DIY CNC project

[dogsht]

That looks sharp & classy. Friend of mine has a body shop in fact he may be in partnership with his two brothers one of which has a sharp 442 and posts here. He has a sort of fancy garage out at his place for personal toys etc. One idea he had that I thought was very cool was the either antique or fake antique gas pumps out by his garage. Tall old timey fancy stuff. I think one he showed pictures of not sure if he ever bought or installed it but it had the clear glass tank on top that it filled like a mini watertower before downloading it into your car. This way you could see how much gas you were purchasing and knew that you were not getting short changed. He also has some antique automotive signs that fits to create the whole theme. The Oldsmobile service is a nice touch and the stone looks great.

 

[FE3X CLONE]

Was a beautiful weekend which gave me a chance to do a little cleaning in the barn. Finished a little more on the CNC's table and hooked up the computer along with installing the Mach 3 and Cambam software. They are just trial versions for now. I figure I'll get things running first with the demo versions before spending the money on the full versions.
Waiting on the last two motors to arrive so that I can get them wired up.

 

[bill]

..... awesome!

 

[FE3X CLONE]

Here it is after hooking up one of the motors and jogging it with the keyboard:



Finished trimming out the table and covering it with 1/8" masonite today:

 

[Fastmax32168]

I am curious as to how the wood frame is going to hold up under the stress of cutting aluminum. A buddy of mine has a Techno CNC router that we have used to make quite a few aluminum items over the years. It is all metal construction and it sometimes struggles with the aluminum cuts. Keep us posted.
Roy

 

[FE3X CLONE]

We'll see how it does. There's a few guys out there that are milling aluminum with the wood frame machines with decent success. Obviously it's not going to be doing this as fast as the professional CNC mills do though. We're talking feed rates of 15-20ipm and a depth per pass of .03".

It's a fine line on the aluminum since if you go too slow the aluminum will melt and stick to your bit. Same if you try to cut too deep and go too slow. So it's a juggling act to keep the aluminum from melting while keeping the wood structure of the CNC from racking too badly that accuracy goes out the window.

In all likely hood I won't be milling a bunch of aluminum on this thing. If I do it's going to be cutting thin sheet metal. Somewhere from 12-20 gauge.

My first test will be making a cable carrier out of 1/8" masonite. Then I need to move on to something more complicated like a pinewood derby car. We were informed today at work that we will be having a friend competition in May both in design and actual racing. So time to get cracking on the CNC. 😉

 

[FE3X CLONE]

Made some cabinet doors for the CNC table to enclose the lower half. Debating on whether or not I want to add doors to the other side.
The table is 36" x 60" so it makes for a pretty deep reach with doors just on one side.

The great news is that I got a shipping notification for my last pair of motors. Hopefully I can start cutting something this weekend. 🙂

 

[1979ratrod]

damn dude mad skills! cant wait to see some stuff you make with it!

 

[dlo253]

Homemade CNC, now that's pretty cool haha.. Used to have a CNC lathe in my garage, took up way too much space though. And I have access to all the machines at my work anyways, lol.

 

[-83MONTESS-]

I could never afford to buy a CNC machine but I also wouldnt know where to start in making one!