So the build begins.....

[Gallop]

Well here I am 2 weeks after joining this very informative forum, making my first proper post. A friend of mine who you will all know (Santiniuk I’m his Lathe Mate) invited me along after I saw his home made CNC machine. He showed me it working and cut a design in to a wooded log for me, and that was it, I’m hooked.

So I have spent the last 2 weeks researching how to make my own cnc. I have also been introduced to Mr Bean by Santini. Both of them have been a great help in showing and explaining the basics to me.

After talking and surfing I decided that the main material I would be using on my cnc would be wood, as I already do quite a lot of turning and carving, with this in mind I then settled on the size I wanted 24’’ x 18’’ cutting area. Next on the agenda was to start designing it, so out came the pen and paper.

If you have unlimited resources then you can design the thing just how you want, as I don’t have such luxuries my design has been governed by my paypal account and ebay, so now instead of the 24’’ x 18’’ as i originally wanted its now 18’’ x 18’’ square, but hay that is still a good size.

Construction has not started just yet as I don’t have all the major bits, I do have all step motors that I need, ball screw’s for the Z and Y axis Linear bearings for the Z axis Roller bearings for the Y axis and X axis 1’’ square steel box section for the frame, aluminium plate for the gantry and bed. Main components that I am still short of are, motor drivers / controller boards, PC Interface boards, power supply and a ball screw for the X axis oh yeah and space in the garage to put the thing.

When I first read Santiniuk’s build blog I was going to go down the same road of building my own controller boards using the same design as him very kindly supplied by Alan at www.fromorbit.com. However after trying to source all the said components for these boards I was having great difficulty sourcing the controller chip which also proved to be very expensive so I am going for ready made drivers instead.

So all in all as it stands I’m just waiting for delivery on a couple more bits then I can get cracking and on my next post hopefully I will be able to post some pictures of how things are progressing.

Thanks Gallop

[MrBean]

Hey Gallop, welcome to the zone. Sounds like you're off to a cracking start with some of the parts you've bought. Don't forget to post lots of pics of your goodies when they arrive and as you start the build. I can't wait 'till you get started. In the meantime, brush up on your CAD/CAM skills, you'll be needing them.

I hope the bits arrive soon.

Regards MrBean.

[Gallop]

Items still left to aquire:-
3 Step Moror Drivers

Yes thats right 3 step motors is all I need now, so today I have been bussy sorting my garage out to make space for my new CNC (when its made of course) and also all the rubish that I dont want I have been listing on Ebay to help raise the funds for the drivers.

I now have a pc to run the machine from which has been kindly donated by SantiniUK thanks for that, much apprichated.

So there aint much else to say at the moment, I will be posting pics next time tho as I have started work on the Z axis.

All the best everyone

Gallop

[Gallop]

Stop, Rewind, Start again....

Yes thats right i'm starting again, thanks to Santiniuk, who very very kindly donated some aluminium extrusion. So the original idea I had has been now scraped.

So as of tomorrow I will be takeing some pics of what I have got and what I have acomplished by the end of the day.

Cheers Gallop