I just finished my latest project, building a CNC-machine from scratch using an Arduino Uno, GRBL and 40x 3d-printed parts. It’s able to mill wood and aluminium, up to ~20mm thick.<p>As with all my other projects, I think they should be executed in the open where other people can learn from my mistakes and get inspired to build their own things! Therefore I’ve spend a lot of time writing a free complete tutorial of the build, documenting every step with text and detailed images, creating a complete bill of materials (including STL-files for the 3d-printed parts) etc. I don’t want any dependencies on DIY-websites, so I’ve hosted it on GitHub, where anyone can clone it locally.<p>I built this machine to gain more knowledge about mechanical engineering, electrical wiring, stepper motors, GRBL, CAD, CAM etc. Also, I guess I can build new fun things with the machine? Overly-engineered birdhouses maybe?<p>Setup:<p>* It’s running on an Arduino Uno, CNC-shield and GRBL.<p>* 40 parts are 3d-printed (all the red parts in the video)<p>* It’s based on Ivan Miranda’s blueprints, but I’ve adjusted some parts and structured the bill of materials.<p>* It uses 2x 19:1 geared NEMA17 stepper motors for the Y-axis and 1x for the X-axis. The Z-axis is using a standard NEMA17 motor.<p>* HTD5M belts and pulleys are used for X-axis and Y-axis. GT2 belt and pulleys are used for the Z-axis.<p>If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. You’ll find my email in the top of the guide :)
I'd love to have an open source CNC machine to design joinery with <a href="http://ma-la.com/tsugite.html" rel="nofollow">http://ma-la.com/tsugite.html</a>
Ideally a whole house and most of the furniture...<p>If anyone has any ideas on how to accelerate build times of open hardware, that's something I'm trying to solve. Creating high quality instructionals is a huge amount of work and I think instructionals should be automatically generated by computer vision and have interactable elements, ideally AR, but even just highlighting wiring diagrams on hovering would be hugely helpful. Even if things are well documented, replication is still insanely pyrrhic without economy of scale or universal fabrication. It's time consuming because it's hard to replicate knowledge/tool environments quickly.
Hey, this is a great project. I am working on a project that involves both hardware and software much like your CNC project.<p>I especially like how the README.md is exquisitely well-written, complete with images. May I ask - did you manually link the pictures and links while writing the README or did you use a program that let you generate the source md file from a WYSIWYG editor?<p>PS. I am a newbie here. So, I really hope this question isn't against the code of conduct here.
For anything CNC, there's no substitution for stiffness. And you're not going to get that with aluminum extrusions. Something like the PrintNC would be 1,000 times more capable due to using steel.
This got me wondering: most CNCs and 3D printers use switches for calibration, plus stepper motors for positioning.<p>Has anyone tried to use cameras or a Valve Lighthouse (0.3mm precision), maybe with accelerometers and encoders, for tracking? That would allow the use of cheaper, faster, torquier, more efficient DC motors, as well as release the accuracy constraints for a lot of parts (depending on which part is being tracked).<p>The goal would be to trade hardware complexity and price for software complexity, since it's easier to re-purpose software (and something like lighthouse base stations has multiple uses, so the price could be shared between projects).
Very cool! I am actually also making a 3d printed pen plotter! I love how easy it is to get common hardware like bearings, plus how nice it is to print parts on demand.<p>Edit to add the link to the plotter: <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2349232" rel="nofollow">https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2349232</a>
Congratulations! I'm working on one in my spare time but I've decided to cram in as much features as possible(as far as not being able to cram all the features into an arduino or esp32 so ultimately I'm opting for a raspberry pi for connectivity, monitoring, safety and so on). I got it working about a month ago with some tools and hardware I borrowed from my dad but the problem there was... My dad's negligence, meaning all the tools and hardware were half dead. In any case I managed to cut out two pieces I needed for a different project(and see that it works after all). And I also plan on open sourcing it. though most of the code is written in Rust. With the exception of a small webserver for monitoring the process remotely(even visually with a tiny webcam) - no point in wasting so much effort on that and dealing with all the async-await-read-write locks that come along with it. The webserver mostly parses logs and makes system calls to binary files.
Really neat project!<p>Maybe I missed it, but is there a general cost estimate anywhere? I saw the BoM, and assume most the cost is in the router and stepper motors, but is this like ~$500?
This is fantastic.<p>I've been putting off buying a 3D printer but I've always wanted to get a CNC machine... this might push me over the edge. The idea of having end to end manufacturing capability on the desk is very very attractive.<p>The things I could do with this combination... what a time to be alive.
Do any of these small CNCs support G02 and G03 for circular arcs?<p>I was recently looking at G-code output from Solvespace and figure we need to update it to produce those codes rather than tiny linear segments. But will the home-built CNCs even support that?
Thanks for this guide! Just realized I have everything I need on-hand to follow your guide & wanted to comment and let you know I plan to follow it this weekend. Looking forward to it!
Does anyone have suggestions for making a CNC mill that's quiet enough to run in my apartment? I'm thinking about getting one of the cheap $250 Aliexpress specials (I only want to mill PCBs), but I'm guessing it's going to be too loud to run in a building where other people live. If I can make some performance tradeoff for relative quietness, I'd love to do it.<p>(Maybe it's as simple as putting it in a foam enclosure or something? That sounds bad for spindle cooling, though.)
Nice! I built an older model MPCNC years ago, and was able to get pretty great results with it relative to the tiny cost and huge flex in the frame. I managed to cut some brass Christmas ornaments that I’m pretty proud of.<p>I like that you’re using racks here - the belts on the MPCNC were a major weak point in my experience. I wonder if you could get away with 3D printed racks and pinions. There’s a lot of structural plastic in there already, would the hit from accuracy from using lesser racks make a difference?
The pictures on that README are insane! So HELPFUL!<p>And, I already have that same Makita router so I am more tempted to try this... because of the pictures!
Slightly unrelated, I was curious if anyone here could recommend a 3d printer? Smaller one would be better just trying out now. Does not need to be too accurate (nice if it does) but looking for something that is budget and most for doing very flat 3d objects (ie: height no more than 1-2 inches, within a width/length much smaller than 10x10 cm)
This - <a href="https://www.adambender.info/post/2017/03/25/epoxy-granite-machine-frame-how-to" rel="nofollow">https://www.adambender.info/post/2017/03/25/epoxy-granite-ma...</a> - could be a useful addition to the mill.
I built myself a Mostly Printed CNC: <a href="https://docs.v1engineering.com/mpcnc/intro/" rel="nofollow">https://docs.v1engineering.com/mpcnc/intro/</a><p>It works really well, and as yet I have yet to kill it, for me that's a good metric.