instructables

Arduino Powered CNC Router

by vederstein

I was back in the machine shop at my workplace and in the scrap bin I found eight ball screw slides. The longest
has about a 23" stroke.I asked my boss, and he let me take them.After some investigation, they've been sitting on
a shelf for years and they just decided to scrap them.

So I decided to use four of them to make a CNC router.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq9nCpI2enQ

Step 1: Building the Frame

Anyway, except for the 4" aluminum channel and even know I had).
wood I purchased for the Y-axis slide mounting, I'm
built this thing with materials I have laying around and The first step was to build the frame rails which were
without any plans. It's just kind of fell together as I 4" aluminum channels. To these I mounted two of the
went. (I'm amazed at the quantity of aluminium ball screw slides.
barstock I've accumulated. Some of this stuff I didn't

Arduino Powered CNC Router: Page 1

To make the table top, I used 5/8" thick wood planks often used for shelving. I cut them to the proper width then
bolted them to the frame with 1/4-20 bolts.

Therefore if one plank gets damaged, it can be easily replaced.

Arduino Powered CNC Router: Page 2

I clamped two pieces of 3/8" thick x 4" wide aluminium barstock together. I then drilled out the holes for mounting.
In this way I created exact mirror images of the plates.

Then I drilled/tapped the blocks which will mount the X-axis rail.The to see my progress, I C-clamped the X-axis in
place. Later transfer punch the mounting holes in the slide to the blocks. Then drill/tap the blocks to mount the rail
permanently.

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The electronics can be started at any time, but for a change of pace, I started work on the electronics.

I purchased the largest junction box enclosure I could fine at Lowes. Unfortunately what looked big in the store
wasn't so big with all the components I needed to install...

1. Two 36vdc / 10 amp power supplies

The box is deep, so I made a two layer box. Please don't laugh at the pictures, I'm not an electrician, but at least I
did apply labels to the wires...

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Starting on the Z-axis slide

First was to make a plate to adapt the X-Axis carriage to the Z-Axis frame. Note that I added several extra holes in
the plate. This allows adjustment of the Z-axis height.

The reason is that unlike many CNC routers I've seen on the Internet, I purposely kept the distance between the
table and the X-axis slide shallow, about 7 inches.

The reason is threefold:

1. The longer the side arms, the more deflection there will be in the final system.
2. The slide has a 4 or 5 inch stroke, so I really didn't need much.I was somewhat limited by the
material I had laying around.
3. I could have added about 3-4 more inches, but see number 1.

Once the Z-axis was mounted, I started an adaptor plate to mount the Z-axis motor to the slide. The motor is way
big for this slide, so I'll turn down the amperage to limit the motor.

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Based on internet searches, people have been successful using a Bosch Colt router for this application, so I went
the same route.

I need to make a collar for to mount the router. I have machine tools, so I make my own, but I know there are ebay
sellers who sell mounts for this particular router.

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This machine has many many cables to run for such things as motors, limit switches, motor power, etc. The best
method to contain the moving cables is running them through drag chain. I got mine from an ebay seller.

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Any project of this size and complexity will eventually involve things that just aren't enjoyable. I'm no fan of
soldering wires, but its just one of those things that must be done. In all there are over 110 solder connections to
make.

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I won't go into too much detail here. But the software I For the G-code sender, I used software from the bCN
used for the CNC controller is from the GRBL project. C project. It's quite powerful, but any G-code sender
You can get information and how to wire the compatible with GRBL will work.
electronic components from their website.

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The video at the start of this Instructable was one of the earlier tests. This video shows a gearing system made
with the router to give an idea of its capabilities. For a sense of scale, the ring gear is 18 inches in diameter.

FYI: The steam engine is 1/4 hp engine running on compressed air. This machine is for the 2017 Maker Faire
season. At the faires it will be run on live steam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lg3yCzJNc4

How to make g code?

The bCNC software will generate the gcode. Otherwise you can program it yourself. There's other
gcode generators out there. This is what CAD/CAM does. The software ranges from free and open
source all the way to professional packages that cost thousands of dollars per seat.
That is quite the score with ball screws.
I think I understand why people use GRBL but that is not a compromise that I am personally willing
to make.
I have a mini-mill that I converted to CNC years ago. I use LinuxCNC on it. For this router, I went
GRBL because I plan on selling it. The USB plug-n-play aspect is a selling point.
I see. Yes with free parts you should earn a tidy profit. You probably just could have sold the ball
screws and made a bundle.
what a score, finding those ball screws in the dumpster!

Yeah, I don't think I'll ever have that kind of luck again.
If you're interested, I gave three of the slides away to a guy I communicate with on the HMEM
forum. He's building a router that's going to be industrial quality.
As for the last one, I'm building a quite unique bubble machine - Stay Tuned!

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