Converting an Ebay router

[kerfuffel]

Hi all,

First post here so if I'm doing anything wrong feel free to let me know. This is mostly about cutting plastic but i figured CNCs for cutting wood would be close enough hence I am posting this here.

I am a Robotic Engineering student down here in Australia, Im in my 3rd year out of 4 and I am very firmly into the car scene. I am trying to start up a small business of selling reasonably priced
air splitters for the front and sides of the car. A splitter is basically a flat piece of material that attaches to the underside of the front bumper. Currently I am getting them cut out by a local company using their cnc router but its just costing me too much
hence I want to look into getting my own.

The router needs to have a cutting area of 1metre x 2metre and only needs to cut through 10mm thick HDPE(high density polyethylene) which is super duper soft and sometimes cut through teflon as well which is another soft plastic.
My idea is to take one of these routers:
3020T 3 Axis CNC Router Engraver Engraving Machine Woodworking PCB'S Desktop | eBay

I will get it up and running effectively and familiarize myself with the programs and file types and settings and everything. I am very experienced in working with 3D printers so i can draw on experience from that and I am very skilled in CAD designing in solidworks too so thats not an issue. I want to then go ahead and design a new frame for the router and pay an engineering company to make it out of aluminium or mdf to increase the overall size to my required 1m x 2m but keep all of the control parts, motors, spindle etc.

So what do people think? Will there be any issues with stepper motor or spindle power if i increase the size so dramatically? What about programming, can i just change working area dimensions in mach 3 software?
I get that its chinese ebay quality but being on such a strict budget i dont have much choice, if anyone has any experience with the ebay routers then I would love to hear. I figure only cutting such soft material then
it should be able to handle it and I can just upgrade spindle or parts in the future.
If anyone has any other suggestions of getting a cnc router of my required size for a nice low price then feel free to chime in as well.

My plan is to take next semester off uni to develop this and get my business up and going but if people dont think its possible or if it wont work for any other reason i havent thought of then I'll just abandon the idea of my own business

Thanks in advance

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[ger21]

I want to then go ahead and design a new frame for the router and pay an engineering company to make it out of aluminium or mdf to increase the overall size to my required 1m x 2m but keep all of the control parts, motors, spindle etc.

The parts you want to keep, are the worst parts of those machines. It would be cheaper to just buy better quality electronics and a better spindle.
If you want a machine for a business, trying to go cheap will cost you more money in the long run, and really cheap cnc machines and parts are mostly junk.

[kerfuffel]

The parts you want to keep, are the worst parts of those machines. It would be cheaper to just buy better quality electronics and a better spindle.
If you want a machine for a business, trying to go cheap will cost you more money in the long run, and really cheap cnc machines and parts are mostly junk.

Yeah I understand that. The point of buying the eBay one first is mainly to get me familiar with CNC machines aND everything. They also give me something to take a working design and then completely copy to make it bigger. The quality of the parts isn't in question, if they break then I replace them with better parts. The question is more whether or not will the increase in size effect the function of the parts immediately or should they work just as well as they would with a smaller frame ?

[fretman_2]

You might find only the frame for a 3020 and then you can add your own electronics. Most of those machines have unsupported rail, but that might not be as much of an issue on a small machine like the 3020...dunno.

Yeah I understand that. The point of buying the eBay one first is mainly to get me familiar with CNC machines aND everything. They also give me something to take a working design and then completely copy to make it bigger. The quality of the parts isn't in question, if they break then I replace them with better parts. The question is more whether or not will the increase in size effect the function of the parts immediately or should they work just as well as they would with a smaller frame ?

[ger21]

No, the electronics and spindle, imo, are not suitable for a larger machine.

Also, keep in mind that just scaling a design into a larger size will generally results in a machine with a lot of weaknesses. It may work for you , but it will definitely have a lot of room for improvement.

[aarggh]

I really don't see the point of the 3020's at all over the 6040's. As with pretty much all the generic Chinese cheap cnc machines the 6040's have garbage electronics, but they are vastly mechanically and structurally better than the 3020's.

If your wanting to buy a machine to get experience and a better understanding of cnc, and are prepared to mostly scrap the experiment, then the small cost saving on a 3020 might be justified, however if you want to be left with a usable machine a 6040 would IMHO be a far better choice. Even though you'd need to replace the electronics with a G540 or similar controller, and ideally a better power supply.

Building or buying a machine capable of 2m x 1m is going to require far better hardware than comes with the 3020's/6040's, and will cost vastly more.

I'd say given how wee screwed here in OZ, the practical/economical options are:

1 - 6040 (with VFD/Spindle as standard) plus extra controller/psu, full working and very robust solution
2 - 6090 either the benchtop or ideally the 350kg beastie, runs around $4-5k landed to your door generally.

Either are open ended so effectively you can machine any length up to 400mm wide for the 6040, and around 615mm wide for the 6090.

I would most definitely say don't abandon your business idea, but I will say the machinery and equipment setup costs when realised will astonish you! Ideally treat it as a self funded hobby, and if you can gradually grow the revenue then good, but don't expect to shell out hardly anything and get any meaningful results.

cheers, Ian

[gfacer2]

Yeah I understand that. The point of buying the eBay one first is mainly to get me familiar with CNC machines aND everything. They also give me something to take a working design and then completely copy to make it bigger. The quality of the parts isn't in question, if they break then I replace them with better parts. The question is more whether or not will the increase in size effect the function of the parts immediately or should they work just as well as they would with a smaller frame ?

I see this sentiment a lot and its a bit silly. The ebay machines can be made to work but 'learning cnc' on them is a bit like learning to drive in a 3 wheeled car that stalls out regularly. Yes you will learn a lot in the process of successfully driving it but was it really the best way? I learned on an older machine with a good controller and now I feel I could make an ebay unit work if I needed to but I also know the value in not doing that.

If you want to make a go of it and also DIY it a bit, either buy a kit or start with the design. Might check the sable machines on ebay - no motors and controllers but people seem to like the frame.

[dharmic]

About a year ago I was in a place where I was fairly handy with a 3d printer, I also had a lathe and manual mill in my workshop with some other stuff. Years before that I'd converted the manual mill to CNC and then unconverted it because it was too wobbly and gutless to be useful and I lost interest. But a few things came together and I wanted to start at it again. I toyed with the idea of getting a knee mill and doing a conversion (I'm after metal, not so much plastic and wood) but knew where it would end up: a half finished expensive pile of scrap in the corner of shame at the back of the shed, not useful as a manual mill or CNC but just a source of guilt and embarrassment because I'd run out of steam on it.

I think the idea of buying a small, working machine before attempting to build one is a good way to go. Now, gfacer2 has a point. If you're going to buy a decent machine at some point and you know what specs you need (as you seem to do) in terms of material capability, dimensions etc then buying an intermediate POS is an utter waste of time and money. Buy the good one and learn on that.

If you're dinkerin and tinkerin it's a different story. Especially if you don't have any specific plans for what you're going to do with it. Buying a cheap and cheerful machine gets you up and running fast and gives you a chance to get your head around the massive learning curve of designing CAD models that can be tooled with the number of axis you have and the tools you have in the drawer. It gives you something on which to practise and process the massive learning curve around your CAM package. And it gives you a cheap playground to make the dumb mistakes on with the machine and machining side of things too - something you'll be grateful for when you inevitable power that 14mm endmill straight through a vice or toe clamp or into the bed. And once you've been through all this and start using it, you get a feel for the dimensions, axes, materials and features your "proper" machine needs and you can start looking at buy vs build etc with a little bit more skill and knowledge behind you.

In your case, you have a specific purpose for the machine. Before you go any further, you need to decide whether this is going to remain a hobby/sideline or is going to become a proper job for you.

If it's going to become a job, then start factoring your time in your budget and numbers. Once you do that it's a no brainer: buy a large bed machine that will take a full sheet of HDPE stock, has a vacuum bed and probably an ATC spindle. Yes, it's going to cost you a bomb. But you'll get that back in the time you save by not having to fiddle with it just to get it to start in the morning. Bear in mind too that, regardless of DIY or commercial bought machine, running something this size needs a big enough area to operate, with decent power and ventilation, a vacuum pump and an air compressor for cleaning etc without noise complaints from your neighbours. You'll be wanting to recoup your investment in the machine so knocking out a couple of panels a month for mates and forum members is not a sound commercial approach - you will need to keep the machine fed with work, which means chasing other jobs and keeping the machine running. Which means you to go pimp your stuff, and an off-sider to operate the machine. Before you know it your life revolves around the shop and forget 4th year

If it's going to stay a hobby, and you're using it as an excuse to get some CNC in your life, stop doing that. You don't need an excuse. Buy the dinky toy 3020, or a slightly better quality equivalent like the OmioCNC aka CarvingCNC product and play with it. Keep sending your 'commercial' stuff out to get processed by a company that's already set up and running their machine, etc, etc.

Definitely worth doing the sums of buying a machine vs shopping it out. I think you'll find, though, unless you can keep the machine busy most of the time then the overheads of buying it, housing it and running it will work out significantly more than the cost of just shopping out the piecework to another shop.

[aarggh]

Might check the sable machines on ebay - no motors and controllers but people seem to like the frame.

For what they are the Sables are exceptionally good to use and amazing value. I have one and use it for PCB work its that good!

I'd highly recommend one anyday.

cheers, Ian

[Stewey]

As above... sound advice from those who've walked your path, and seen the views from below and above... and watched others trip.

The 200W spindle of the 3020 might struggle to do much more than make yourself some scrambled eggs or whipped cream for a birthday trifle.
The rails etc... well by the time you've paid someone to make you a fullsize set in Al (or MDF which you'll later swap for Al), you might as well have bought a better unit to begin with, and not have 2 leftover sets of unwanted parts to look at...

I have a friend who bought a little unit 25 years ago - it was a 900 x 1200, and he changed the router head, extended the rails and gantry, and had an 8x4 ft machine that made him good money for a decade, till he sold the business. However, the original unit was gutsy enough to handle the changed parameters in the software. And prices were different in the early 1990s.

We bought a lovely big router 8 years ago - but it was an antique from 1989. It's still a great machine, in my opinion, and the 2 x 4.5m bed is wonderful.
The learning curve was humongous.
Fixing burned out drives and servos from me overloading the system, was another learning curve - blus factoring in all the broken cutters you'll need to have spares for, for those 'oops' moments.

These days you can buy better machines, second hand, for 1/4 of what I paid, 2nd hand for this...
BUT... quality is always worth it in the long run.

You will always have to learn the electronics - but you may as well learn the right stuff to begin with, rather than the 3 wheeled car that stalls, as mentioned above.

There is a reason the 3020 is so cheap... think about it! And best wishes with your decision!

[wizard]

One thing I need to stress if you want to start a business don't let the cost of a machine stop you! It may force you to put things off for a bit but keep a hold on the dream otherwise you end up regretting it down the road. If required s[end that time off form college in a job that can get your cash reserves built up.

Hi all,

First post here so if I'm doing anything wrong feel free to let me know. This is mostly about cutting plastic but i figured CNCs for cutting wood would be close enough hence I am posting this here.

Yes no problem, a machine that is decent for wood will be decent for most plastics. Note the word decent a lot of the cheap machines on the market aren't even advisable for wood unless you can wait decades for a finished part off the machine.

I am a Robotic Engineering student down here in Australia, Im in my 3rd year out of 4 and I am very firmly into the car scene. I am trying to start up a small business of selling reasonably priced

Cool! Now here is the really big question, does that program give you access to any sort of machine shop at the university? Many colleges do have a maker space or machine shop available for students and if yours does this gives you a huge advantage to make a DIY machine. In the end the only way to get a decent machine, suitable for starting a business on minimal cash is to DIY the machine yourself. DIY is basically trading you time for the labor you would have to pay a machine builder. It can make for a significant savings and frankly can result in a more robust machine while saving you money.

air splitters for the front and sides of the car. A splitter is basically a flat piece of material that attaches to the underside of the front bumper. Currently I am getting them cut out by a local company using their cnc router but its just costing me too much
hence I want to look into getting my own.

Why is it costing too much? Are you charging too little for the splitters, in the end the product is either viable or it isn't.

In any event there is one option here that might fit your needs if you are up to it. That is to build a machine that is sized such that it will do one of your parts and no more. In other words a special built machine that is designed only to do "splitters". You may be able to control costs even more relative to a full sized DIY machine. The problem here is that you have a one function machine which might not be versatile enough for a business especially if you are building trendy parts that might not have a long run in the marketplace.

The router needs to have a cutting area of 1metre x 2metre and only needs to cut through 10mm thick HDPE(high density polyethylene) which is super duper soft and sometimes cut through teflon as well which is another soft plastic.

Those sheet goods are pretty expensive!!! Have you considered molded technologies instead? Again it depends upon volume but machining parts for the mass market out of sheet goods is usually a short lived business.

In any event a machine that size isn't impossible at all but it might not be the best choice for a first time DIY project. That depends upon your skills and access to tools.

My idea is to take one of these routers:
3020T 3 Axis CNC Router Engraver Engraving Machine Woodworking PCB'S Desktop | eBay

Not to be throwing water on your planes but I wouldn't even bother. Note the use of the word "engraver" in the description, that is about all the machine is good for. It will route of course but it really isn't suitable for what I imagine you are trying to do here.

I will get it up and running effectively and familiarize myself with the programs and file types and settings and everything.

Does your college have any engineering related offerings such as CAD/CAM classes? Maybe even the facilities to apply what is learned in the CAD/CAM classes? Frankly if you are in school right now this is an excellent way to get started on building CAD/CAM skills. If you are real lucky you can design your parts for your router and building them on tooling in the school. Just a thought.

I am very experienced in working with 3D printers so i can draw on experience from that and I am very skilled in CAD designing in solidworks too so thats not an issue. I want to then go ahead and design a new frame for the router and pay an engineering company to make it out of aluminium or mdf to increase the overall size to my required 1m x 2m but keep all of the control parts, motors, spindle etc.

Frankly this is a bad idea. Not so much the contracting parts build out but rather wasting money on this router that will have almost nothing of value in it for a 1x2 meter machine. When I say nothing I can't imagine much at all being reusable on the machine.

So what do people think? Will there be any issues with stepper motor or spindle power if i increase the size so dramatically?

As stated above I think it will be a complete waste of money. The parts to build a reliable machine in the size you want need to be far more robust than anything in that machine.

What about programming, can i just change working area dimensions in mach 3 software?

Most likely you will need to go through a complete setup for whatever CNC software you end up using.

I get that its chinese ebay quality but being on such a strict budget i dont have much choice, if anyone has any experience with the ebay routers then I would love to hear. I figure only cutting such soft material then
it should be able to handle it and I can just upgrade spindle or parts in the future.

The problem here is the size of the machine you want to create which leads to having to significantly beef up parts to be successful. In the end nothing on that machine will work for you.

If anyone has any other suggestions of getting a cnc router of my required size for a nice low price then feel free to chime in as well.

Honestly the only way you are going to get something even close to the size you want is to DIY the machine. Your only other option is to build up cash reserves to buy a decent machine suitable for your intended work.

For a DIY machine I generally suggest a welded up steel frame. Steel in this case because it is far cheaper that Aluminum, and structural steel is easy to weld in this sort of use. You need to remember that a 2 meter machine implies a frame a bit longer than that. In old fashion terms that would mean a machine that is likely close to 8 feet long (maybe longer) assuming a moving gantry machine. This sin't a small build by any measure.

My plan is to take next semester off uni to develop this and get my business up and going but if people dont think its possible

What is possible depends upon what you and your investors can pony up for the first machine. If you want to start a business I wouldn't skimp too much on the machine. Ideally you will have a machine flexible enough to take on a variety of work too help pay for it. Frankly I don't know enough about splitters to even know if making them can support a business but what I do know is that you can't expect the market for them too last forever. Thus form the business standpoint you will need to keep the machine busy with other work. Basically you will be starting a job shop at least until you have enough product to keep the machine busy. Ideally you want enough work to keep an employee busy.

or if it wont work for any other reason i havent thought of then I'll just abandon the idea of my own business

Thanks in advance

Please don't abandon the idea of starting a business! Seriously, it might not be the right time for such a business, for you, but that shouldn't be the end of your dreams. Honestly you are probably better off staying in school, maybe even part time and getting that out of the way. I would then try to build up a pile of cash to launch a business with a decent machine and a bit of reserve cash. Having no idea what things are like in your area I'd suggest trying to build up at least $10,000 with a good portion of that going to the machine that will do the work you want, maybe even a used machine.

$10,000 may seem like a lot, but there is a whole bunch of other stuff that is needed to successfully get a business up and keep that machine productive. If you continue with college part time you can start building that cash now. I'm really against leaving school totally as the common thing that happens here is that people get wrapped up in their business and never make it back to school. You may need that degree later for any number of reasons so I'm strongly suggesting staying in school in some form or another. In your case you are too close to finished to drop now. Oh yeah I know many people that have in fact dropped and started businesses and have been successful; I suspect many will tell you that they will have wished that they finished their education.

In the meantime talk with your current job shop about pricing and the potential for any design changes and so forth that will lower the cost of the product. Also orienting work so that they can process a sheet at a time often lowers costs to you. The more involved in this you become the more you will develop a feel for the business potential. I don't even know if the market is there for enough splitters to justify a machine, only you can determine that.

[kerfuffel]

Sorrry all my computer seems to have been messing up and I have only just discovered all your replies.
Firstly thanks heaps for all the responses, it was exactly what i was looking for and you guys are very obviously an extremely helpful community which is something that is hard to come by nowadays on the internet.
I'll try and clear some things up here with my intentions real quick.
"Business" is a loose term here, think of it more as using a hobby to make some extra money on the side while I'm at uni. I do not plan on abandoning my course entirely for this, its hard to explain but taking the second half of this year off for me is actually really helpful in terms of my course so the splitters wont become a full time thing.
Also don't concern yourself with the "profitable" side of things here. I have done my research and planning and i am currently filling a hole in the market with my splitters so it is viable for the next few years which is all i plan on doing it for.

My intention was to find a way to spend a small amount of cash, $2000 or less, to double my profit.

I see now that the eBay machine is not a path i want to take and that the parts on that won't be of any use to me so thanks for clearing all that up.

So i guess my next question is, is it possible to make a machine that needs to only cut out 10mm thick HDPE and thinner materials, nothing like aluminium or anything harder than hdpe for around $2000 for the size that i want? It doesnt have to be an amazingly long lasting really great machine. If mdf will work then I'm happy to use that.

Next question, I have a had a pretty good look around these forums and the internet but I can't seem to find a reasonable, start to finish, diy on building a cnc. Is there a diy somewhere that covers the frame and all the electronics and programming required in order to go from nothing to a full fledged cnc machine?

Also side note, my uni does have a waterjet CNC router but they charge just as much to use it as the company i go through now and they dont let students use it on their own :/

Thanks again for all the help, I really appreciate it.