My Cheapo Chineese 3020t mini CNC Build (more like improvements) leanring all the way

[ravihotwok]

Hello everyone, I thought I would do a bit of a build thread showing my experiences with my new cnc adventure. From looking at other threads on here 90% of everyone seems to be pretty competent, so for the remaining 10% who may be afraid to ask daft questions my build thread may be more applicable to you as I know absolutely nothing, so im learning each day.

I have chosen to buy a mini CNC machine which is 4 Axis and has a bed size of 240 x 340 with a working area of 200 x 400. I paid £420 for this Chinese machine which was actually stored in a warehouse in Germany. The benifit of this was that it arrived in 3 days and zero duty, clever thinking by the seller.

Here is the machine

[ravihotwok]

I had to assemble it slightly in the sense of attaching the motors and plugging them in, simply really.
My mate took the machine to his to see if he could start setting the new pc (purpose bought for this machine) to communicate with the machine, we are using a usb connection and I have purchased Planet CNC software which can be obtained from here:
https://planet-cnc.com/software/

[ravihotwok]

Whilst my mate was working on the machine it gave me chance to try and make some space at my workshop (which is very small) for the pc and machine. Decided to put it next to my booth





I purchased a cheap workbench from the bay which suits the machine nicely, slowly getting there, will be a nice little workstation once finished

[Lee Roberts]

Hi Ravi and welcome to the forum,

Thanks for the share, will keep an eye out for what you get upto

[ravihotwok]

Cheers Lee mate.

Well a bit of a small but positive update, managed to sort the work area out for the cnc machine and the control pc, included a few essential tools and measuring equipment. Extraction system next.

[ravihotwok]

As this machine doesnt come with any limit switches as standard I have purchased some very small and discrete switches, I have also sourced some nice and small 2 pin connectors so they can be unplugged at any time with ease.

[ravihotwok]

As the control box which came with the machine had a faulty x axis driver I didn't want to exchange it for another cheap one, so I asked a few question on here and got some very good responses, all of which were pretty much above my head. As I have already purchased the Planet CNC software I thought it would make sense to purchase their own control box as I think the support they can provide would be very beneficial to myself being a complete novice. The box arrived on Monday, only ordered it on the Friday so I was very impressed with the delivery time. Once arrived I unpacked it, looked at it a bit confused then managed to find a spare half hour to start assembling it. Work was halted though when I realised my soldering iron was at home.

[ravihotwok]

Well I managed to have a good session on the control box tonight and my first ever stab at soldering, its a lot harder than it looks.
First job was to solder the pins to the board for the motor connections and other plugs which in not sure of lol

[ravihotwok]

Then it was to solder the small on off switch and power from the mains plug


Here is a pic of the old driver board v the new Planet driver board, you can see the quality difference straight away (I just hope this one works)
old


New

[ravihotwok]

Now I had to wire in the cables for the limit switches, this was a little bit fiddly, I used a few small pieces of heat shrink to help keep the cables together.


Now to attached the ribbons for each axis.


Thats all I managed last night, all that needs doing now is wiring the octocoupler in (which I have no idea what that is)

Really happy with it so far, hopefully have it fired up in the next few days fingers crossed