DIY 3 axis micro CNC mill drawn in solidworks

[jmsiefer]

Hahaha... yeah.. totally understandable. Hopefully the kit I got from Zen will be able to do some decent cutting. Maybe it this be good for a laser cutter instead...? eBay has a few laser modules for like $150. The steppers wouldn't have to do anymore work than just moving the stage back and forth.

[jmsiefer]

@jmsiefer ("it this be good"...?).. wow. I just realized I typed that. What was I thinking..?

Anyway, I'm about a week out from getting it functioning. I would be glad to post a video once it's operational.

[jmsiefer]

Great design. I had the same idea for using drawer slides. This is the first time I have seen anyone make a video of it. I had purchased some of the nylon wheel drawer slides to start, but there was way too much play. They need to be the bearing kind (like you have).

I finally broke down though, and am getting a kit from ZenToolworks instead. It should be here in about 5 days. My friend is also getting one, so we can put both of ours together at the same time.

[teukgeez]

Thank you so much for the simulation.. I've been looking for it ..

[KeithWasHere1]

are those draw slides for the x and y axis?

[1TwistedmindZ1]

@KeithWasHere1 Yes they are, but that is the initial design i ultimately moved to linear rails recycled from printers, check out my other video that shows the same setup with linear rails. The problem with using drawer slides is that they have to be mounted vertically and one on each side of the axis (this design had 1 per axis that was horizontal) to prevent unwanted movement (basically like regular drawers are set up).

[KeithWasHere1]

@1TwistedmindZ1 im not raggin on the design,its actually pretty clever and i admire it. as a suggestion i know some older type industrial copy machines had precision rails around 18-20 inches long not sure how long they are in home printers though.the older juke box size copy machines also had some kick ass step motors too.but not to may of them around these days as they all have been recycled or destroyed.

[KeithWasHere1]

@1TwistedmindZ1 i was going to cut out the middle man on my mill and just use some warner electric linear actuators for the y and z axis,i got some cheap off ebay with 100-300lbs of force,they have pots for position sensing circuits and are 5 wire hookup 24v@1.5amp i checked out that video you told me and it was awesome.great cad work! now if i could only get my Turbocad12 to work like that.

[sovietspyguy]

@1TwistedmindZ1 I realize this is an old video but you will be using this to machine foam/possibly wood, right? Just so there are no illusions about machining metal with drawer slides/printer rails.

I'm sure you already knew that though, just throwing in my jerkwad cynical pointers. :)

[1TwistedmindZ1]

@sovietspyguy I used this to cut some hardwood, polycarb, and acrylic, as well as drilling and milling pcb's. so it is nothing to hard, but in retrospect if i was to build this again i would probably make it out of aluminum, or fiberglass over the entire frame to make it sturdier. As far as drawer slides as the rails, i ended up switching them out for linear rails out of printer.

[sovietspyguy]

@1TwistedmindZ1 Gotcha. The PCB stuff is what intrigues me the most. Post some videos! Always nice to see people making things and being productive. :)

[halfmumi]

@1TwistedmindZ1 i got heaps of recycled printer parts,including stepper motors. I got solidworks knowled,a nice dremell, and all other stuff for the soup but the only problem i have i couldnt find a usefull SOFTWARE or FREEWARE to manipulate\transform a printer . Do you have any information about this? My last option is using Arduino and the Stepper motors i got.

[1TwistedmindZ1]

@halfmumi I would suggest getting Mach3 by artsoft for starters, it's really easy to set up, you can run up to 500 lines of code for free, i think with the older version you get 1000 lines for free. Another free CNC control software KCAM, a slightly older program so might take a bit longer to adjust to. They do have that free arduino gcode interpreter called "grbl"

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[MattOGormanSmith]

@halfmumi EMC2 on linuxcnc·org is great but it needs a dedicated PC or at least a dual boot of the specific real-time Ubuntu

[MattOGormanSmith]

Respond to this video... I used 4 on my Y, because these slides are springy in one axis

[PDB3Home]

Have you been able to get the mill working.

[1TwistedmindZ1]

@PDB3Home yeah check out the response video that's linked on here, it shows the operation of the mill before i did any major tuning.