Building a CNC Router

[Grant H.]

Along the lines of JohnnyEgo's 'rona projects thread, I finally started on my CNC router...

I have had several requests (over the years of buying, plotting, planning, etc) to document the build process of this, so I figured I would create a thread for it.

Excuse the wreck in the garage... Too much stuff for too many projects and not enough space...

Now that the USPS has finally quit being a bunch of lazy unionized C*ckS*ckers, and I have most of my parts, I have finally gotten started.

Big 8020 extrusion is expensive... This is 40-8016 that is $3.47 per inch. I found 6 pieces of this stuff for cheap, so I am prioritizing cut area within the constraints of those pieces. Specifically I wanted to be able to cut a full 48" wide, and will use locate pins to be able to move sheets through if I need to cut more than the 32ish inches that I have. So, the bed size isn't exactly standard, but that's okay... To save $900+ on my aluminum extrusions, I will go with an odd bed size.

Playing with my new drill press to build linear bearing to gantry support "interface plates"... It's truly amazing the difference between a decent brand name built in TW and a big-box store drill press from China...
20201228_220238 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

"Cheap" counter-bore bits from Amazon make sinking the heads of bolts much easier...
20201228_225007 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

After finally getting some of the channel nuts that I needed, I started assembling this on my welding table, figuring I could leave the stand build for a later time, but I quickly nix'ed that idea as I didn't want to take the 1050 or the vise off of my welding table.

Starting base frame assembly. The base frame is 50.5 x 41" based on my current plan... This plan has changed about 27 times in the past 2 years, but it's getting built based off of the plans in my head that I started drafting in Fusion while I was in Taiwan.
20201229_220026 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Obviously not enough space, so it's off to the steel yard, make some quick cuts with the cold cut chop saw, and then weld some stuff up... The Fireball Tool squares are worth their weight in gold for stuff like this. He has some pretty cool stuff on his YouTube channel as well.
20210101_181147 by ARNEWB, on Flickr
20210101_183826 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Upside down and missing it's leveling feet and "cam-lock casters" (sits on rubber feet, but can be raised ~1" onto casters to move easily), but it's all tacked. I won't fully weld this out until I've got the machine up and running to make sure there aren't changes necessary to the stand as well...
20210101_192604 by ARNEWB, on Flickr
(Yes, that is a different garage.)

The plan is to build this with hand made aluminum "interface plates", ball screw mounts, etc, and then use it to machine replacement parts and "rebuild it" with any design changes that arise out of using it. Since it will be getting taken apart again, waiting until then to fully weld the stand isn't a big deal.

Back in my garage, making progress on assembly with the stand...
20210101_230803 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Last night I got annoyed with the little bit of dirt and crap hiding in some of the channels, so I disassembled the pieces and took them over to the carwash to clean them out... Well worth the $7.24 it cost to wash them down well.
20210102_124824 by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Base is assembled and torqued down... Square to within ~1/32" or less... Also grabbed some other scraps of different extrusion and cut them into bed supports for frame. Different manufacturer and channel spacing, so now I have to modify my corner brackets to make them fit, so that'll be another day...
20210102_235513[1] by ARNEWB, on Flickr

Now for the current problem... Dagnabit, China...

The channel nuts I bought to hold my linear rails to the frame and gantry are "almost" right... The beveled edges are just a hair too big... I can get them in the channels with a hammer, but that doesn't work to slide a whole raft of them in at once already loosely bolted to the linear rails...
20210103_000036[1] by ARNEWB, on Flickr

So, now I get to "adjust" all of these nuts for the rail supports... I'm thinking a belt sander/grinder is the appropriate method to quickly modify that many of these, so we'll see what I can get accomplished tomorrow...

Planned progression of this is to get the hardware built, then move on to the control cabinet, and then finally the initialization and setting up of LinuxCNC paired with my Mesa Electronics ethernet motion board.


Progress should be reasonably steady on this, but it is getting worked on outside of WFH, remodeling a bathroom, adding spray foam insulation around the replacement windows the previous owners put in, etc...

[JohnnyEgo]

Man that thing looks stout!
CNC is one of those things I have always wanted to learn, but have never had the concentrated time and energy to execute on.
I will follow this thread with much interest!

[ChickNorris]

I will follow this thread with much interest!

: )

[Grant H.]

Man that thing looks stout!
CNC is one of those things I have always wanted to learn, but have never had the concentrated time and energy to execute on.
I will follow this thread with much interest!

Yeah, this thing is gonna be a lot more capable than a lot of CNC "Routers"...

I'm worried that my steppers are going to struggle with the mass, but there are always bigger Steppers, or more likely, higher torque ClearPath Servo's...

[Great-Kazoo]

Can you clamp a few of those "nuts" together. To avoid having to do them individually, or easier in the long run for a quick pass on each one ?

[bradbn4]

The Fireball Tool squares

Some tools there I would love to check out...something for my drill press I think. I need to do some measuring first.

But first, back to you tube and watch a few more of his vids.

That website for Fireball tools needs a stern warning: Warning: Looking at website will result in a bad case of GotToHaveIt followed by excessive use of credit cards.

And thanks for this post.

[theGinsue]

God bless JohnnyEgo and his pic tutorials on his many projects - it's motivated a few others (like you Grant) to do the same. While there are projects such as this that I will never attempt, I love watching the progress on how something like this was engineered and assembled.

Amazing project you have and like others, I'm anxious to see this progress and turn into a fully functional tool. I'm especially curious what your first project will be that you'll use this CNC to build.

[00tec]

Speaking of fireball tools, that vice he built is on my to-do list. Dude makes nice stuff.

I've always wanted a cnc plasma table, but gotta build a shop to put it in first.

[JoeRoss]

I will follow this thread with much interest!

Another follower here.

My brother has a factory one. Problematic from the get-go.

[JohnnyEgo]

I learn a ton of stuff from Irving, who is more of a Renaissance man than me.

On an unrelated note, Grant once cut me out a piece of plate steel that my 800 pound jointer rests on, on top of some Great Lakes Casters. It made me the king of the jointer forum for a while, because other folks tried to bolt the casters directly to the frame, and ended up bending the frames of their $5-7k jointers. Meanwhile, mine is super stable and moves around with ease. So I have been the direct beneficiary of Grant's talent with a cutting torch, and his generosity.