Printable View
Well i have been planning, reading, posting, phoning and adding up all the bits in my cnc birth-plan. As with all plans I have tried to think of everything, but I just *know* that i have "unknowns".
I would love to hear from you guys, first timers and seasoned, what the most unplanned expenses were spent on. And if you could give a rough estimate (percentage) of how much you thought it was going to be VS actual spending.
Most worry about building the machine first before the furnishings (steppers, drivers, bearings). Wood, steel and aluminium is cheap in comparison to the trinkets.....Biggest cost i would say is leadscrews and bearings if you want to do it right. But you can always save on these things by lowering your expectations of what you want......Ying/Yang??????????
I would say that there wasnt one single great expense rather a lot of little unknowns plus lots of tools to do the so called simple things.
Then theres the exorbitant postage on metal for bearing housings plus all the bearings I got wrong mainly by not understanding what I was doing.
Still its a hobby after all and when compared to how much the car looses in value each year its cheap!
Peter
Well, if you place any financial value on your own tiime, I'd say I wasted the most money on leadscrews - being a cheapskate (who was inspired by the easy cnc mill seen on youtube), I went with threaded rod - then I upgraded to different pitch threaded rod before upgrading again - beforefinally getting some proper leadscrews off Ivan on here - man, what a difference. Threaded rod sucks (in the main it's got some warpage gojng down, the pitch is too small - just nasty stuff bering in mind it's the heart of your CNC). If I could offer one bit of advice to someone starting out on this journey - don't buy threaded rod!
Oh yeah...& anthing 'pucka' required for mounting your rod/rails will cost an unjustifiable arm & a leg - so if on a budget us SK type mounts (eg SK12, SK16, SK20 - whatever he diameter of your rods/bearing s are .... look 'em up on Ebay to get a flavour) - they're relatively cheap & will save you a lot of time/heartache on a budget.