Sean,
The stepper driver looks OK at a first glance but I did not have a
detailed look at the schematics.
It looks to be a full-step driver which is nice since full step drivers
tend to have a higher torque than microstep ones.
But I would stay away from the easy to build desktop thingy from
instructables.com, it's just too weird a design and these funny piping
and aluminium profile parts do cost money, there are other design on
instructables that I think make more sense:
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Make-a-Three-Axis-CNC-Machine-Cheaply-and-/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-CNC-Router-from-Scratch-Part-1%3a-Complete/
make more sense, I prefer the top one since it contains a more detailed
description on how to build it (instead of videos showing how to handle
a saw) and some links to stores selling parts.
Rockcliff Machine sells the plans and parts for a home-made CNC router
but if you have a look at the photos in the gallery you'll get a fairly
good idea of its construction.
Using aluminium L strips to do the linear guidance looks nice and
cheaper than the round steel axes. Before building/buying anything I
would advice to make some detailed drawings of what the linear support
should look like and then make a price calculation. When I started
drawing and building my machine I made a rough guestimate of around
$4,000 but on the go I updated the plans and got to a total of $10,000
and now I want to buld a second (small) one much like the Rockcliff
design but from aluminium instead of MDF board. Since the first machine
left a nice hole in my savings account this second machine needs to be
low-cost, but I still want to be able to use it to do some real work in
plastics/foam/wood and maybe later even aluminium.
You'll find rockcliff at http://www.rockcliffmachine.com/cnchome.htm
Some words of advice for going cheap:
Use MDF board, it is easy to work with, and select standard threaded
rods from the DIY store that will fit in roller-skating bearings so you
can fix the bearing using standard nuts instead of having to make
special mounts. Use thick-walled (not to thick, not to rigid) plastic
hose with hose clamps as motor couplings this is by far the easiest and
cheapest coupling I could think of.
If investing any real money, invest it in a milling spindle that does
not make too much noise. When I started I used a Dremel tool but it
makes just too much noise to let it run for more than 10 minutes - I
defenitely did not want to be in the same room as a constantly running
Dremel...
This may build you a working CNC milling machine but it will only do
some light milling and I would be surprised if it gives you an accuracy
as good as 0.02 inch
Just my two cents worth - and don't spend it all at once ;-)
Rob
I was wondering if anyone has ever tried a do-it-yourself CNC project
like this.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-to-build-CNC-Mill-Stepper-Motor-and-Driver-ci/
and this
http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-to-Build-Desk-Top-3-Axis-CNC-Milling-Machine/
. If so, any pointers or words of knowledge before I dive in?
Also, I'm still looking for some stepper motors to use if anyone has a
good source.. I'm a college student, so I'm obviously broke and
starving. So, inexpensive would be good. Thanks guys.
Sean
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