December 17th, 2008 by admin

Aluminum

After deciding whether to go with a stationary gantry or a moving gantry, the next step is to decide on a material to build this out of. One of the most common materials diy CNC machines are made out of is aluminum. Its fairly cheap, light yet strong, and looks quite professional. Another material commonly used is steel but can become too heavy for some machines to handle. The gantry of your CNC machine needs to be light enough so that your stepper motors will be able to handle the load without maxing out when cutting through material. This puts quite a bit of force on the motor and more weight only makes it worse. I recommend going with aluminum because in addition to being light and strong, it is also pretty easy to work with. Most people use brackets and bolts to hold the aluminum together which works well. If you have skills in welding, a tig welder can also be used but can result in your table warping if your not careful. The table needs to be completely flat in order for everything to work together efficiently. Steel, although heavy, is easy to weld and easy to get. One idea is to make the table out of steel but make your gantry out of aluminum to keep the weight down. Whether you choose aluminum or steel, they both provide good foundations for your homemade CNC machine.

December 16th, 2008 by admin

Stationary Gantry, Courtesy of www.colinmackenzie.net

Before you begin building a cnc machine, there are many things to consider and decide. One of the most important things is to decide what type of axis you are going to use. One way is to make a stationary gantry and have the table move. This design is better when making a mini cnc machine because the

Moving Gantry

entire table needs to be mobile. The other, more common desgin is to have a moving gantry and stationary bed. With this desgin, only the gantry is mobile so the router, laser, or cutter moves across the material instead of having the material move. This is commonly used on manufacturing cnc machines.

December 15th, 2008 by admin

Before building a machine, you must know what each part of the machine is and what it does. We’ll start with the main part of the machine, which typically acts as the support as well for the machine, the work table. The work table usually consists of a table with strong support to keep the machine from binding while in use. If the table moves, the accuracy will be horrible. On top of the table is a material used as a sacrificial table top such as mdf. It is used to place your cutting material, and allows the machine to cut all the way through the material. Next, we go on to the x-axis. On most machines, this is located on the stationary table with a set of rails or slides that slide horizontally. These slides need to be perfectly parallel so when the machine moves from one side to the other, it will not bind. On the x-axis, sits the gantry. The gantry holds the y-axis, the z-axis, as well as the cutting head typically a router. The gantry extends from one side of the machine, up and over the work table, to the other side. The y-axis is mounted across the gantry perpendicular to the x-axis and also moves in a horizontal manner. Mounted on the y-axis is the z-axis. The z-axis moves up and down, vertically, moving the cutting head in and out of the material. Usually the cutting head is a router, or spindle, but can also be a laser or vinyl cutting head. These parts make up the overall body of the machine and are essential to any cnc machine.

December 15th, 2008 by admin

CNC machining has become very popular in the past decade. They are used in many different applications today, mainly being the use in manufacturing buisnesses. With cnc manufacturing, a job can be programmed, and done without a human ever touching the piece. As I became more interested in cnc machines, I realized that cnc machines are not only for  manufacturing companies and can be built for quite cheap. This is what got me into homemade cnc, and diy cnc. The machines can be built in ones own garage with hardware store materials as well as parts available on the Internet. Often the machine contains three axis, an X, a Y, and a Z, which is the up and down movement of the cnc spindle, laser, or cutter. With one of these machines, many average people have been able to even start up their own sign or part making buisness’ with great success and even make cnc art.

December 11th, 2008 by admin

Welcome to Homegrown CNC. This site is dedicated to Do it yourself CNC, and homemade CNC. Hope to see you soon!