Intro: Building a CNC routerThis instructable will show you how I built my CNC router. I hope you can draw some inspiration from my build and that this instructable will be helpful for your futureprojects. This instructable shows all the steps I went through in designing and building this CNC router.
The main thing I like about a CNC router, is that it is so versatile. You can use it as a drilling machine, a router, a saw, a mill and even as a lathe. Because my workshopis very small (it’s more like a shed), I didn’t have the room for all of these tools, but I still wanted to be able to make very precise parts for different projects. That’s whyI started to think about building a CNC router.
After doing some research I decided to design and build my own machine. It took my almost 6 months to build and design the machine from start to finish. Before startingthe actual designing of the machine, I did a lot of research on the web. I recommend taking a look at the following websites: cncroutersource.com and cnczone.com .These websites will provide you with a ton of information and answer most of your questions on CNC related topics.
Please note:I built this CNC router as final project for school (also called 'profielwerkstuk' in the Netherlands). When I started the build, I was 16 years old and I finished it when I was17. Although I have done a couple of larger projects in the past and have been doing FTC robotics for the last few years, I didn’t have that much experience with buildingCNC machines. This machine actually is the second CNC machine I built. The first one was a wooden test machine, which I built to gain some experience and learnmore about CNC machines. I tried to built this machine as good as possible, with the tools, the knowledge and the budget I had at the time. I think the machine came outpretty nice and I hope you enjoy reading about it.
Step 1: The designBefore starting to build a machine, you will always have to make some sort of a design. Sometimes it only has to be some sketches on a piece of paper, but for thismachine a more precise three dimensional drawing was required. I made my design using google sketchup . Google sketchup is a free cad program, which you candownload from the web. I found it was very easy to work with, although I had never worked with a cad program before. You won’t be able to draw as complicateddesigns as you can, by using other programs like Autocad , but for my purposes it worked just fine.My main goal was to get all of the proper dimensions for my parts, so that I could order them online. I wanted to see if all of my parts were going to fit together. Becausethe machine consists of a lot of moving parts, I wanted to make sure that nothing would hit one another while running the machine.When I started designing the machine I already had some parts like the linear rails and the ball screws. I bought these from someone who had built a test machine for hiswebshop. I used the same electronics for this machine, as I used for the wooden test machine I had built earlier.
These are the basic dimensions and parts used for the machine:Overall dimensionsX: 1050mmY: 840mmZ: 400mmTravelX: 730mmY: 650mmZ: 150mm
The machine is almost entirely built from 15mm thick aluminum plate and 30x60mm aluminum extrusions. I built this CNC router using a very limited amount of tools. Themain tools I used were a drill press and a lathe. Because I didn’t have the right tools to cut the aluminum plates to size, I designed the machine around standard sizesand ordered the plates online, already cut to length. The aluminum extrusions I used were also cut to length and I ordered these from misumi Europe .
When designing a CNC router it is helpful to ask yourself a couple of questions. Here you will find the design process I went through for my CNC router.
What type of CNC router do you want to build?There basically are two types of CNC routers: the moving table design and the moving gantry design. Moving table style designs are often used for smaller size CNC
routers. They are easier to construct and can be built more rigid than a moving gantry style machine. The downside of letting the table move instead of the gantry, is thatthe overall footprint of the machine in retrospect to it’s cutting envelope, is about twice as large as with a moving gantry design. Therefore it probably is better to make amoving gantry style machine, if your cutting envelope is larger than about 30x30 cm. Because I wanted to build a machine with a cutting envelope of about 65x65 cm, Iused the moving gantry style design.
What do you want to cut with the CNC router?This determines pretty much every answer to the questions below. I wanted to use the machine for plywood, hardwoods and plastics mainly, but also for aluminum. If youwant to cut materials harder than aluminum, I recommend building a CNC mill , instead of a router.
What material will you use to construct the machine?This is determined by the question above. A good guideline is that the material you use to construct the machine is stronger or as strong as the material you want to cut.So if you want to cut aluminum, you should use aluminum or even steel to build the machine. I have seen wooden CNC routers that can cut aluminum (you will find someon youtube), but this went very slow and the machines have to be very well constructed. Because I wanted to cut aluminum with this CNC router, I built it out ofaluminum. I could have used steel, but this is more difficult to machine and I didn’t have the proper tools for that.
What length of travel do you need for each axis?My first intention, was to build a CNC router that could handle standard size sheet goods, like plywood and mdf. In the Netherlands these are 62 x 121 cm. So for the Y -axis, I wanted a travel distance of at least 620mm. The machine is placed in a small shed in my backyard, with a very limited amount of space. I couldn’t make themachine too big, because then it would really get in the way and take up all the space. So the X - axis only has 730mm of travel. This is less than the full length of a sheetof plywood (1210mm), but I figured that if I wanted to machine something really large a could cut the first part, than slide the sheet forward and cut the last part. By usingthis technique you can cut pieces that are much larger than the normal X - travel distance. For the Z - axis I figured that 150mm would be enough to possibly use a fourthaxis in the future.
What type of linear motion will you use for the machine?There are many options to choose from for linear motion: drawer slides, ball bearings on V rail, V-groove bearings, unsupported round linear rail, fully supported roundlinear rail and profile linear rail. The linear motion system you use will to a large extent determine the cutting quality that you can achieve. I would recommend going forthe best system that you can afford. After doing some research, I found that fully supported linear rails would be the best option, that I still could afford. If you search onebay for SBR12, SBR16 or SBR20 you will find a number of different sellers and sets to choose from. If you are building a 3 axis CNC router, you should buy a kitconsisting of three sets of linear rails and two linear bearings per rail. Linearmotionbearings2008 is a good ebay store from China, that sells a number of different kits,even with the ball screws included.
What kind of linear drive system will you use for each axis?The basic options to drive each axis are: timing belts, rack and pinion and drive screws. For homemade CNC routers, drive screws are most commonly used. Screw drivesystems work by placing the stationary nut on the moving part of the machine and holding the screw in place on both ends.The screw gets attached to the motor. If themotors starts to turn, the nut with the moving part of the machine attached to it, will move along the screw and set the machine in motion.For the X and Y axis, I used ball screws. Ball screws provide very smooth motion, with virtually no backlash. Backlash is the amount of play between the drive screw andthe nut and is something you don’t want in a CNC router. If you want to read more about backlash, I recommend taking a look at the website cncroutersource.com .Ball screws are more expensive than ACME screws (which are a good alternative), but will again highly improve the cutting speed and cutting quality you can achieve.For the Z-axis I used high quality stainless steel M10 threaded rod, with a homemade delrin nut.
What type of drive motor and controller are you going to use?Concerning the motors, there are two basic options: servo motors and stepper motors.Servo motors are mainly used for high end CNC routers and are very expensive. They use encoders to provide position feedback and require more expensive controllers.Stepper motors are widely used on homemade CNC routers and there are many different types and sizes. The size of the stepper motor you need depends on what youwant to cut, how fast you want to cut it, what type of linear drive and motion components you use, how large the machine is etc. I used 3Nm stepper motors for mymachine, which is probably overkill.The controller must suit the motor that you’re using. You can use individual drivers for each motor, as I did, or you can buy a 3 or 4-axis driver board. You can read moreabout the electronics I used in step 14.
What type of spindle will you use?Most homemade CNC routers use a standard woodworking router or trim router as the cutting spindle for their machine. Mine is no exception. I used a Kress router,which is of slightly higher quality than standard wood routers, and it has a nice 43mm clamping flange. If you want to cut a lot of different materials, some sort of speedcontrol can be really handy. The Kress router has a built in speed control but you will find this on most routers. If you are going to be doing a lot of really heavy cutting youmight want to look into air or water cooled spindles. You can find these on ebay as well, but they will cost you a lot more than a standard router. They use a VFD forspeed control and can be much quieter than standard routers.
What will be the total costs for the machine and do I want to spend so much money?I estimated the total costs for this CNC router to be around 1500 euro. A CNC router is expensive but you can save a lot of money by building one yourself.
After I had found the answers to all of the questions above, I came up with the final design for my CNC router. As you can see, my design is not extremely detailed. Youwon’t see the exact hole locations on all of the parts for instance. It is difficult to determine how many bolts you should use to put two pieces together, if you have neverheld those pieces in your hands before.For me, this design was enough to give me a good view on how everything was going to work out and which parts I should order.
After the design was completed and rejected/redesigned a couple of times, I could start ordering all of the parts needed. The 30x60mm aluminum extrusions and all of thealuminum plates for the gantry and Z - axis which I used for the X - axis were pre-cut to length. I also ordered some heavy duty anti-vibration leveling feet.
Step 2: The X-axisThe X- axis consists of a basic frame, made out of 4 pieces of 30/60 aluminum extrusions and two 15mm thick end-plates. There are two 6.8 mm holes in the end of theextrusions. I used a metal tap to create an M8 thread on the insides of the holes. After that I carefully laid out the positions for the holes on the end-plates. I actuallyclamped both plates together while drilling, to make sure that the holes would line up on both ends. I also drilled four holes in the middle of each plate to mount thebearing blocks. I drilled four extra holes in one of the side plates, to attach the motor mount.
I made 4 blocks to hold the leveling feet. The blocks are pieces of aluminum (50x50x20). I used four m5 bolts and t-nuts to mount them onto the outer extrusions.
The linear rails fit directly onto the aluminum extrusions. For the X - axis, I used 20mm diameter rails. The pre-drilled holes in the base of the linear rails line-up exactlywith the slots in the aluminum extrusions. I could easily mount them using m5 bolts and t -nuts.
Image Notes1. 4 mounting blocks for the leveling feed
Image Notes1. Leveling feet mounted on the aluminum extrusions
Image Notes1. SBR20 rails mounted on the aluminum extrusions
Step 3: Gantry side platesThe gantry side plates are almost identical. The only difference is that one of them has four extra holes for attaching the motormount. The whole gantry is made out of15mm thick aluminum plates. Drilling the holes in the sideplates, was quite simple. Although I had to work very precisely. To get the holes in exactly the right spot, Icarefully marked their locations, then I used a centre punch, to create a little divot. Then I went over to the drill press and used a centre drill to create a hole that guidesthe actual drill bit. For the larger holes I used a smaller size drill bit first before using the final size drill bit.
Because of the way I had designed the gantry, I had to drill holes in the end faces of the side plates. I originally planned to do this on the drill press, but the parts didn’t fitunder it. So I had to come up with a different solution: using the lathe. I made a special holder on the moving carriage of the lathe. I drilled two extra holes in each plate,to keep them in place on the carriage. Now I could easily drill perfect holes in the ends of the side plates. The only thing that was left to do, was to tap the holes for an M8thread.
Image Notes1. Tapping the ends of the gantry side plates
Image Notes1. Here you can see the bottom plate, fastened to the gantry side plates
Step 4: Assembling the gantryThe rest of the gantry is made the same way as the side plates. The most difficult part was getting the linear rails lined up correctly. The linear rails had to line up with theedge of the plate. When marking the exact hole locations, I clamped two pieces of aluminum profiles to the sides of the plate to line up the rails. Once I had marked thehole locations, I drilled and tapped them with an M5 thread. When attaching the rails to the gantry, you have to make sure that the distance between the rails over theentire length is completely even (the rails must be parallel).
I used the same method for drilling the holes in the end faces as I did with the side plates.
I made some corner brackets to add some extra stiffness to the assembly. On the final assembly of the machine, I actually left them out, because I didn’t felt like theywere needed.
The plate on the bottom of the gantry is very simple. I drilled 6 holes to attach it to the side plates. In the middle I had to drill two holes for mounting the nut holder.
Step 5: Y-axis carriageThe Y-axis carriage consists of one plate with 8 linear bearings attached to it. Drilling the holes was pretty straight forward, but again it had to be very precise. Both thelinear bearings for the Y-axis and the Z-axis get attached to this plate. Because the bearings are so close together, even the slightest misalignment causes it to jam. Imade the holes only 0.2 mm oversized, but I had to drill them out to 0.5 mm to align the bearings correctly. I had to do a bit of tweaking to get the carriage to slide easilyfrom one side to the other. Both the rails and the bearings needed to be adjusted. I used high quality digital callipers to align them as good as possible. When I had madethe drive nut mount for the Y-axis, I drilled two extra holes in the plate to attach it. I also tried to align the bearings for the Z-axis as good as possible, but I still had toadjust them when I got the rest of the Z-axis finished.
2. Digital caliper I used to align the rails and the linear bearings
Image Notes1. Precisely marking the hole locations
Step 6: Z-axisThe linear rails of the Z -axis get attached to the moving part of the Z - axis assembly. The rails needed to be offset a few millimeters from the edge of the plate. I usedthe same method as I did for the Y - axis, to align them. I found two pieces of plastic, of just the right thickness, which I could use as spacers. I knew the edges of thealuminum plate were parallel, so I clamped two pieces of aluminum to the edge of the plate and added the pieces of plastic to space the rails out from the edge. Once Ihad marked the hole locations, I just drilled and tapped them again. Make sure that you mark where the pieces go, so that the holes still line up when you put everythingback together.
To mount the top plate to the Z - axis assembly, I drilled and tapped three holes in the end of the router mounting plate. I did this with the same setup on the lathe as I didfor the Y - axis plates. I had originally planned to attach the Z - axis stepper motor directly to the top plate. So I tried to mill some slots in the top plate to attach thestepper motor. This didn’t work out so well, because I didn’t have a proper milling setup. So I cut off the part with the slots and fabricated a different motor mount out ofplastic (see step 12).
I also made two bearing blocks out of the same plastic material, which got attached to the top plate as well. The drive screw is piece of stainless steel threaded rod (M10).The drive screw is clamped between the two bearings with two nuts. I drilled and tapped the timing pulley for an M10 thread and just screwed it onto the top part of thedrive screw. It is held in place by three set screws. The delrin drive nut gets attached to the Y - axis carriage (see step 10).
The router mount was pre-made and I ordered it from damencnc.com . It has a 43mm clamping ring, which fits the Kress router that I am using.
Image Notes1. Assembled Z-axis
Image Notes1. Aligning the rails and using the pieces of plastic as spacers
Image Notes1. Motormount, cut on the homemade CNC router from my school teacher.
Image Notes1. Homemade bearingblocks
Image Notes1. Z-axis drive nut, mounted onto the Y-axis carriage
Step 7: Timing belts and pulleysI did not want the motors to be sticking out of the machine. Because this would increase the overall size of the machine by about 15 cm in each axis. Normally you wouldmount the motors on the outside of the machine using a special motor mount or standoffs. This way you can couple the motors directly to the ball screws with a flexiblecoupler of some sort. This is how I did it on the first wooden prototype machine I built. For most people this will probably work out just fine. But what I found was, thatbecause the machine was placed in a very small shop, the motors would really get in the way. Because they were sticking out by almost 20 cm (motor + standoffs) I quitefrequently would bump against them.
That is why I placed the motors on the inside of the new machine. By doing this I could not directly couple the motors to the ball screws, but I had to use a timing belt andpulleys.
I ordered the timing belts and pulleys from beltingonline.co.uk . They have a big variety of types and sizes. I used 9 mm wide HTD5 belts and pulleys. When using a beltdrive to connect your motor to the lead screw, you can use a gear reduction. By using a smaller gear on the motor you can use smaller motors and still get the sametorque (although you will of course lose speed). Because my motors were pretty large I did not need any gear reduction to get more power.
To save some money I ordered the timing pulleys without the holes for the setscrews and with only a pilot hole in the centre. I used the lathe to drill out the bore to thecorrect size. For drilling the holes for the setscrews, I made a little jig out of some steel hexagonal bar using the lathe and the drillpress.
Image Notes1. M10 threads cut, to mount it to the Z-axis drive screw
Step 8: Motor mountsThe motor mounts are made from pieces of aluminum tubing. Mine were pre - cut to length when I ordered them, but you can also use a piece of steel tubing and cut itinto square pieces. The motor mounts for the X and the Y - axis, had to be able to slide in and out, to tension the timing belts. If you use a normal coupler to connect yourstepper motors, I recommend making or buying some standoffs. I used the lathe to make the slots and to drill a large hole in one face of the mount, but you could also dothis on a normal drill press.
I started by making a large hole in one side of the mount with a holesaw. This allows the motor to sit flush with the surface and it also makes sure the shaft is centered.The motor is fastened to the mount with four M5 bolts. I made four slots, in the other side of the mount, to allow it to slide in and out. I clamped the piece on a speciallathe attachment to mill the four slots.
Image Notes1. Making the large hole using a holesaw
Step 9: Bearing blocksThe bearing blocks for the X and the Y - axis are made from 50mm aluminum round bar stock. I cut off four equal slabs, each 15mm thick. I then faced off each side ofthe blanks on the lathe. After marking and drilling the four mounting holes, I used the lathe again to drill out a large hole in the centre of the blank. I then made the cavityfor the bearing to sit in. The bearings have to be pressed in and the blocks get bolted onto the end and side plates. I drilled and tapped a hole in the end of the ballscrews to hold them in place. By inserting a bolt, I could tighten them against the angular contact bearings. The end of the ball screw was turned down on the lathe to11mm. This is the part were the timing pulley gets attached to. The very end of the ball screw was turned down a little bit further to 10mm, so that it could be pressed ontothe bearing. On the floating end of the ball screws, I just used standard ball bearings.
Step 10: Z-axis drive nut + mountI didn’t use a ball screw for the Z - axis. Instead I used standard, but high quality M10 threaded rod. I made a nut out of a piece of delrin. Delrin is a very good materialfor this purpose, because it is self-lubricating and it won’t wear out over time. If you use a good quality tap to make the threads in the nut, the backlash will be veryminimal (I haven’t noticed any). Inside the Z-axis assembly, there was very little room to mount the nut. And since my homemade nut was round, I needed to make aspecial mount. The mount consists of two pieces of 12mm acrylic. I was able to use the homemade CNC router of my school teacher, to make these parts. The round nutfits very snuggly inside the pieces of acrylic and is held in place by a small bolt. The bolt keeps the nut from spinning inside the mount. I drilled and tapped two holes inthe little feet of the holders, to be able to mount it to the Y-axis carriage
Image Notes1. Drive nut holders, cut on homemade CNC router
Image Notes1. Mounted to the Z-axis assembly
Step 11: X- and Y-axis drive nut mountFor the X and the Y axis, I made a different drive nut mount out of a piece of aluminum. The ballscrew nuts have two small flanges on one side, with three holes in them. Iused one of the holes on each side to attach the nut to the holder. The holder is made from a piece of aluminum and is machined on the lathe. Because I didn’t have amill, I used the lathe with a four jaw chuck. These pieces have to be machined very precisely. Once you have attached the nuts to the gantry and Y-axis carriage, youshould be able to move these parts easily from one side to the other, by turning the ballscrews by hand. If the dimensions of the holders are incorrect, the nut will getjammed, and you won’t be able to turn the ballscrew by hand anymore.
Step 12: Z-axis motor mountThe Z-axis motor mount is different from the others. It is made from 12mm acrylic and was also cut with the homemade CNC router from my teacher. I had originallyplanned to make the mount out of a plate of aluminum, but machining that was too difficult. The belt tension can be adjusted by loosening the two bolts on top and slidingthe whole motor mount assembly. The 12mm acrylic works just fine for now, but I might replace it with a piece of aluminum in the future. I found out that when I wastensioning the belt, the acrylic plate would bend a little bit.
Step 13: The cutting bedThe final part I had to make for the machine was the cutting bed. The cutting bed is a very important part of the machine, and often overlooked. There are many differenttypes of cutting beds. Examples are: t-slot table top, perforated table top, vacuum table or you could just use a disposable table top and screw your stock right onto thetable. An aluminum t-slot table top would probably be the best, but it will cost you a few hundred dollars, depending on the size of your machine. I choose to use theperforated tabletop, because it fitted within my budget and I would still have lots of clamping options.
The cutting bed for my machine, is made from an 18mm thick piece of birch plywood. I fastened it with M5 bolts and t - slot nuts to the aluminum extrusions. I boughtabout 150 M8 hexagonal nuts for about 4 dollars. Using a CAD program, I drew hexagonal shapes in a grid with a hole in the middle. Then I used the machine to cut outall of the pockets for the nuts. Instead of regular nuts you could also use T-nuts, but then you would have to flip the tabletop over to insert them. Another problem you canhave is that they fall out.
On top of the piece of birch plywood, I installed a piece of 25mm thick MDF. This is the disposable surface. I used a larger router bit, to cut holes through both pieces.The holes line up exactly with the centre of the hexagonal shapes cut earlier. Then I unscrewed the piece of mdf and installed all of the nuts in the piece of plywood. Imade the holes slightly undersized, so I had to use a hammer to pound them in. Then I reinstalled the MDF surface and checked if the alignment was still correct.
I also flattened the tabletop to ensure that the surface was parallel to the x and the y axis and perfectly flat.
Image Notes1. Cutting the hexagonal holes
Image Notes1. Cutting bed, with MDF surface flatened
Step 14: The electronicsThe electronics for my machine consist of the following components:
Main power supply - 48VDC 6,6Amp3 drivers - Leadshine M542 V2.03 steppermotors - 3Nm hybrid Nema 23BreakoutboardRelay - 25A, 230VAC output, 4-32VDC inputMain power switchPower supply for breakoutboard - 5VDCPower supply for cooling fans - 12VDC2 cooling fans (80mm)2 power outlets - for Kress router and shop vacE- stop - still needs to be installedLimit switches - still need to be installed
If you don’t want to spend a lot of money on electronics you can buy a kit from ebay. There are a lot of different sellers with prices in the 200-400 dollar range. Beforeordering a kit you should think about what size steppers you need. I you are building a small machine for cutting wood and plastics only 270 oz in or 1.9 Nm motors willgive you plenty of power. I choose 3Nm motors, because the machine itself is quite large and heavy and I planned on machining some harder materials like aluminum inthe future.
If your motors aren’t too large you can use a 3-axis driver board, although it is better to use individual drivers. Individual drivers can handle more amps and featuremicrostepping. They are more reliable and will give you better results. The drivers I use actually came with the kit I ordered. They can handle 4,2 amps max and up to 125microsteps.
The main power supply is connected to the drivers with 14 gauge wire, which is mainly used in RC airplanes. These wires are very flexible, but of high quality and canhandle plenty of amps. The 5 VDC power supply is connected to the main power inlet. For the cooling fans, I installed a power outlet inside of the enclosure, so that Icould use a standard 12V wall adapter to power them. The main power gets switched on and off by a large power switch.
The 25A relay is controlled by the computer through the breakoutboard. The input terminals of the relay are connected to the output terminals of the breakoutboard. The
relay is connected to two power outlets, which power the Kress router and shop vac to suck up the shavings. When the Gcode ends with the command M05, the machinewill automatically switch of both the shop vac and the router. To switch them on you can either press F5 or use the Gcode command M03.
Image Notes1. This is the kit I ordered
Step 15: Electronics enclosureSince I temporarily mounted the electronics on a piece of wood, to test the machine, I still had to make a good enclosure. I drew out the rough dimensions and places forall of the components on a piece of paper. I tried to arrange them in such a way that I could easily get to all of the terminals to install the wires. I also made sure that Iwould get a sufficient airflow through the enclosure. This is very important since the stepper controllers can get quite warm.
All of the cables can be connected in the back of the enclosure. I used special 4 wire plugs, because I wanted to be able to disconnect the electronics from the machine,without having to unscrew any of the wire terminals. I also installed two power outlets to provide power to the spindle and a shopvac. The power outlets are connected tothe relay to switch the router on and off automatically in Mach3. I mounted a large powerswitch on the front of the enclosure.
Once I got all of the components arranged the way I wanted, I designed all the pieces to make the enclosure with a CAD program. I then used the CNC machine itself tocut out all of the sides and the base. I made a lid with a piece of plexiglas in the middle. I then installed all the components and tried to keep the wiring as clean aspossible.
Image Notes1. Inside the electronics enclosure
Image Notes1. Parts that make up the enclosure cut out on the machine itself
Step 16: CNC softwareTo control a CNC router, you need 3 different types of software. A CAD program, to create a drawing. A CAM program to create the toolpaths and output the G-code. Anda controller program which translates the G-code and controls the router. I am using CamBam to create most of my drawings and create the toolpaths. CamBam is asimple program and is very easy to work with. It has some basic CAD functionalities, so for most projects you don’t need a different CAD program. Before CamBam cancreate the toolpaths, you need to set a couple of parameters. Examples are: the diameter of the tool that you’re using, the cutting depth, depth per pass, cutting speedetc. When you have made the toolpaths, you can output the G-code. The G-code is the machining language, that tells the machine what to do.For the controller software I am using Mach3. Mach3 sends out the signals through the parallel port of your computer to the breakout board. You use Mach3 to zero thecutting tool and start the cutting program. You can also use it to control the spindle speed and cutting speed. Mach3 has some basic wizards built in, which you can useto output simple G-code files. An example is the write wizard, which you can use to quickly write some text and output it to G-code. (See step 17 for an example).
Image Notes1. Controller program Mach3 Image Notes
1. Creating a drawing in CamBam
Image Notes1. Here you can see the toolpaths, that I created
Step 17: Using the machineAfter several months of work, the machine is finally finished. After the initial testing, the first thing I made were some hold-down clamps. The first ‘big’ project was theelectronics enclosure, which you have seen in step 15. I have also been cutting some different types of gears and some signs. One thing I quickly realized was that aCNC router makes a lot of dust and can be pretty loud. To fix the dust problem I made a dust shoe, to which a shop vac can be attached. Reducing the noise level wasmore difficult. My parents were kind enough to pay for the material costs to build a full enclosure for the machine. So I made a large cabinet in which the CNC machinestands. I used noise-absorbing plates to cover the inside of the walls. The electronics and the shop vac can sit in two different compartments under the machine. Thecabinet really cuts down on the noise level and makes using the machine even more fun.
Step 18: ConclusionSo that’s about it. Now you know how I build my CNC router and why I did it the way I did.Although you probably won’t be building an exact copy of my machine, I hope you can draw some inspiration from my design and build. I have learnt a lot, by buildingthis CNC router and really look forward to using it for future projects.
I would like to thank my school teacher, Nop Velthuizen, which gave me the opportunity to build this machine. He allowed me to come over to his own workshop and useall of the tools I needed to build this CNC router. He gave me a lot of information and inspiration and helped me where needed, to successfully complete this project.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I will try to answer your questions as soon as possible.
