# I wanna build a CNC machine.



## gotrootdude (Feb 19, 2003)

I'm started designing a CNC milling machine. I'm looking for other ideas, plans, etc that other's might have to speed the design.

I've seen where other people have designed home-made CNC machines using wood. I'd like to use polyethylene cutting boards instead of wood for the clamps, and maybe the table itself. The boards are cheap and easier than wood to drill, tap, and mount together, and quite sturdy when layered. I'm also extremely poor, and hope to do this on a cheap-cheap budget. Edit: Well, maybe I should say I extremely poor. Truth is, I approximated I make about 240% APR on my buy/resell investments (I'm not going to teach anyone how to do it, so don't ask), not counting spoilage because I use spoilage as christmas, birthday, promotional gifts with writeoff, but pay the money to investments first before myself, so I really have no idea what I'm worth since pretty much all my money is held up in investments. Generally though, I only have around $1000 in the local bank to support my family at any time. 

I'd like to build it with the ability to use it as a 2-D freehand engraver with upgradeability to use stepper motors for control later on along with the ability to extend it's cutting dimensions later. 

Also, I believe it's possible to upgrade the accuracy of large step stepping motors by having the router connected to one side of a rotating central spindle from a expandable coat rack design with the control point on the other side, but this may not be feasable on first build. On the first build, the expandable coat rack design may be used to allow freehand engraving, cutting in 2-D though. And, the first design could be used to mill parts for the second design with greater accuracy. Using the expandle coat rack design for freehand control, I could trace the design on one table, while it cut the design out in 1/2 or 1/4 dimensions on the other table. Maybe, with the first design, I could use the 2-D freehand cutter idea, and add a push button to the stylus to allow lowering and raising the bit. This would allow me to drill pcbs with good accuracy instead of killing my eyesight.



I'm tired of seeing blocks of metal, plastic, aluminum, and what not laying around at the dump, dollar store, etc that I pass up because it's close to what I need, but just not the exact shape. If I could just reshape a bit, with accuracy, I could salvage quite a bit more, and spend less time searching for the perfect fit.

Any plans, ideas, that might help out there?


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## Knotbored (Jun 5, 2004)

I look at this site and I also have considered making a CNC machine, but have backed away at leaste for a while. I think the CAD and CAM programs cost will kill it for me. I want just for a hobby, not to make money.
Also-my son bought a small pro CNC milling machine but doesn't get much use out of it. The small ones can barely handle thin aluminum shavings and melt the way thru plastic, gumming up the cutter. Providing cooling lube makes a mess of everything.
Anyway this site will connect you to all the hardware, software and designs you would want, also some VERY interesting comments about homemade CNC stuff and robotics.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/


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## Knotbored (Jun 5, 2004)

Dude-this site has a whole bunch of great info
This page 6 shows how to make a stepper motor from old diskette drives-including the electrical motherboards and all the plugouts. You can save the pages for viewing offline(which I did for this page) My poor memory made me forget till I was scanning my old stuff.
There is almost enough info on his pages to make a robot.
http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/step/example.html


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I'm be interested in seeing how this progresses. That is one ambitious undertaking!


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