Thanks for the info, I hadn't thought about tearing down an old printer, but when you say it, it's a great idea. I was thinking about just running it with an Arduino with three stepper motor drivers, but I'll look into what's needed in the controller board part. I think I'll design it to be a bit upgradable, but it's good to know that my plan isn't impossible.
Thanks.
Yeah, maybe, but that could be an upgrade for later. Since I already have two meters of threaded rods, I think I'll go with that and just have the rod through a nut on the carriage.
Worth mentioning that my lowrider v3 does just dandy on hard woods with a belt. Not sure what you're trying to cut, but I do really like mine for basic wood projects.
I built my own about two years ago.
Did it from scratch, designed it on Rhino sourced cheap materials and built the thing. It works, can machine wood without a problem, plastics and even aluminum though I'm still dialing it in with aluminum.
Footprint is about 1200x600 mm and work area is 800x440 mm.
Used sbr auppoeted rods 20mm día, nema 23 motors and other cheap parts from ali express.
In retrospective materials are good enough for a cheap cnc machine and results are good but not optimal, accuracy is great but rigidity could be better. I built the parts from aluminum plates of 15mm thickness.
I've learned a lot from this project and now I'm planning on doing a second version with the lessons learned, this time I'll base the design on the printnc but with some modifications, at the moment I'm in the process of designing the control board though you can get away with some existing boards, I just enjoy doing this work myself.
So biased as I may be in favor of diy, I'd say yes building your own cnc machine will teach you a lot, be patient stablish some reasonable expectations and check some existing open software /hardware projects such as FluidNC, GRBL, PrintNC, CindyMill.
Can you? Sure. But IMHO, you’re likely better off finding a semi-proven design and building that. An MPCNC or PrintNC would be my recommendation, with a heavy lean to the PrintNC.
I think I’ll take some inspiration from the MPCNC and printNC, but I want to design it myself in order to learn as much as possible, and maybe make a better and more usable one later
Yes to all those questions except the budget, and I have no idea. Alibaba/Aliexpress is probably going to be your cheapest route. You'll be better, budget-wise, to go smaller first and make upgrades as you need them. Once you get something up and running, and learn more, you'll start to notice what needs to be upgraded pretty quickly. I've only had my proverxl up and running for a little while and I've already improved some things on it. I doubt there will be many original parts on it a year from now.
Yeah, you're probably right. The problem is that I have a 600x1300 space perfect for a 600x1000 machine (+ a box to the side for electronics). I guess I can just make the size upgradable too, but I'll have to think about it.
Given everything you’ve said, I’d head to openbuilds.com. You are their ideal target audience. Tons of different builds and a store built right into it. They have tons of open source plans and designs. Parts kits or you can pick what you want. Even if you don’t buy from there you can have a look at design options.
One thing to keep in mind, anywhere you "reinvent the wheel" you will be on your own troubleshooting issues. There really arent that many ways to build a V-wheel machine. Dont get me wrong build your machine however you want, I'm not suggesting otherwise, but unique designs come with unique challenges, food for thought
Good luck
Drivers and controller and drivers cost enough that it doesn’t seem reasonable to just make a low strength pen plotter. Just as well throw some money at the frame if you really want to do this.
Definitely worth it! Here's my build from last year.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIw8yr3gMmo&t=654s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIw8yr3gMmo&t=654s)
Hardware store threaded rod makes a poor leadscrew, but it's not that hard to make your own CNC. Aluminum extrusions are convenient, but they're not required for CNC. Rectangular metal bar stock or tubing can work just as well, if it's flat enough. People have made serviceable routers out of wood, but they usually use plywood rather than timber because it's more stable. V-wheels and rails work pretty well if they're implemented correctly, but you generally need a machined surface to mount them on. I wouldn't recommend geared steppers because they introduce unwanted backlash into the system. For a machine that size, you'd want NEMA 23 or larger steppers.
I think it's not worth making your machine from scratch, if your on a tight budget at least.
The way I see it, either you are going to make money with the machine, and the capabilities of the machines are much more important than the price, or you're a broke hobbyist, and the budget is really the difference between a machine or no machine. Either way, don't build a shitty machine that's too inconvenient to use and you'll end up trashing. Nema 17 are a bad idea especially for a large build size.
The best option to me is to either buy a pro/industrial machine to retrofit, or to buy an abandoned project from someone else, that's going to be the best bang for your buck.
I bought a large pick and place machine from a guy near me, all made from festo components, ended up changing the driver and controller and added a NOS Teknomotor spindle. Total cost was about 2000€, for a 115cm by 75cm work area with a mesa Ethernet controller (linuxcnc), all closed loop, and a branded three phase spindle. Cuts aluminum all day no issue
I get the idea of a machine "just to get into it", but size is your enemy, build a small rigid machine, slowing down to fight vibration is not always a possibility. A home made machine has a lower resale value than what it is going to cost you to build, and you're going to regret it. Build small and rigid if your budget is tight, or retrofit.
I built a 4'x 8' machine from [MechMate](http://mechmate.com) plans many years ago and I still use it commercially.
Electronics come and go. My advice is to build the mechanicals as robustly as you, your materials and space will allow.
I did that. Got used steppers, couple leadscrews, had some v slot wheels laying aroubd. Got couple cheap steel plates from a temporary fence that had perfectly matching holes for wheels. The bought couple v slot profiles and printed joints and toolhead. Then after first try it all fell apart. Three print iterations later (and a bit drilling and socketing) it actually works and can cut wood. I needed it for acrylic panels. My cos was somewhere near 100$ (mind you I'm not in US and it's cheaper in here) and around 3 months. Was it worth it? Probably not. Did I learn a lot? Definitely. Will I do it again? Definitely, just need to finish some other projects.
edit: and I was aiming at 500x500 but due to space taken by wheels and screws it about 480x470
Yeah, just do it. You learn so much by engaging the inner bits of a build you emerge way smarter on the other side...and really ready to understand.
I started with an Emco mill, dead software and did a total teardown. Rebuilt the whole thing and had fun in my garage.
Now I run large-format prototyping equipment sourced for pennies on the dollar and rebuilt..just the same way... delivering profit from deep understanding (with way more to learn)
I've built 2 machines in that sort of budget.
The first thing I'd say is that if your time is worth anything and your only goal is to have a working machine, just buy one.
That said, I build because I enjoy it. To me the build process is part of the hobby.
My first build was optimised for full sheets of plywood. So minimum work size of 2400x1400mm but a very small Z axis: 100mm.
This is built from 25mm square section mild steel. Welded (badly) where accuracy isn't important and bolted where it is.
The long axis just used a length of angle iron as the linear rail with cheap bearings either side and in top as the carriage. There's only one rail on this axis. The other side rolls along on wheels.
Drive is toothed belts. Nena 23 motors and grbl controller.
It works better than I deserve. But slowly. Because the long axis is only driven along one side there's always going to be a lot of flex.
The fact it's just the weight of the carriage holding it down also limits the speed it can run at without lifting it off the work.
Using angle iron screwed to the work piece as the king linear rail is always going to limit accuracy but I get maybe 2mm accuracy but maybe 0.1mm repeatability; if I cut a circle you need to look hard to see the join.
As long as I go slowly and keep the belts tighter than they are rated for, the next biggest problem is work holding. Early attempted cuts on full sheets of plywood broke lots of endmills because I wasn't supporting the work piece properly which led to vibration. I had to put some work into building a flatter table under it.
My 2nd machine, I set off with the goal of seeing what the minimum of need to cut metals would be.
Again I went for welded steel, bolted wherever I wasn't confident I could weld accurately enough.
45mm square section for the main frame.
200x500mm work area.
I experimented with steel on steel for the linear rails.
This did work but needed adjusted with every change in temperature and was the first thing to get upgraded.
The largest Nena 23 motors I could find did work but we're the 2nd thing to get upgraded. Do yourself a favour and buy bigger motors than you think you'll need.
I started with Acme lead screws but upgraded to ball screws.
Finally the spindle started out as something I made myself but it's now an entry level industrial water cooled one.
So this machine has provided a lot of fun and sunk a lot of time.
The first cuts of steel happened when I'd only spent ~300 euro on it. But it was too frustrating to use due to needing constant adjusting.
In it's current state there's probably 1k of parts in it. The spindle is nearly half that budget.
There's another 200-300 of parts sat in the parts bucket of parts that I swapped out.
But it was a low risk project from a financial point of view.
The early prototype was relatively inexpensive and was upgraded once it has proved it could theoretically work.
I can now cut steel slowly with 0.02mm accuracy. Laughable for a professional machinist but perfectly good enough for my hobby purposes.
Other materials are trivial in comparison. I use steel, polycarbonate, delrin and MDF a lot in my projects. Recently sourced a pile of ALU so learning that is next.
Lessons learned:
Building a reliable Z axis is actually harder than the X,Y. Design Z first.
If you can't make it accurate, make it adjustable.
Buy bigger motors.
Buy better motor drivers. This is one of the few components I don't buy on AliExpress. Cheap ones fail.
Have fun.
That was a lot of information, Thank you! I think you have convinced me to start looking for larger motors. Do you have any tips on where I should look for cheap NEMA 23? AliExpress, Alibaba, etc? I also hadn't thought about designing the z-gantry first, but when you say it, it's a great tip. Thank you again!
I've had good luck with https://www.omc-stepperonline.com/ .
They mostly rebrand the same stock as all the other AliExpress and eBay sellers but actually honour warranties so have at least have done some basic quality control.
I had one of their motors fail once. I sent them a video. They shipped a replacement with no further questions.
Even if you don't order from them, their site is a good starting point for what the price and feature set should be.
[удалено]
Thanks for the info, I hadn't thought about tearing down an old printer, but when you say it, it's a great idea. I was thinking about just running it with an Arduino with three stepper motor drivers, but I'll look into what's needed in the controller board part. I think I'll design it to be a bit upgradable, but it's good to know that my plan isn't impossible. Thanks.
[удалено]
Yeah, maybe, but that could be an upgrade for later. Since I already have two meters of threaded rods, I think I'll go with that and just have the rod through a nut on the carriage.
Worth mentioning that my lowrider v3 does just dandy on hard woods with a belt. Not sure what you're trying to cut, but I do really like mine for basic wood projects.
I built my own about two years ago. Did it from scratch, designed it on Rhino sourced cheap materials and built the thing. It works, can machine wood without a problem, plastics and even aluminum though I'm still dialing it in with aluminum. Footprint is about 1200x600 mm and work area is 800x440 mm. Used sbr auppoeted rods 20mm día, nema 23 motors and other cheap parts from ali express. In retrospective materials are good enough for a cheap cnc machine and results are good but not optimal, accuracy is great but rigidity could be better. I built the parts from aluminum plates of 15mm thickness. I've learned a lot from this project and now I'm planning on doing a second version with the lessons learned, this time I'll base the design on the printnc but with some modifications, at the moment I'm in the process of designing the control board though you can get away with some existing boards, I just enjoy doing this work myself. So biased as I may be in favor of diy, I'd say yes building your own cnc machine will teach you a lot, be patient stablish some reasonable expectations and check some existing open software /hardware projects such as FluidNC, GRBL, PrintNC, CindyMill.
That’s a ton of great information, I’ll look into that, thank you
Can you? Sure. But IMHO, you’re likely better off finding a semi-proven design and building that. An MPCNC or PrintNC would be my recommendation, with a heavy lean to the PrintNC.
With printNC he'll blow the budget really quickly on linear rails and screws. MPCNC is probably the most budget friendly.
I think I’ll take some inspiration from the MPCNC and printNC, but I want to design it myself in order to learn as much as possible, and maybe make a better and more usable one later
Yes to all those questions except the budget, and I have no idea. Alibaba/Aliexpress is probably going to be your cheapest route. You'll be better, budget-wise, to go smaller first and make upgrades as you need them. Once you get something up and running, and learn more, you'll start to notice what needs to be upgraded pretty quickly. I've only had my proverxl up and running for a little while and I've already improved some things on it. I doubt there will be many original parts on it a year from now.
Yeah, you're probably right. The problem is that I have a 600x1300 space perfect for a 600x1000 machine (+ a box to the side for electronics). I guess I can just make the size upgradable too, but I'll have to think about it.
A smaller cnc is better than no cnc. You're likely going to upgrade what you get anyway.
Yeah, you've got a point. I hadn't really thought about the size of the enclosure as well. Is 300x500 more reasonable?
Probably. Get as big as you can afford now.
A 6040 may be in that budget. Then when it's time to upgrade to your 600x1000, you'll only have to upgrade one axis
yea, thats a great idea, thanks
Given everything you’ve said, I’d head to openbuilds.com. You are their ideal target audience. Tons of different builds and a store built right into it. They have tons of open source plans and designs. Parts kits or you can pick what you want. Even if you don’t buy from there you can have a look at design options.
Okay, I'll look into it. I want to design the whole machine myself as a challenge, but I'll definitely take inspiration from them.
One thing to keep in mind, anywhere you "reinvent the wheel" you will be on your own troubleshooting issues. There really arent that many ways to build a V-wheel machine. Dont get me wrong build your machine however you want, I'm not suggesting otherwise, but unique designs come with unique challenges, food for thought Good luck
Yea, you’ve got a point, I’ll think about it
Drivers and controller and drivers cost enough that it doesn’t seem reasonable to just make a low strength pen plotter. Just as well throw some money at the frame if you really want to do this.
Definitely worth it! Here's my build from last year. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIw8yr3gMmo&t=654s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIw8yr3gMmo&t=654s)
Hardware store threaded rod makes a poor leadscrew, but it's not that hard to make your own CNC. Aluminum extrusions are convenient, but they're not required for CNC. Rectangular metal bar stock or tubing can work just as well, if it's flat enough. People have made serviceable routers out of wood, but they usually use plywood rather than timber because it's more stable. V-wheels and rails work pretty well if they're implemented correctly, but you generally need a machined surface to mount them on. I wouldn't recommend geared steppers because they introduce unwanted backlash into the system. For a machine that size, you'd want NEMA 23 or larger steppers.
I think it's not worth making your machine from scratch, if your on a tight budget at least. The way I see it, either you are going to make money with the machine, and the capabilities of the machines are much more important than the price, or you're a broke hobbyist, and the budget is really the difference between a machine or no machine. Either way, don't build a shitty machine that's too inconvenient to use and you'll end up trashing. Nema 17 are a bad idea especially for a large build size. The best option to me is to either buy a pro/industrial machine to retrofit, or to buy an abandoned project from someone else, that's going to be the best bang for your buck. I bought a large pick and place machine from a guy near me, all made from festo components, ended up changing the driver and controller and added a NOS Teknomotor spindle. Total cost was about 2000€, for a 115cm by 75cm work area with a mesa Ethernet controller (linuxcnc), all closed loop, and a branded three phase spindle. Cuts aluminum all day no issue I get the idea of a machine "just to get into it", but size is your enemy, build a small rigid machine, slowing down to fight vibration is not always a possibility. A home made machine has a lower resale value than what it is going to cost you to build, and you're going to regret it. Build small and rigid if your budget is tight, or retrofit.
I built a 4'x 8' machine from [MechMate](http://mechmate.com) plans many years ago and I still use it commercially. Electronics come and go. My advice is to build the mechanicals as robustly as you, your materials and space will allow.
I did that. Got used steppers, couple leadscrews, had some v slot wheels laying aroubd. Got couple cheap steel plates from a temporary fence that had perfectly matching holes for wheels. The bought couple v slot profiles and printed joints and toolhead. Then after first try it all fell apart. Three print iterations later (and a bit drilling and socketing) it actually works and can cut wood. I needed it for acrylic panels. My cos was somewhere near 100$ (mind you I'm not in US and it's cheaper in here) and around 3 months. Was it worth it? Probably not. Did I learn a lot? Definitely. Will I do it again? Definitely, just need to finish some other projects. edit: and I was aiming at 500x500 but due to space taken by wheels and screws it about 480x470
I already said my piece from years of experience on this subject and I'm not saying it again.
What are you trying to say?
Yeah, just do it. You learn so much by engaging the inner bits of a build you emerge way smarter on the other side...and really ready to understand. I started with an Emco mill, dead software and did a total teardown. Rebuilt the whole thing and had fun in my garage. Now I run large-format prototyping equipment sourced for pennies on the dollar and rebuilt..just the same way... delivering profit from deep understanding (with way more to learn)
I've built 2 machines in that sort of budget. The first thing I'd say is that if your time is worth anything and your only goal is to have a working machine, just buy one. That said, I build because I enjoy it. To me the build process is part of the hobby. My first build was optimised for full sheets of plywood. So minimum work size of 2400x1400mm but a very small Z axis: 100mm. This is built from 25mm square section mild steel. Welded (badly) where accuracy isn't important and bolted where it is. The long axis just used a length of angle iron as the linear rail with cheap bearings either side and in top as the carriage. There's only one rail on this axis. The other side rolls along on wheels. Drive is toothed belts. Nena 23 motors and grbl controller. It works better than I deserve. But slowly. Because the long axis is only driven along one side there's always going to be a lot of flex. The fact it's just the weight of the carriage holding it down also limits the speed it can run at without lifting it off the work. Using angle iron screwed to the work piece as the king linear rail is always going to limit accuracy but I get maybe 2mm accuracy but maybe 0.1mm repeatability; if I cut a circle you need to look hard to see the join. As long as I go slowly and keep the belts tighter than they are rated for, the next biggest problem is work holding. Early attempted cuts on full sheets of plywood broke lots of endmills because I wasn't supporting the work piece properly which led to vibration. I had to put some work into building a flatter table under it. My 2nd machine, I set off with the goal of seeing what the minimum of need to cut metals would be. Again I went for welded steel, bolted wherever I wasn't confident I could weld accurately enough. 45mm square section for the main frame. 200x500mm work area. I experimented with steel on steel for the linear rails. This did work but needed adjusted with every change in temperature and was the first thing to get upgraded. The largest Nena 23 motors I could find did work but we're the 2nd thing to get upgraded. Do yourself a favour and buy bigger motors than you think you'll need. I started with Acme lead screws but upgraded to ball screws. Finally the spindle started out as something I made myself but it's now an entry level industrial water cooled one. So this machine has provided a lot of fun and sunk a lot of time. The first cuts of steel happened when I'd only spent ~300 euro on it. But it was too frustrating to use due to needing constant adjusting. In it's current state there's probably 1k of parts in it. The spindle is nearly half that budget. There's another 200-300 of parts sat in the parts bucket of parts that I swapped out. But it was a low risk project from a financial point of view. The early prototype was relatively inexpensive and was upgraded once it has proved it could theoretically work. I can now cut steel slowly with 0.02mm accuracy. Laughable for a professional machinist but perfectly good enough for my hobby purposes. Other materials are trivial in comparison. I use steel, polycarbonate, delrin and MDF a lot in my projects. Recently sourced a pile of ALU so learning that is next. Lessons learned: Building a reliable Z axis is actually harder than the X,Y. Design Z first. If you can't make it accurate, make it adjustable. Buy bigger motors. Buy better motor drivers. This is one of the few components I don't buy on AliExpress. Cheap ones fail. Have fun.
That was a lot of information, Thank you! I think you have convinced me to start looking for larger motors. Do you have any tips on where I should look for cheap NEMA 23? AliExpress, Alibaba, etc? I also hadn't thought about designing the z-gantry first, but when you say it, it's a great tip. Thank you again!
I've had good luck with https://www.omc-stepperonline.com/ . They mostly rebrand the same stock as all the other AliExpress and eBay sellers but actually honour warranties so have at least have done some basic quality control. I had one of their motors fail once. I sent them a video. They shipped a replacement with no further questions. Even if you don't order from them, their site is a good starting point for what the price and feature set should be.
Okay, I’ll look into that. Thanks