Planning CNC router, laser cutter, or something?

That is an awesome machine , how much did it set you back in total? Have to convince my non-handyman dad to get one of these!!

 

This might have been mentioned before, but...

WHAT THE FU*K DO YOU WANT WITH A CNC, CHEAPS??? YOU DON'T NEED ONE FOR CARDBOARD!!!

 

@Picarro - Rig with Gecko box +4th motor +software +shipping = $2015
The Mach3 software bundle is pissing me off a bit. They loaded a bunch of 3rd party wizards that won't do anything unless you send someone fifty bucks. The lazy CAD is nice, but it won't work until you send them... 75 bucks, and they no longer support it... but you still have to pay for it... even though they have discarded it... It feels like buying Photoshop- only to find that you have to spend more to export to .jpg.
Right now I'm figuring out what I can trick it into using for a CAD file. I like to know my limitations first. (This is typical of me...I'm trying to cram a 4 year tech course into a few days.)
@perplexxs- The next build has a lot of repeated shapes and a spiral cut res. This should save me a lot of time and make the build a lot cleaner. -The ghetto-mod stays ghetto!

 

Keepin' it real... I see.

 

Cheapskate - take a look at CamBam. It can take CAD files and produce the G-code for use in Mach3. It's a bit more in-depth than LazyCAM and I find it more intuitive than LazyCAM.

There's a free version available, as well as a paid version, and it's still being upgraded and supported, unlike LazyCAM.

 

Thank you fibblebot! Google is useless nowadays.
-Now I just need 4th axis support...

 

I thought I'd do an update to my favorite hijack...

-This is how my back room looked for the past 5 days. I would come in late, look at this, and think, "It's too late to get it running." The CAMBam worked great. and after an hour of calibration, (and one good crash of the Z axis,) I was ready to go. If you run the motor to the end of the screw and crash, it slips and makes a horrible noise. *The more you know...

-I have to brag about this. The test file I did was about trying to max out the Y axis. I took a wild guess on where the edge of the work needed to be. In the picture you can see that the cut was barely inside the raw material. It's cutting 1/64" from the edge. I did a little victory dance at that point. Hell, I did a lot of victory dancing today.

-I did screw up, though. I had the cutting on the outside set to 2 passes. I set it up to cut the outside first, so I have a little lip on the finished part.

-The other thing I wanted to test that didn't go so well was the source file. I wanted to see if I could pull a template directly from the Sketchup model. If you look closely, you can see the crappy resolution of the SU in the big circle. The machine is good enough that it clearly cut the polygon faces, so I will have to re-draw stuff in a real CAD software.

 

I thought it was bigger

I think we'll see some DDC pump tops soon, right ? ^^

 

Nice progress! Can you show us how it handles alu?

 

Looks good - glad CAMBam worked out for you
Thanks for the heads up about SketchUp, btw - I'd never twigged that it doesn't use proper arcs, but the low polygon count is very noticeable if you zoom in close. I plan on using AutoCAD to produce 2D drawings, then use CAMBam to sort out the depth of the cuts, pocketing etc.

I'm about half way through building my own Solsylva 2'x4' machine using allthread at the mo, with plans to upgrade to acme rods as and when funds allow. The build has got to that point where I can see all the parts starting to come together (the Y/Z gantry takes a loooong time to build), but I'm not quite there yet.

Having to convert the measurements into metric equivalents is slowing me down too. Why does the US still use inches for small measurements - 9/64"? Much easier to say 3.5mm, surely?

 

@Dark- I can move this one around, so it's perfect. -No tops, but if it ever cools off I'll start my new project.
@Javerh - It's 100 degrees outside and I don't want aluminum in the carpet, so... no. There's a vid on the Deepgrove1 site of one cutting aluminum.
@I'm wondering if I can sneak a SU DXF into another 3d software and jack up the resolution. (I'm just to lazy to re-learn autocad.) That might work for the 3d stuff, but I'm still going to need to draw the 2d parts again.

 

Just do what I do and use boots when walking near the work area Or tiptoe!

 

Very nice!

Always exciting to get new toys. Thanks for sharing.

 

The carpet is bad enough without oily metal shavings.
@GuiInTulsa - No sweat. I kinda wish there were more 'reviews by a total noob' on the net.

 

CNC Machine with legs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quN37YskoaM

Maybe not as versatile as what Cheaps got, but probably cooler to play with.

 

Wow! Robotic CNC!

 

That's probably not very useful. Robots tend to be accurate to 0.1mm, where normal mills can easily be 0.01mm or even 0.001mm.

 

get a vac to suck up any aluminum shavings

very good start

 

I just had visions of a swarm of these crawling all over a rock face, followed by a cloud of dust, then some comical edifice (maybe a robot version of Mt Rushmore?) as they all scurry off to do some other robotic evil.

 

wow...

but what's that dumb sci fi movie starring Tom Sellek?