Home Made CNC Router (Would you like to comment?)...

[ThePT]

Hello,

this is my first post in this site, and I will use it to present my home made CNC router.

The aim of this machine is not to be the ultimate in speed and precison, but to build something functional with a short budget that will work at the first try, with conventional bits & parts that you can easily find.

You can see it here -> http://www.id3145.com/id3145/pages/gallery.asp

Comments are welcome...

[Labidus]

Great job, I like the way you have done your machine. I will start to build mine with mdf this weekend, mine will looks more crap unless I paint the MDF with some silver paint

[fish1234]

Very nice machine! I hope mine turns out as nice. I am still gathering components and trying to learn more about CAD/CAM and general CNC machining. I like the belt drive and may do the same, I have some acme rod to try first then maybe a change ot make a smaller table for more precision work.

Jeff

[ThePT]

tks for comments,

In my opinion, (and know soo little about all this....) rod's are the best way to go if your are not in a tight budget... belts are, as you have seen very simple to build... In my case, with the IGUS cheapest solution I'm limited in speed, but IGUS have other (more expensive) solutions...

ThePT

[fish1234]

I will most likely use the acme rod using a dual lead screw design. I will have to get a short belt and some pulleys/gears to get that working.

[teamtexas]

I'll throw my 2 cents in for what its worth! I like the build so far. For a first machine it looks great. The things I think may become an issue down the road for you are, the unsupported gantry (x axis rails) and no offset for the use of the rear of the y-axis table. I see these things because I did the same thing on my new machine and wish I would not have. I'm limited to about 30IMP for the x axis feed rate and I lost about 7 inches of table because I didn't offset the gantry toward the rear of the machine.

Just a little food for thought. You can see mine below.

[ThePT]

This machine is 2 years old since we (my friend and I) have the idea to built it.
The picture in this forum is from what I have called Version 1.
Actually I call it Version 2 because Spindle has been upgraded and a vacuum table has been added.

About the gantry offset, you are right!!! But this is a matter of no concern to me because I have used that wasted space to accommodate the vacuum table control as you can see in the picture. (vacuum table is divided along length in four sections. first section is always "ON", but the other 3 can be "OFF").

As you probably have read on my site, Version 3 is planned (and already designed...) and in the planned modifications will be included an belt driven Y Axis, the gantry offset, and reinforcement of acrylic lateral parts of Y Axis because they are too thin (10mm in the moment...).

PS.
1 - English is not my native language, so some terms are difficult to understand... what do you mean by "unsupported gantry (x axis rails)" ???
2 - yours seems to be very robust, probablly you can cut metal on it!!!
It was not my idea for starters, but in mine I would not dare to do that!

[teamtexas]

"unsupported gantry (x axis rails)"

My x axis is only held by the bearing shafts 0.750 inch in diameter. If I push on the router while its at the middle of the table I get about .045 flex from those shafts. If I had it to do again I would have used a shaft with support down its entire length.

Dan

[ThePT]

I see...

But that is not my case... As you can see in the picture above, I have the X Rails screwed to the aluminium structure every 120mm, making a total of 12 screws on each side. (same for Y Axis reinforcement rail) - no flex in here !!!

The X Rails are provided by IGUS (maintenance free...) and already came with the holes.

In the picture above, you can see the first 2 screws on the righ side of the machine. (look closer, the screws are the same color of the rails... )

____________________
ThePT

http://www.id3145.com

[mlind]

I had the same goals as you did when I built my machine.

I wanted something that was functional for a hobbyist. I am happy with my machine but yours looks much better than mine. I made the mistake of using wood to build mine. I should have used metal. Oh well, Mine works well and perhaps this summer if time permits I'll rebuild with metal.

Anyway Nice Job.