• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Home made CNC

DaveL

DaveL

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Some of you may remember this thread about cutting brass, where I was thinking of buying a small CNC machine.
Well I looked at a number of them and thought why not have a go at making one, lots of bits are listed on the dreaded ebay so I bought a collection of things which I have cobbled together, Heath would be proud of me. The basic idea was to build a smallish one that I could use to made bits for a some what larger machine.
I have a few pictures which I will post once they are off my phone and you can all have a laugh at what I have been doing.
I have not tried to cut metal with it, but have cut a few bits of ply and some MDF with quite good results.
 
I have a free copy of Fusion 360, the learning curve is quite steep, but I am being to make a few useful bits.
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I am using a Proxon die grinder as the spindle, I have cut some new mounting plates and will be fitting a Trend T3 router.

I have no plans, I have made it up as I went along. I do plan to draw bigger machine, I currently have a working area that is only 200 mm by 500 mm. It has a ball screw for the Z and X axis but only a lead screw for the Y. I want to use 600 mm ball screw that in on the X as the Y on the bigger machine and buy another 1200 mm ball screw for the X. I plan to buy a 2.2kw water cooled spindle which means my current Z axis will need replacing, the reason for this choice is its quieter than a router and it's the smallest unit that can take an ER20 collet set allowing the use of 1/2" shank cutters. The water cooling also means it can be run slower as the cooling is forced, not dependent on a fan on the entire of the motor shaft.
I want to be able to cut the fret slots in a finger board for a P base.
 
Very nice! Does this work in 2 axes only, Dave? in other words, do you have control of depth of cut (other than by manually changing the depth of the cutter)?
 
Mike,

it's a full 3 axis machine, but I have only cut what is referred to as 2.5D things so far. The software can do full 3D but I have not tried to do anything that complicated yet.
 
Fret slots!!

You the man! I might be calling on you when it's up and running!
 
A quick update. I have used my home made machine to cut a number signs which have been well received by everyone I have given them to.
But I found the frame was not stiff enough to cut much more than the signs, I decided that when I had an unexpected lump I would buy a kit. I spent some time looking at different kits and decided on a WorkBee from Ooznest. They do two different machines and different sizes and drive systems. I selected a 1 metre square machine with lead screw drive. Today I cut the first sign on it.
I reused the proxon as the spindle, I have bought a 2.2kw water cooled spindled but need to make a mounting for it. I need to make a spoilboard but I am not sure what I am going to use.
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Looks good!

Having spent a lot of my working life programming and operating CNC metal working machines the idea of a home machine for woodwork is quite appealing. I started off just hand writing then typing in the G code then moved on to CAD/CAM. My hand coding had loops for multi parts and were quite small. The CAM software made huge files but was much easier and faster.

Only problem when I think about it is ... what would I use it for? (not to mention where would I keep it!)

Still tempting though.

If I visit my cousin in Woodbridge sometime in the future I'll see if you are open for a demo detour. Love to see what it can do and how the software is to use.
 
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