Heinz 57 special

[jp_dt]

I just started throwing together some parts I've picked up from Weird Stuff and HSC in San Jose, CA over the years. I love Silicon Valley surplus places. That big, odd shaped, alum. plate with the thk rails and a lot more hardware and alum. was only $13!!

I've never built, owned, or run a cnc machine, but I've been wanting to be able to at route pcbs and maybe more for a while now. So far I think I've spent maybe 75 bucks on materials. Here's what I've gotten done so far; over the last two weekends. I'll probably try and pick up a finished z axis and I need to get a lead screw for one more axis. There are more bolts in the sides of the gantry now, I'm thinking that'll be the first part to get replaced with something sturdier.

Absolutely no plans....free form CNC baby!

[jp_dt]

Just thought I'd add some progress photos.....
Since everybody is so interested.

I decided to back track a bit and go for a fixed gantry. The sides of the gantry will eventually be replaced with one piece of heavier plate, provided this all works. I'm wanting to do pcb routing mostly so this is going to cover enough area for the time being. The z-axis is next, and then it'll be time to add the lead screws for x and y.

[jp_dt]

I'm not quite prepared to quantify how good, but it looks good. If you look at the dates of the two earlier posts I've been trudging along on this for quite some time. Just in time for some pcb prototyping!

[ImanCarrot]

That is some neat work. I love making things from "spares" but I don't think I'd have the skills to make that.

Thanks for sharing!

[jp_dt]

Just adding on pics of the new spindle(still work in progress), and pics of the first good pcb. I got an assortment of the Think Tink pcb routing bits. They work amazingly well. The pcb pictured is cut in 1 pass! The material is that junky radio shack phenolic copper clad board. It seems as if it's tolerance is not so good as I did have to redo some sections where the surface of the board was too low and the copper wasn't cut totally. The spindle is a dremel flexible shaft tool, with the shaft dramatically shortened, the casing removed and the handle press fit into an aluminum block that's mounted to the z-axis. It works much much better than my first mount that used hdpe to clamp onto the body of the dremel itself. I'll probably get a motor and add a rigid drive shaft to the spindle. I'm still having trouble with the drill bit deflecting some...perhaps better drill bits. I also discovered the beauty of a flywheel removing some pretty nasty resonances.

[Kevin Taylor]

How about a Fordem hand pece and flex shaft motor VS and 1/8 or 1/4 collet's or drill chuck Love the zip tid adjuster I'v got a small one new I bought by mistake takes up to 1/4 with a drill chuck and you can get hand peices that take 1/8" collets PM if interested . What did you do for control I have been gathering part's for plasma table ? Good luck Kevin

[jp_dt]

My plan is to ditch the flexi shaft altogether because it's vibrating quite a bit. But it's proved out using the handheld portion as a spindle. I'll probably put a rigid shaft into it and drive it with belt/pulley setup. Right now my limiting factor is getting the boards clamped flat.

I'm using EMC2, which is great (except i have no other experience to compare it to), and xylotex drives.

Those Foredoms look cool....but they'd cost more than a third of what I've put into this machine so far.

I might just break down and buy the wolfgang engineering setup.

[CarveOne]

Harbor Freight sells a flex shaft carver that has been on sale for $49 at times. Though it certainly is not a Foredom tool it may be worth trying for your cnc project. I have a Foredom and my friend has the HF tool. My Foredom handpieces will fit his HF flex cable but the HF handpiece will not fit my Foredom flex cable due to small differences in dimensions. The Foredom runs 18,000 rpm and the HF runs 15,000 rpm. I would think you could stabilize the Dremel tool flex shaft in some manner to stop the vibrations. Check out the Foredom website for a large list of handpiece models, some of them are industrial grade, pricey, and would make nice spindle bodies.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=40432

Current website price is $53.99.

CarveOne

[jp_dt]

thanks!

[Rance]

jp, Nice work. My first thought was (and I really mean this in the nicest way), just think what he could have done with a retangular board. After thinking a bit though, I think I see why you got by with it. I am really impressed with the progress between post #3 and #5, and thanks for posting the progress.

[jp_dt]

Thanks for the complements Rance! This project has been more about proving out whether a cnc machine would be useful for my work. With that in mind I decided I could end up with something just as accurate with an oddball collection of good parts. It just made the process of formulating how the heck to put it all together much longer than using parts of chosen/determined by a design.

The funny thing about that non-rectangular plate of 3/8" aluminum in the base of the machine is that the plate, THK rails, and all the aluminum parts that make up the gantry uprights cost me $13 bucks at a salvage store.

I'm now working on adding a level pcb platform with registering pins/holes so I can do double sided board flips without to much fooling around to get the origin correct.

[bkinman]

Was that surplus store you are talking about Triangle Machinery Surplus?

If so, i've been to that place, its pretty cool. I live in Santa Cruz.