Well it’s done… well as done as any DIY CNC can be. I really only had to solve the clamping issue and figure out what to cut the last time I posted. The clamping issue was solved by drilling a pattern of holes in the table that I thought would cover most thing I would be cutting (size of material) and using T-Nuts to provide a place to bolt down some simple brackets.
The brackets are made of 1/4″ MDF and you basically adjust the height by adding or removing pieces to match the height of the material, I plan on cutting some 1/2″ and 1/8″ pieces to give me a bit more flexibility in matching different material heights. They worked fairly well, but I am going to add a small lip to them to provide a bit more bite so I won’t have to tighten them down so hard to get a good hold.
The next thing I needed was something to cut, however since I am not starting a new machine (yet), I was at a loss. My wife came to my rescue by asking if I could make a a replacement part for the Jenga game my kids got for Christmas. The original version of the game came with a nice plastic sleeve to help set the game up, but the newer versions come with a cheap and fairly useless cardboard sleeve. A few quick measurements and 15 or so minutes in CadStd yielded a nice replacement, and my first cut video.
I am in the process of cleaning up the cad files a little bit, but my next post be about releasing them to public, just need to figure out what license to use. I am also trying to convince myself that I want to offer kits, but I am apprehensive of such a commitment of my time. Maybe I’ll have it figured out by the next post.
Grumpy,
Thanks for taking the time to show and tell us about your build. Although I am building something completely different than your machine I still find the videos informative. One request if I may – it is hard to hear you all the time so the subtitles are a good idea. Is there any way to have them remain on the screen a few seconds more? They go by so quickly it is very difficult to read them.
Cheers, Dave
Grumpy,
You have a wonderful design and I really appreciate your effort to publish your website. I know it can be hard to take the time to update your website when you could play with your toy more. I am very interested in using your design to build a machine for a university in Mexico to teach students about using these machines. Would you be willing to share your design files. We are planning on building a 4’x4′ machine and I would be happy to send you back our adaptation of your design, to publish on your website. I would also be happy to link back to your site from mine when we document our build process.
Thanks,
Josh
Josh,
How soon do you need them, I am just about done with the clean up, I just need to choose a license and post them. I wish playing with toys were the problem, too many hours at my real job coupled with barely enough time with family make my time to work on the machine and do updates very limited. If you need them soon, I may be able to send you a copy of the less then perfect files…
Thanks,
GrumpyGeek
I would love it if you sent whatever you have. No need to worry about them being finalized. I plan on making some changes to make a 4’x4′ machine, as well as what tools we have available to make the parts. I think you would have a lot of success with kits depending on the amount of traffic your blog is getting. If you were to sell the plans for something like $10, I think you would get a decent return. Then you could also offer some kits. Also, as I said we are building a machine for a workshop at a university. We hope to have 20 students building a large machine. We plan to have some media about the class, website, blogs, etc. If we linked back to your site after you have the plans and kits available it might generate some traffic and some early sales.
Josh
OK, I should be able to send it in the next day or so, I just need to fix one issue I found while working on the SketchUp Model and I think it will be ready.
-GrumpyGeek
Sounds great! I cant wait to take a look at them.
~Josh
What size motors are you using on your new machine? I am just a little curious. Also, why is the new design only using a single motor for the x axis, when you Yellow Beast was using two? Did you have problems with that?
Keep up the great work.
josh
Josh,
Thanks for the encouragement. 🙂
The new machine uses 220oz motors I found at a surplus site, it only has a 12″ wide cutting area (~24″ total machine width), so I thought a single motor should be able to drive the gantry without any racking issues. The previous build has a 24″ wide cutting area (~36″ total width), I was a little concerned about racking, but really used 2 motors (269oz) just make sure I had enough power to power to move the gantry. I think you could use 1 or 2 motors to drive the larger machine, but anything larger would probably need the 2 motors (really just needs to be driven from the sides, the # of motors not really relevant) to prevent racking.
My current design has options for 1 center or 2 edge motors on the 12″ and 24″ options, as well as 2 under the table motors on the 24″ option. My mind has starting thinking about belt drive options, so that may be what I work on next.
An update on the plans. I found a small issue with the lead nut carrier alignment on the 24 inch option, so I had to fix it, but I think they are done now. The only reason I haven’t released it yet is that I am behind
on a project at work and haven’t had any time this week in the evening to package the files and post them, they should be posted this weekend at the latest.
Thanks,
GrumpyGeek
Would it be possible to cut a single jenga piece with your machine or would it still need to be sanded? I’m just wondering about the resolution.
Hello GrumpyGeek are you still working on your machine and are you sharing your plans or selling them? This will be my first build and trying to get into using a CNC machine thanks