Lately, I've found a new interest to keep me up way too late at night. I stumbled across a pretty vast amount of information on-line about building home/shop made CNC machines. Many of this forum's members may already be aware of this, but for those who aren't, I'll pass it on. Much like this site has brought ski building within reach for the normal Joe, these DYI sites detail every aspect of building a machine from start to finish. Some of the designs utilize recycled parts from old computer printers for building smaller units for as little as $50. Other larger designs use new, beefier components that power a full size 48" x 96" table unit for $600 to $2,500.
Most of my ski building steps are refined enough, and small scale enough, that I don't know that I'd use a CNC router to replace many of those steps. What I do need, though, is a faster and more accurate method of producing all of the templates that I use in my current process. So, ultimately, I'm going to build a CNC router that has a table that is about 24" x84" for template making. Initially, though, I'm going to build a smaller unit that I'll use for making smaller, more detailed casting mold parts for producing tip protectors, binding spacers/adaptors, etc.
Anyway, If anyone is interested, a good place to start is:
www.cnczone.com
There are dozens of sites and dozens of designs on-line. Some of the plans are free, some of them cost from $20 to $100. Most plans include software to operate the system and source suggestions for parts.
Edited by G-man
Do-It-Yourself CNC Router
Moderators: Head Monkey, kelvin, bigKam, skidesmond, chrismp
Do-It-Yourself CNC Router
Last edited by G-man on Mon Feb 12, 2007 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
RoboGeek,
I'm going to venture a guess that from your user name that you are into robotics. If so, the CNC router build would probably be a cake-walk for you. I tore apart my first printer last night. I'm not sure that I got many usable parts from it. The steppers are not labeled very well and they're pretty small, but I saved a number of parts, just the same. It seems that just about everyone I know has an old printer that's taking up space in the garage that they're eager to get rid of, so I, too, have a pretty good stash to pull from. Can you tell me just what printer parts are the environmentally unfriendly ones that I shouldn't recycle at my local center?
Thanks,
G-man
I'm going to venture a guess that from your user name that you are into robotics. If so, the CNC router build would probably be a cake-walk for you. I tore apart my first printer last night. I'm not sure that I got many usable parts from it. The steppers are not labeled very well and they're pretty small, but I saved a number of parts, just the same. It seems that just about everyone I know has an old printer that's taking up space in the garage that they're eager to get rid of, so I, too, have a pretty good stash to pull from. Can you tell me just what printer parts are the environmentally unfriendly ones that I shouldn't recycle at my local center?
Thanks,
G-man
I got my nickname right after robocop came out. I was developing data recovery procedures, which was boring - so I took one of my robots to work and let it run around the shop for entertainment. One of the guys said "your a robogeek" and it stuck.G-man wrote:RoboGeek,
I'm going to venture a guess that from your user name that you are into robotics. If so, the CNC router build would probably be a cake-walk for you. I tore apart my first printer last night. I'm not sure that I got many usable parts from it. The steppers are not labeled very well and they're pretty small, but I saved a number of parts, just the same. It seems that just about everyone I know has an old printer that's taking up space in the garage that they're eager to get rid of, so I, too, have a pretty good stash to pull from. Can you tell me just what printer parts are the environmentally unfriendly ones that I shouldn't recycle at my local center?
Thanks,
G-man
Older boards have lead solder, and caps sometimes have nasty stuff in them. There are places that will buy parts off you for the copper and gold in the boards. The plastic and metals can be recycled.
The hardest part about steppers is building the controllers for them, and then the software to control it. I used to use BASIC and FORTH way back, but its been a long time since I've played around. Maybe something like RTL (real time linux) would be better to use. And I'm sure somebody has done something for windows...
I used to be a lifeguard, but some blue kid got me fired.
A fellow from the grafsnowboards site passed on the link below. I had seen the Happy Monkey Snowboard site awhile back, but for some reason, I hadn't checked out the entire site, so, I missed the page about Mike's CNC router. It's a beauty... top flight all the way and so fun to watch on the video as it does it's thing. Additionally, Mike's site is very well done throughout... and his shop is sooo clean.
http://happymonkeysnowboards.com/mike/CNC/index.htm
G-man
http://happymonkeysnowboards.com/mike/CNC/index.htm
G-man
Don't forget my good friends at shopbottools.com This is the CNC that I own and it is great for all sorts of projects, not just skis/snowboards. You can get their new bots (which are AMAZING) for just $6k or so. For me, I could spend more money than time to get things running. It will take a LOT of time to perfect your machine if going home brew. Not discouraging by any means, just showing you options. And I DONT recommend any crappy Chinese knockoffs, shopbot support/service is A+.
Hey team08,
Good points about the shopbot. Actually, I hadn't realized that they could be had for so little... didn't do my research well enough. Now that I'm into it as far as I am, I'm really stoked to be building my own machine... really learning a lot of stuff that was such a big mystery before. Looks like I'll even be building my own power supply and drivers, even though I could purchase them ready to go for just a little more. I know that building my own CNC may sound a little crazy to some folks, but you know what's even more crazy???... putting hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into building the gizmos that are required to make a pair of skis when I could just go out and buy a brand new pair for 500 bucks. I'm sure I could buy 20 or 30 pair of new skis for what I put into building just a couple of pair of my own skis. Now, that's nuts!.. but I wouldn't go back and do it any other way. I guess I just have a really fun time building stuff... especially skis.
Also, once I get the first CNC machine finished, there a number of other CNC based machines I'd like to build. So, the stuff I learn from the first machine will be great building blocks for future projects. Some of the components may be fairly interchangeable, so I may be able to save some dough there also.
Thanks, though, for the heads up on the shopbot machine. The 6 grand price tag is very attractive indeed, considering what it can do and how useful it can be to a ski builder.
G-man
Good points about the shopbot. Actually, I hadn't realized that they could be had for so little... didn't do my research well enough. Now that I'm into it as far as I am, I'm really stoked to be building my own machine... really learning a lot of stuff that was such a big mystery before. Looks like I'll even be building my own power supply and drivers, even though I could purchase them ready to go for just a little more. I know that building my own CNC may sound a little crazy to some folks, but you know what's even more crazy???... putting hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into building the gizmos that are required to make a pair of skis when I could just go out and buy a brand new pair for 500 bucks. I'm sure I could buy 20 or 30 pair of new skis for what I put into building just a couple of pair of my own skis. Now, that's nuts!.. but I wouldn't go back and do it any other way. I guess I just have a really fun time building stuff... especially skis.
Also, once I get the first CNC machine finished, there a number of other CNC based machines I'd like to build. So, the stuff I learn from the first machine will be great building blocks for future projects. Some of the components may be fairly interchangeable, so I may be able to save some dough there also.
Thanks, though, for the heads up on the shopbot machine. The 6 grand price tag is very attractive indeed, considering what it can do and how useful it can be to a ski builder.
G-man