- We are getting back into things in September – after a very busy month of travelling in August.
- We’ve gone through 4 iterations of the IO card for the Bells project. We are hoping this last version has all the issues dealt with. It’s amazing how quick and easy it is to do board revs these days – even getting boards done in China.
- And we’ve been tuning the case design for the IO Card in Fusion 360, and 3D printing it.
- And, related to that, we’ve set up a small 3D printer farm to crank out all the pieces we’ll need.
- Zeph finished working on the software at the end of August. We’ll be seeing how well is scales soon.
- All the Voronoi boxes have been completed in the woodwork department. They have now moved along to painting. We are trying out the 3M paint guns with disposable innards. They are working well so far (though we keep cleaning and reusing the components, because we can…
- And just for fun, I’ve reassembled my ancient CNC converted Grizzly G0704 mill here at the shop. I haven’t used it in about 4 years. The mill hardware went together easily, but now I’m having issues with the software and finding a laptop to run it on, licensing, etc. The issues you’d expect bringing up some old hardware and software.
- Also, we updated the sign a couple of times – put up a school related sign, and then one for the Queen, RIP. I haven’t updated the sign page yet…
- Our 3D printers are churning out stuff every day – we have about 500 things to print! They are busy.
Building a Chinese 3018 CNC Engraving machine
This small CNC Engraving machine is available at the banggood.com site:
It can be hard to find the plans for this machine online. Here’s some help!
You’ll assemble most of it by just looking at the photos.
The manual I got with the latest one I ordered was pretty good.
The details page has a link to this dropbox:
Which has drivers, the manual, etc.
For the GRBL sender I have had good success with GRBL Panel which didn’t have as many features as others, but WORKED. https://github.com/
One option I added for the little CNC was a proper collet:
This makes it easy to use better tools. I was using a standard 1/4” v-carving router bit, for instance. I found that the hole in the adapter that is supposed to slide over the 5mm motor shaft was just a bit small. I reamed it out with a 5mm ream, and that worked great. For the first one, I had to shove it onto the motor shaft with a vise – which worked, but I’ll never get it off!
Finally, one change I made was to use better nuts and bolts. The screws that come with the thing are soft – like aluminum, and have Phillips heads, which I hate. Proper metric cap screws are much better. Sorry for .ca links.
- FullerKreg M5-0.8 x 10mm ISO 4762 Hex Drive Class 12.9 Black Oxide Finish Alloy Steel Socket Cap Screw (Pkg of 100) https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07BSBCP3K
- Boeray 2020 M5 T Spring Nut Half Round Roll-in Nut for t-Slot Aluminum Profile 20x20mm 50pcs https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B075SYDZWB
- TOPINSTOCK 20×20 European Aluminum Extrusions Slim T-Nut M5 Thread Pack of 100 https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01FOC6A8E
- boeray 100 pcs M5 x 10 mm 304 Stainless Steel Internal Hex Drive Button Head Cap Screws, Packed in a Plastic Case https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07FF28LMD
Last Minute! Giving a talk about CNC with the Hack613 crowd.
I’m giving a talk about how to build your own CNC machine, along with Darcy White and Doug Commons on April 30, 2019.
This is a dry run for the talk I’ll be giving at MakersCentral in the UK next week.
UPDATE: The talk was a great success! Here’s some photos from the event.
I’m giving a talk at Maker Space North on February 26, 2019
Rich Loen has built many CNC machines including routers, mills, and cutters. He’ll share the knowledge he’s gained both building machines from scratch, and converting metal-working mills to CNC.
Tickets are limited so don’t miss out and snag yours now before they’re all gone!
More details from the event description: Rich Loen (https://Loen.Design) has built many CNC machines including routers, mills, and cutters. He’ll share the knowledge he’s gained both building CNC machines from scratch, and converting metal-working mills to CNC. Rich will cover:
- Hardware options – machine frame, linear bearings, ball-screws, belt drives
- Electronics – stepper motors, servos, drivers, power supplies, control interfaces like smooth steppers, G540, Planet CNC hardware.
- Spindle options – routers, air/Water cooled spindles, high-speed spindles
- Control Software – Mach3, Linux CNC, PlanetCNC, etc.
- Design Software – Fusion 360, Vectric V-Carve Pro, Other options
- Suppliers of hardware and software
Rich will be joined by Chris Manning (@silver_hand), a local watch maker and silver smith with years of CNC lathe and mill experience. Rich will also bring a small CNC mill he made for carving names into hockey pucks – and if you’re lucky, you can get your name carved into a puck during the event!
Success! We had a great time giving our talk “How to build a CNC machine” at Makerspace North
@Silver_hand and I gave a talk about building your own CNC machine. The talk seemed very well received, and we had a lot of great questions from the audience at the end. Thanks to everyone who attended – you made the talk great!
Here’s the presentation in PPT, and PDF format.
And thanks to Sheri at MakerspaceNorth for hosting us tonight.