CNC Mill Build - Enclosure

After finally getting the mill running it became obvious that I was nowhere near done.

Firstly, in their current position the electronics didn't give the machine enough room to move freely, so they would have to be relocated.

Also my current method of using drawing pins to hold down material wasn't going to be a permanent solution.


The first problem is easily fixable, I collected a bunch of connectors, then got out my calipers, cracked open Vectorworks* and began designing an enclosure. 
I cut all the pieces out of 3mm MDF and when assembled they looked like this.

From the front all you see is the name and power switch.

One side features a cut out for a fan.

The back has all the connections, A/C power in, parallel signals from the computer and five molex connectors, one for each motor and one for the limit switches.


I designed the box to be low profile so it would fit in the sliding drawer under my desk.

Here it's nice and out of the way but easily accessible if I need to fiddle with it.

Under the hood, you can see the power supply takes up most of the space. Main power is routed through the illuminated switch at the front. The 24V supply then gives power to the motors, it also drives a tiny 5V regulator for the logic power supply and the motor is supplied by a slightly larger 12V regulator (you can see it glued to wall on the right)

I found some little fuse holders and intend to put a small fuse in after the switch. There's also room at the back for adding more connections, for things like spindle control and an emergency stop button.



Being the first real thing I've made with my machine this taught me a lot. Firstly my machine is pretty damn accurate. 
The pieces just fit, I was expecting to have to sand things, but they actually fit great and I measured the pieces to be well within 0.2mm of what I intended, that's nowhere near what some CNC machines can achieve but with MDF it's more accuracy than I'll ever need.

Another thing to note is, always measure your material. I should have remembered this from when I designed stuff for laser cutting, but my 3mm MDF turned out to be 3.2mm, so my box joints aren't quite flush.

A lot of time designing this was spent on the engraving. The majority of fonts these days are solid blocks, you can turn them into outlines with a vector program, but the best results are achieved from single line fonts. You can see that the axis labels I engraved on the back of the box are a bit chunky, I didn't like that so I spent a while manually creating single line letters for my title font.

This was tedious but I'm happy with how the final thing came out.

The M⁶ for short

I'd like to make the lettering black so it pops more, but I can't think of a good way to do this, hand painting would be tricky, and detract from the nice clean finish.

The easiest solution is to mill all the way through a material and place black behind it.

I also installed a hold down table. Essentially this just involved sinking a bunch of t-nuts into the back of my board in a grid. I now have a grid of points where I can bolt things down to the table.

Above you can see me marking out holes, and a couple of nuts ready to insert.
The grid is now finished, I'll snap a proper picture next time I'm using it.

I've actually found that for most materials  double sided tape is a better solution, most of the time the clamping bolts just get in the way.


I've been happy with this set up for the past few weeks, I've had a go at milling a phone dock, pcbs, and at the moment I'm milling maps out of cork. :D

One thing I haven't really tried is milling plastic, I've got some chunks of acrylic on the way so that's next on my to do list.


*Vectorworks is my CAD program of choice, mainly because it's what I used during my architecture degree. However it seems that I'm in the minority using this program. Most people use AutoCad or SketchUp, or for simple 2D work, Inkscape.
Supposedly AutoCad was designed by engineers and Vectorworks by architects.
I've got a copy of Illustrator, but most of the time I get frustrated with the alien pen tool, give up and switch back to Vectorworks. 

CNC Mill Build - It Works!

Very quick update, I did finally sort out my electronics problem and was able to mill my first piece.

Behold the power of my machine:

When I shot this video my setup looked like this.

Already I'm not happy with it, the electronics are too close and don't allow the wires enough room so I can't use the full length of the Y axis, also they really need to be covered. 

I'm currently holding work down using push pins, not a great solution.
Already working on changing all that. But for now it works !



See my next stage of improvements here.

CNC Mill Build - Zzzzz

I am slightly regretting this procedural format I've locked myself into now, but I'd better finish it . 

In the previous post I bolted together the X and Y carriages to form the main framework of the machine. Now I'm tackling the Z axis.

The Z axis is different in that it is screw, rather than belt, driven.

The flexible coupler and flanged bearing are attached to a length of M8 threaded rod. The aluminium tape is wrapped round the rod to ensure a tight fit.

The threaded rod is coupled to the final motor and the bearing is sandwiched between the two Z plates.

The black brick is a delrin nut, it is threaded onto the screw and the final length of Makerslide is bolted on.

These are the spindle mounts, once the machine is finished they will hold the Dremel.

That finishes up the Z axis. Now all I have to do is mount it to the machine, 
and add the belts,
and sort the electronics...

CNC Mill Build - Intro

Ever since I found out about computer controlled production, I've wanted one of the machines for myself. 

Start up projects like the MakerBot (my first love) have made it much easier for anyone to get into digital production. But The $1000 price tag was still far too much for me seeing as I was still a student.

Image credit: BrePettis.com

During my time at uni I had access to a laser cutter, which was great, but limited to 2D production, and I used the Shapeways service to get a few 3D models printed. But found the price tag prohibitive and the 2 weeks of waiting between design and product was painful, and ruined one of the fundamental principles of digital production*.

But in my third year of uni I got it into my head that I was going to build a CNC mill. 
I did a lot of research and made a bill of materials. My aim was to build the whole thing for under £200. Long story short, I got the mechanics working (sort of) then ran out of steam.
The beast is currently disassembled in a box and may be worth it's own (rather depressing) post, it just wasn't going to be accurate enough for me.


Jump to October 2012 and for the first time in a long time I have a job and then stumble upon project Shapeoko. An open source kit that aimed to get you up and running for $300.

And just when I started looking at how I would get all the parts in the U.K I found the eShapeoko! Someone in Europe was selling kits, so almost immediately I ordered one.


Because the project was new they were still having problems sourcing all the parts but finally in mid January this rather small, but tantalisingly heavy package arrived at the door.

eShapeoko #23

Individually labelled parts bags. Almost more exciting than the actual machine.

Here's everything that came with the kit. Lots of lasercut steel, several lengths of Makerslide (more on that later) and various other bits of hardware.


I wanted to paint my kit to protect it, but mostly so it would look cool. I had a lot of black spray paint, and only a bit of red (left over from my Red Dwarf phone). I think that dyeing all the nylon spacers may have been a step too far, but I guess I was just over excited.

I may never get it running, but it's damn well going to look sexy!

The only other bit of prep is tapping the ends of the Makerslide. 

Makerslide is a new bit of hardware that was originally a kick-starter project by Bart Dring. It's similar to a standard aluminium extrusion, used in many designs that need to be strong light and inflexible. The key difference is that Makerslide has a set of V rails on it, which allows it to be used as the primary linear motion system as well as the main structural support which makes it ideal for small (or quite large) machines that need linear motion.



Well the colour scheme's all done, now I suppose I actually have to put it together. 

In my next post I begin assembling the kit.



* I think the direct link between designing on a computer and then very quickly being able to hold it in your hand, assess it and make changes is one of the best things about this technology.
However I still think Shapeways is a great service and I've always been really happy with their parts. It's still probably the best way to for newcomers to experience digital production without having to spend hundreds on getting set up. As well as the fact that the machines they use are far better than any home setup and give the option of printing in all sorts of cool materials.