ prevented me from getting them.


Quick summary of the companies I purchased stuff from and their service:

- Ullrich Aluminium New Zealand – Good people, got most my aluminium off them. Had an issue with the straightness of the extrusions though but they replaced some of the worse off pieces.

- Dotmar Plastics New Zealand – Great company, sell every kind of plastic you could imagine. Cut it all to length for me and didn’t cost much at all.

- CNC Router Parts – Ahren was a great guy to deal with, you can tell he cares about his customers. Great products too.

- Keling – Good prices, quick shipping.

- Hubbard CNC – Brent really knows customer service, really helpful and gave me a discount for multiple purchases and combined shipping.

- Merchant Dice – One of the worst experiences of this build. Told me he had shipped goods, month and a half later nothing. No help from him I spent my 21’st birthday calling shipping companies to see if they could find it – He gave me no shipping number. It seems to me he had to order some things in for me, instead of just telling me that he said he shipped it. Eventually I had to threaten going to Paypal and suddenly I had the goods a week and a bit later. Everything on the box suggested it had only been shipped at most 2 weeks prior. When it did finally arrive I got slapped with $100 customs fee, so really was the low point of my build. From his feedback on ebay it seems he’s great when you buy from the UK, just international shipments seem to be a problem. Great products though and I’m very happy with them.


Thanks for reading, I've written to much. If you’ve got any questions feel free to ask. Now enjoy the photos.

Edit: I recently created a New CNC Website.

Cheers,
Josh

[PaulRowntree]

Very nice looking machine Josh!

Is the lower end of the Z ACME unsupported? Does this cause any whipping? I can imagine that it makes construction much, MUCH easier.

ANy chips?

[joshendy]

Thanks mate!

The end of the Z axis leadscrew will have a bearing support, just got to cut it out. But nah no whipping, such a short distance almost doesnt need a support.

Havent cut anything on it yet unfortunately, trying to sort out a vacuum so I can surface the MDF spoil board first.

Cheers,
Josh

[kiwichris]

Hi Josh..

Did you source your acme screws in NZ?

Per the other thread I'm seriously looking at going down a similar path and the linear and drive components don't seem to be that common in NZ for reasonable prices.

Cheers, Me. :-)

[joshendy]

Hey Chris,

Yea uhh the screws, most time consuming part of the build. I spent so much time trying to find a supplier in NZ or Aus but they only ever had single start screws. I ended up getting my trapezoidal 2 start screws from Merchant Dice in the UK, but if you read above I had a nightmare situation with them. The screws were quite cheap but after I got stung with a $100 customs fee kind of threw the cheap part out the window.

But yea I think you will have to order stuff in from overseas. You'll just have to do a bunch of pricing up and see whos best. Keeping in mind about customs, if they see anything thats declared on the packaging to be over $400 its an instant $100 customs fee.

Its unfortunate but as I've found out theres no such thing as a good cheap CNC build, especially with shipping everything to NZ! But in saying that, the end result is well worth it.

Cheers,
Josh

[joshendy]

Heres a quick video of me jogging the CNC on the day I got it up and going:

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywpde5Vmj1Y"]YouTube - ‪Aluminium Extrusion CNC Router‬‏[/nomedia]

[ger21]

I think you set the record for most pics in a single post. Nice job. :-)

[joshendy]

Haha thanks. I took almost 200 photos throughout the build, didn't know which ones to put in and which ones to leave out!

[JamesHussey]

Hi Josh.

Nice build!

For future reference I've found that South Island Bearings in Christchurch can get a really good range of lead screws, both ACME and ball screws, as well as linear bearings and rails. They are stockists for linear automation services. Heres the link:

Linear Motion Products, Solutions & Systems - IAS

I hope this helps for the MKIII router!

[JamesHussey]

Also forgot to say that I think Bosch and a couple of other distributers in NZ stock similar systems to the 80/20 T-Slot stuff. It seems impossible to find online, but if you find a small engineering firm that has some experience in machine building you should be able to track it down

[kiwichris]

Hi Josh.

Nice build!

For future reference I've found that South Island Bearings in Christchurch can get a really good range of lead screws, both ACME and ball screws, as well as linear bearings and rails. They are stockists for linear automation services. Heres

Hi James..

Have you ever bought anything from them for a small / hobby project?

I called them a couple of years ago inquiring about linear bearings and ground/chromed shafting and I got the impression they really were not interested in my business. Might have caught one of their staff on a bad day but I crossed them off the list after that..

Bit of a pity for them as my one off difficult order was a prototype for a product that went into production.

Cheers, Chris H.

[JamesHussey]

Hi Josh,

I have brought from them a couple of times now (non-professionally). I found that they are a proper pain in the arse to deal with over the phone unless you know exactly what you want, but rocking in there with cash gets pretty good results.

I'm currently tracking down the cheapest T-slot extrude available in NZ through work, I'll let you know what I find.