Hi Everyone from Kent

[charlyboy93]

Hi to everyone. I'm Graham and found this forum in search of cnc stuff. I am a mechanical and electronics engineer, and thought this would be a good place to start as I plan on making a cnc vector based laser cutter using the Routout cnc driver boards and software or Emc2. I am making the X Y table from scratch to keep costs down.

[irving2008]

Hi Graham, and welcome to the site. Would be interesting to see your plans for a laser cutter, several members have discussed making one before, but as far as I know, no one has done so.... yet :lol:

[charlyboy93]

Hi Irving2008, I will be more than happy to share my plans and ideas with anyone who is interested. I have some sketches but it would be a little easier to understand if you saw the complete table. Once I have got the basic x,y table assembled (Approx 13" square cutting surface) I will most certainly post some pics. This project has been made on a tight budget without the need to spend large amounts of money in linear tracks and bearings etc, it uses ordinary cheap ballraces to give smooth operation without any play. The most expensive part was the laser tube but should provide a good life time as its only really going to be used at half power, around 40 watts. As for the drive system, the x,y is directly driven from 400step per rev steppers via model helicopter tail drive toothed belt and on a 8mm toothed pully it should give me a 1.5 thou step in the x and y directions. They dont stretch and are very cheap to replace. Got the idea from my inkjet printer. If the step is too big then I could probably half step the motors to make the xy increment smaller. Will keep you posted on progress.
Have you built cnc Machinery?
Have a good one............