Heads Up - Article about building CNC Milling Machine

[samualt]

Magazine article about building a CNC milling machine:

Servo Magazine (by the "Nuts & Volts" magazine publishers)

April Issue, 2005

ABSTRACT:
--------------------------------------
A Hobby CNC Milling Machine
by Lester "Ringo" Davis

A computer numerical control (CNC) machine is basically a milling machine with motors attached to each axis with a computer controlling them. A small three-axis CNC milling machine can cost up to $35,000.00, and after looking at what it did, I decided to try to build one for slightly less money — about $34,500.00 less, to be exact. This article is not intended to be a recipe for building a copy of my design, but for giving you ideas on how to build your own using some of the techniques I found and avoiding some of the mistakes I made. I’m an electrical engineer, so machining is not part of my background, but if I can make this work, then so can you. I did have access to a small machine shop with a band saw, lathe, and a milling machine.

I wanted my machine to be able to cut plastic up to four-inches thick, thin metal, and also be able to make printed circuit boards (PCBs). I wanted to work on material at least 12-inches wide and 18-inches long, and I was looking for precision in the range of 0.001 inch. With those ideas in mind, I started looking at what materials were available ...

[slave1driver]

Looks like there was a part two in the may 2005 issue. Did anyone here see these articles? I was thinking about ordering the back issues.

[sendkeys]

Only thing bad about stories like this is when they say the price of a normal mill/router like "upto $35,000" and then say i build mine for $500 :P That $500 really has nothing to do with a $35,000 mill/router :P Ebay can only get things so cheap . Even nice set of geckos is half the price right there. I wouldn't have said anything but i seen a couple of stories do this.

But Anyway Thank you for the link and the heads up on the story

[anoel]

I did not read the articles, but I did just order the back issues. So hopefully I'll have them in a few days to report back as to what the deal is with it. I've been wanting to add an additional machine to the shop. But you can take a look at the basic (really basic) design from the zip files on the site. It includes a schematic/pcb layout for a driver board as well.