CNC Router Build 

ভাই জান আপনাকে অনেক অনেক ধন্যবাদ জানাই, আমার একটি মেশিন নিতে চাই , কি ভাবে নিতে পারি '

Thank you for sharing your plans! Great work

Thanks, man. It's definitely a big project.

It's a really good point. The first machine I built, I'd lose steps in my non-shielded cables. I'm using the shielded ones from CNC Router Parts now and haven't had any issues.

Thanks, Mounir!

Thanks! That's my favorite song, too ;-)

Great job! Thanks for sharing the CAD files, but they are not available now... Can you fix it, please?

Link is updated. Dropbox changed how their public links work but it should be good now.

Thanks! I'm currently using a router as a spindle - Hitachi M12VC. I've cut a little bit of aluminum with it, but it makes me nervous enough that I don't plan to do more, even though it was trouble free. I have a spindle -- cheap eBay job -- that I want to mount, but I need to do wiring for the inverter first.

I've never had a problem with it. The dust seals on the bearing carriages do a good job as dust squeegees, so it clears dust as it goes. I have had dust build up in the bolt holes of the rails. If I ever take them off, it may complicate things. There are times I wished I'd mounted them on the outside, along with the long-axis pinions. But that's about range of motion and usable work surface. I might have been able to get another 4-6" (100-150mm) of usable width if all the motion components were outside of the rails. But, I was very space-constrained when I built it, and it hasn't been a big problem since.

Thank you!

That's a fair question. When I was building it, it came down to how easy it was to fabricate. I wanted to use aluminum, but I didn't have a way to cut the curve well. I cut a lot of Al while making the machine, but everything was in a straight line. I needed a fairly close fit between the router mount and body, and I could do that with wood much more easily than metal. Once the part was done, it was done, and it's working fine. Since I'm not having issues with stiffness or alignment, I'm good. I'm about to start some upgrades including a proper spindle, and that has a metal mount.

Thanks, Simon. I get 52"x24"x5.5" of useful travel on the axes. Rails and bearings are Hiwin (or Hiwin clone) I got from ebay -- HGH20CA. Motors are ~400 in-oz Nema-23 which I run at around 2.5A from some generic 20A ebay power supply. Rack and pinion and the r-p drive assemblies/motor mounts are CNC Router Parts components. Homing switches are NPN-NC 8mm proximity switches -- whatever I found on Amazon, but nothing special. I'm using a range of 8020 extrusions in the 15-series. X-axes are 1545, Y-beam is 3060. I have a UC400ETH driving a Gecko G540 for the control, and UCCNC for the controller software. My spindle is just a Hitachi M12VC router -- factory collet for 1/4" and 1/2" bits, Precision Bits collet for 1/8". Cutting aluminum is in the cards if I can get it to work -- and hopefully circuit boards too. I'm in the process of moving to a new house and new shop right now, but I hope to be back in action pretty soon.

I gave this a thumbs up when I read it a while ago but now I have more questions! What calculation did you do to work out the angle of the rack and pinion drive "swing arm" to make sure that forces between teeth didn't result in the drive gear lifting away from the rack and introducing a deflection in that axis? Also, (perhaps easier to answer) what DC voltage did you go for on the NEMA 23s? 24V, 36V, 48V? Thanks - can't wait to see what else you get up to with this machine!

Thanks, Simon! I didn't really do any calculations on the rack and pinion arms. I'm using the R&P motor mounts from CNC Router Parts. Those have a pivot on a bushing at one end, and a spring at the other which holds tension between the rack and the gear. I followed their instructions for setup. I'm not too worried about skipping, as I only use the R&P for X/Y movement. There's just not all that much lateral force if I have my feed rate set correctly. Z is controlled by a lead screw in a zero backlash delrin nut. I keep the Z feeds slower since that's bearing the weight of the router, mount, and some Z axis components. For the motors, I have a 36V-capable supply which I'm running at 24V. The motors themselves are around 400oz-in, with the way I have them wired (the way the Gecko drive seems to prefer). I'm in the middle of a move to a new house right now, but more projects are coming. I can't wait to be settled in and have the machine set up in the new shop.

Thanks. I got the drive assemblies from cncrouterparts.com. They had the racks and pinions, including the mounting plates for the X-Y motors, pinion gears, and gear-reduction belts. They work very well, and I'm glad I bought them from a single supplier, as it made everything easier. It's reliable, and also has good safety mechanisms for my dumb mistakes. If I leave the gantry path obstructed (something sitting on the router bed that would jam it), the springs that hold tension on the rack and pinion gears allow things to skip, which is way better than stripping the gears. It's saved me more than once, and I'd absolutely buy the same parts again.

It's a section of rectangular aluminum tubing from onlinemetals.com. I got all of the plain aluminum (angle, tube, flat) from Online Metals, all of the 8020 extrusions from their ebay clearance store to save on materials cost.

I used a conventional wood blade with carbide teeth. This one is a thin-kerf Diablo general purpose blade. Nothing special, though I link thin-kerf for aluminum so it doesn't have to remove as much material.

I use a Gecko G540 for my drivers -- very simple, but it gets the job done well. For actual motion control, I use a combination of UCCNC as my control software, connected to a UC400ETH. I originally used Mach3, but I've found UCCNC to be more reliable and to cut better, once I got it tuned up. For generating GCode, I typically use Vectric's VCarve Pro. I'm a Mac guy, so I have to run it in a virtual machine, but that's no big deal. I have a few situations where I've written python programs to generate GCode for specific purposes, and I'll occasionally do super-simple things by hand.

CAD files and parts list is in a zip file linked in the comment pinned to the top of the list.

@@RichFriedemanThank you Rich, I'm very happy

All of the T-track aluminum (so most of the machine) is made with extrusion from 8020 Inc. I don't know what their alloy is, but I also didn't have any alloy choices with those components, so I didn't sweat it. For the other aluminum stock (L that joins the gantry riser to the X bearings, plate connecting the Y carriage to the Z axis assembly, and the Y carriage itself), those are all 6061-T6 aluminum. I chose that because I could get components in the sizes I needed -- my supplier had the most variety of that, by far -- and because it seemed like it was well regarded for structural use. I certainly didn't do any calculations around it. The 8020 extrusions are a bunch of different profiles in the 1.5 inch family. 1545 for the X axes, 1530 for the risers, 3060 for the big beam. I could almost definitely have gone smaller, but I knew I wanted a beefy beam since it's almost 36"/1m long and I didn't want to worry about it either sagging or twisting. All the other sizes were chosen mostly to get either the height that I needed (1545 X rails lifted the gantry higher so I didn't have to make the gantry itself taller), or for the correct connectivity to another component (1530 for the risers-to-beam connection, etc). There's no question you could scale this down quite a bit and maintain a lot of strength.

Thanks a lot for the detailed answer! it's been a great help.

It looks like it's still pinned to the top of the comments. You might have to hit the "Read More" to display the URL for the download.

@@RichFriedeman HI Rich, I'm sorry to be a bother. I've gone through all the comments but for some strange reason can't find the pinned comment. Would it be possible for you 5o please email me the link. mvblomme@gmail.com Keep up the great work!

Thanks Paul. You could probably build it for around $2500 US in parts and materials. I repurposed a lot of existing electronics, so I don't have an accurate count on that. I accounted for all the non-electronics, though (basically everything but motors, drivers, cables, cable management) in the bill of materials. That's at a link in the pinned comment. I'm not prepared to build one as a commercial offering. It wasn't super difficult, though. I was able to do it almost entirely with woodworking tools. My CAD files for the design are in that same link -- it's not an instruction guide, but it might get you started.

I got the motors from AVIDCNC. They are the 380 oz-in NEMA 23 rated at 3.5A.

@@RichFriedeman thank u sir

@@RichFriedeman You did a good job making the machine

I'm happy to do what I can to answer questions. What do you need?

Link just posted in another comment.

8020 inc used to have an eBay store for their surplus extrusion. Unfortunately, that closed earlier this year. Now, when I buy extrusion, I typically get unofficial 8020-type Chinese manufactured from eBay. Official 8020 is great stuff, but for my purposes, good enough is generally good enough -- and it's definitely much cheaper than the real-deal.

Thanks for the input. For my needs cheaper is better. I just worry getting it off eBay I am not ordering the right gauage etc.. And then the pieces won't fit together correctly.

@@nathanburt6053 It's always a possible issue. I'm certainly not going to guarantee the quality of stuff off of eBay. But in general, the key dimensions of the different extrusion types have become pretty standard, at least as far as overall size, slots, etc. You're more likely to find differences of wall thickness, and internal cavities. So I wouldn't expect to tap exactly the same hole in the end of an "official" piece of 2020 and an eBay special. But for the main connecting surfaces, in my experience it's close enough. And if you buy it all together, you end up with consistency -- which is really all you need.

I built around the Hiwin HGW20CA. I don't think these are actual Hiwin brand, but their dimensionally identical ones I got on eBay. There's a link in the BOM spreadsheet that takes you to the specific part.

I don't use Rhinocam. I use a Mac and Rhinocam is Windows only (I'm looking at you MecSoft). I do all my CAM in Vectric Pro -- which is also Windows only, so I do it under Parallels. I really don't want to deal with needing to use Parallels for Rhino itself, so I stick with Vectric. Maybe not the most obvious set of choices, but it works for me.

I see your point, there are some benfits in having seperate computers for cad/cam aswell, I guess it all depends on the purpose both vectric and Rhinocam make good cam packages, I use vectric v-carve and Rhinocam. @@RichFriedeman

I have not milled aluminum with this machine. I'm not concerned about it being strong enough -- it should be fine for that. I don't know if the woodworking router can achieve the right speed to cut aluminum well, and I don't really have any capability for coolant flow. Coolant may not be essential, but it would certainly help. I'm planning an upgrade to a proper spindle which will give me about 6000-24000RPM range. When that's done, I do play to try some aluminum milling.

thank you v much

You don't need to know a lot of electronics to build a CNC router. It doesn't hurt, but for most machines, the electronics are pretty simple. It's more about understanding the components you need to buy (motors, controllers, drivers, etc) than having any real knowledge of electronics. That comes in more if you're planning to build components yourself or customize. For a good overview of the electrical components, what they do, and how they work, I'd check out buildyourcnc.com/CNCElectronicsandWiring.aspx. It's a great introduction.

It's a Laguna 1412

merci ;-)

I've thought about it. I'm happy to share my CAD files as they are -- they're about 90% accurate to the finished machine. I made some structural changes on the fly, substituting 8020 extrusion for the large plates that make the gantry risers. I also didn't model out every hole and bolt. If I were to make plans I'd really want to get those details right. It'd be a fair amount of work to make real plans and the build guide required to make sense of them.

It's all 8020. You can get it directly from them at 8020.net. I used their eBay store. It's where they sell offcuts, returns, scratched pieces, etc. There's less selection than the outright retail website, but I saved a bunch of money. I had to adapt my plans a little. I'd originally intended to use their metric 40-series instead of inch 15-series (so the gantry beam would have been 40-8016 instead of 15-3060). There was a lot more 15-series available on their ebay store, though, and everything was dimensionally pretty close, so I adjusted to that. With the savings, it was absolutely worth the effort to adapt to available materials.

Niiice...thank you for your reply bro......do you have a link or item # for it?....im building a 5x10 plasma cutter....direct drive...but i want the gantry to be a lottle lighter.......what type of guide rails did you use?

8020 ebay store: stores.ebay.com/8020-Inc-Garage-Sale Bearings and guide rails (the bearing blocks and rails are a unit, not purchased separately): www.ebay.com/itm/2-x-HGH20CA-2R-1500-1500mm-600mm-mm-Square-Liner-Rail-1-HGH20CA-Blcok-Bearing-/141920576862?hash=item210b20255e:g:~CMAAOSwvUlWrPlq

It's in the link in the pinned comment at the top.

Sorry, Louis, I'm not, though I appreciate your asking. I'm happy with the project, but building it was something I did to have the CNC router I wanted, not to put me on the path to building them for others.

Added a pinned comment with the files

Posted in a comment above

thankx

Can u share the cad file

My CAD files and bill of materials are linked in a pinned comment at the very top.

Ha! It's interesting, because the CNC is amazing, but it's also really specific. a part has to be both complex and need to be precise, or need to be numerous, for me to bother. It does things that I can't do with the other tools, and it does some things really fast. But there's always a lot of setup involved, so the table saw, band saw, or even chisels and scrapers get used more. I'm actually starting to work on a lot of fixturing for guitar building to reduce that setup effort. Hope to have some new videos around that pretty soon.