Thanks guys. It's nice to get some feedback from other folks who know about CNC. Most of my friends say, "What's a cnc machine?"
Ben,
Yes, I've kept a pretty detailed build log (with pictures) that I plan to post on cnczone.com in the near future. If it wasn't for that site, I'd definitely never have gotten this machine off the ground. I borrowed a lot of ideas from other machines detailed on the 'zone', so I want to share what I've built in case someone finds something helpful in my design. I'll post the link on skibuilders when I get started with my build log on cnczone.
sammer,
I've not actually cut anything yet, but I've done a lot of 'air cutting' to test out overall function of the machine. All of the axes are very smooth and watching them move in harmony when I push the 'start' key in the software is a truly marvelous thing to behold. The motors all 'sing' quite nicely. Your wife may, indeed, be as patient as mine, but the real 'trick' to my success is that my wife works in San Francisco (4.5 hours away) and only comes to the mountain home a few days a month. I go down to the Bay every other week... gotta be flexible in today's economy. In all honesty, I think that, once the machine is out of the house, her visits to the mountain home will be a much more enjoyable for her. Still, she truly does have a look of amazement on her face when she watches the machine do it's thing. A year ago, I knew virtually nothing about electronics or computers, and, for this machine, I built all of the electronics and the computer (and every other part on the machine except the motors, nuts and bolts, and the drive screws). The driver board was from a kit, but I made sure that I knew it's function well enough that I could build a board from scratch, if I needed to. When I first built the power supply, I excitedly asked my wife to watch as I powered it up, only to have the thing blow itself to kingdom-come right in front of us. She begged me to stop the whole crazy endeavor then and there. I think that, now, she's just real amazed that I'm still alive and that the machine even works at all.
endre,
Ouch... bummer about the expensive router bit. I'm just at the point where I'll have to start shopping for bits for the machine. Sounds like I may have to dig deeper into the piggy-bank than I thought. I did install electro-mechanical limit switches on the machine because I knew I'd constantly be running the bit where it wasn't intended to go. It suppose it will still be possible to make some sort of mistake that will ruin a bit. Maybe I'll start out with 'cheap' $50 dollar bits
.
G-man
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