Hello all, I have been browsing off and on here at the zone for a few years. Well not to long ago I bit the bullet and ordered the "kit" I was going to build. I went with the Openbuilds C-beam Machine CNC router kit for a few reasons. Price / Size (small craftroom) / V-slot.. I also build design and use 3d printers and all of them use openbuilds V-slot linear rail in one way or another. As such going with a a V-slot based cnc my overall risk of complete failure was lower as I could always reuse parts for my printers.
I am the first to say I am a complete newbie and have been making plenty of mistakes. However I could not be happier that I took that initial plunge into the wonderful world of cnc. Well enough rambling and onto photos.....
When I first started to recive parts from my orders. Along with the C-beam machine. I chose to go with the Dewalt dwp611 router. Precise Bit 1/8 and 1/4 collet's and nut and the cnc xPRO V2 usb Controller.
This has been a very exciting experience for me. As my first cnc router it has been a pleasure to put together. Openbuilds and the parts store team held back no effort in packaging and shipping everything out. With each axis broken down and individually bagged and labeled. Combined with Mark's build videos on youtube ( check his channel "openbuilds" ) the whole process was nice and smooth.
I had no problem with the lead screw to bearing fitment. I did not even need to sand down the screw!
The Z- axis gantry plate seemed to move up and down a little rough when moved by hand during the preloading wheels stage. Otherwise everything seems smooth when turning by the leadscrew. ( hoping I did not get to much preloading, I tried to match the Vid. )
It is going together really well! I changed a few things today. Mainly I lowered the X-axis gantry plate to be level with the Z-axis cbeam plate vs level with the cbeam itself. This should net me a 1/2" more clearance.
Finally Taking shape!!
Sadly I do have a few complaints. Those cast corners and their nubs. If I had a disc sander I would have removed them but I don't.. Honestly I would be okay if the bundle was a little more up front but came with the machined black 90 corner connectors all around.. 2nd is minor my x-axis was a few mm short ( around 4-5 or so) so when flush to one side you could not align / install the top plate and t-nuts on the other side. I centered the x-axis so the black end plates are overlapping the towers towards the center a couple mm each side. This allowed me to "just" squeeze in the t-nuts under the plate when installed, with the top plates resting a bit on the black end plates of the x-axis..
NOTE: I did end of taking apart the machine and filing the nubs off each cast 90 corner bracket by hand and replaced all the OB M5 bolts with New hardware..
Printed the required shim in order to mount my Dewalt 611. Thanks to JimmyBuckets..
Assembly is complete! This has been a really easy fun build between Marks videos and how well the store crew packages and labels everything. Everything has gone very smooth..
The shim will sit flush on the mount. It seems the 90 brackets interfere with the shim top ring just enough on my print to prevent this. Does not seem to bother anything..
First Movement. Fail on my part the pencil was to soft and the graphite eroded away before finishing the drawing of the openbuilds logo. However the g-code seemed to complete without issue! I am running a very old dell tower running W7 and GRBL Panel V1.0.9.0a with a X-pro v2 controller.
New Pen mount is working great. A sharpie barley fits but works well. I added the stl file to the resources tab on openbuilds if any one else wants to do some pen plotting with there C-beam machine.
Had a little bit of fun doing my first real bit of cutting on the cnc I built from Openbuilds C-beam extrusion this evening. The idea in my head started out as a coffee mug coaster and ended up as a tea kettle trivet. (hmm pattern for cast aluminium piece? ) This is so much fun! No clue what I am really doing yet but having a blast doing it!!
1/2" MDF
Dewalt DWP611
16,000 rpm ( lowest setting on 611 )
1/8 Carbide Flat Nose Endmill
50ipm cutting speed
0.028" depth of cut per pass
Yay! After 6-8 failed attempts I got the settings in a sweet spot. Here is my very first successful cnc aluminium part.
What I ended up doing, was adjusting / tuning the drivers along with using a vacuum to help clear the chips.
First recorded Fail@!
Part A
Part B
And here is my WIN for the day I am as happy as a kid in a candy store......
I have definitely caught the cnc bug I now want to make a little desktop laser engraver.... So taking inspiration from Robert Hummel's Stinger-V build on openbuilds ( I think he is on here as "rmhcnc" ) I have been drawing up a desktop cnc to mount a J tech 3.8w Laser to
He only posted photos in his build thread no files, So I had to do a bit work to come up with my cad file.
I have had my eye on building this cool little cnc since he first started to share images on Instagram some 2 years ago, So I dug into my computer chair the other day and got to work, If nothing else I thought it would make for a fun exercise to reverse engineer it from photos and the few known measurements I have ( nema 17 mounting )..
Almost there.. Only a few parts left to model up.
It was a bit harder then I first thought it would be! But it has been a very fun side project.. Pretty much all done. ( not doing all the electronics and bolts ).. I will be going over it the next few days to double check all my measurements / dimension would actually work in real life.
Well I think that catches me up to where I am in this crazy cool world we call cnc. I look forward to learning a ton more and sharing my projects / progress I do apologize for such a long post and thank you for sticking with it! It has been all the great post here and on other forums that has given me the encouragement to dive in and start these projects...
Loving this machine! Quick question. Ever since I started to use Ramping in Z within SketchUcam (4 degree angle , 110% over cut. ) It has been leaving the part in place with a really thin layer of metal on the bottom. Why is this? Do I just need to increase the over cut percent?
Okay and now I am Super Excited and just want to show off a successful part for Adamantine
The Stinger-V cad modeling I did last year finally got built into a Laser Cutter.
It has been a very fun build and I have learned a lot along the way. I put this ridiculously lightweight Nema 14 motor "Avalible Here" on the Z-axis and to my surprise it has been working wonderfully. Strapped to the front is a JTech 2W laser with 2.5amp driver. The complete machine is controlled with a Arduino Nano and Laserweb4 for my gui interface. If there is any interest in a dedicated opensource 2W laser Engraver build I would be happy to document it in a build thread all on it's own. How ever this thread is for My C-beam machine plate maker.
Speaking of my C-beam Plate Maker. I have recently been able to pull it out of storage and am in the process of getting it set up again. I still need to pick up a super pid for my Dewalt 611 and a few bits and bobs I have pulled off of it for other builds need replaced. It will be nice to have a running cnc again.
One of the main things I have redone has been the electronics. I have run a number of GRBL controllers some with more or less success. The one problem I have always ran into has been the Small Pololu 4988 / 8825 drivers over heating or skipping steps on my long runs. My Solution Gecko Drivers.
I went though a few different revisions but what I ended up with is a plug and play Gecko G540 USB grbl / estlcam controller. While I undertook this project to provide myself with a controller that meet my needs I did do a very small batch of controllers and have a couple extras.
One of the next items I had to address was the original boot loader used for arduino / atmega328p chips "Optiboot" While I am using the newest revision of grbl I have implemented a few compile time options; One of which is moving the Spindle enable ( on / off ) signal to Arduino pin d13. This when combined with a relay to control my router has the problem of the default boot loader flashing the led that resides on D13 every time the atmega328p chip resets or is connected. Causing the relay to trigger the spindle when we have not told it to do so via our commands.
Solution? Custom Optiboot boot loader that disables the default behavior to flash the led on arduino pin D13. Perfect ! no more random spindle triggers due to powering up or reseting the controller.
I have just wrapped up wiring the new electronics box with Gecko G540 and usb controller running grbl V1.1.. I am now at a point where I need to rewire the machine and get it all connected. Parts have been ordered machine is pulled out of storage and I am hoping to be up and running this month with many more updates and projects to come
The three 16mm aviation connectors on the back next to the Gecko G540 are for Limit / Home Switches. The single aviation connector up front is for Touch plate / probe. We also have the E-stop up front and center along with three buttons for Start / Resume , Feed / Hold and Reset / Abort. The outlet on the back has individually controlled via relay outlets one for spindle (router) and the other for coolant (will be shop vac.) The controller has a on board screw terminal that could also be used to control a 3rd relay but I am not using it at this time as I don't really have a need.