Hi Everyone,

I hope you're all well, safe, and at least somewhat entertained making whatever it is that brought you to this forum.

I'm a guy "between jobs". I used to work for a company that used drones to track endangered wildlife in remote overseas areas, but Covid stopped travel, and with it.... the research we were doing. Before that, I was an IT guy, applying computery goodness to university-based research, and trying (sometimes in vain) to stop academics from deleting their life's work.

Away from work, I'm a tinkerer, maker, wood worker, gardener, occasional metal worker, and I have been known to work with a variety of esoteric materials like carbon fibre, polycarbonate, ceramics, and even occasionally, glass blowing. Although admittedly, the glass blowing was a one-off project. My better half works for a glue company, so we can sometimes work together making videos on how well glues stick to certain "substrates". So her work supplies me with glue, and I get to make stuff, she films it for her marketing campaigns and adds a second pair of hands. Back to the CNC....

I've never owned a CNC machine (other than 3D printer), but it's always something I thought would take me "to the next level". However, I never had a huge amount of space or spare budget, and I've had numerous other interests pulling me away from starting in CNC. That said, applying computers to my maker tendencies through the magic of CNC has brought me here... admittedly "encouraged" through a somewhat unusual chain of events that overcame some of the obstacles.

Here's a little story:

A former electronic repairman/colleague of mine saw me servicing an industrial 3D printer years ago, and so he (then) asked for advice on how to build the mechanical side of a CNC, and I did a little research to bridge the somewhat glaring differences between additive manufacturing and the higher-stresses placed on subtractive machinery, I spent a few lunch breaks explaining what I'd found, pointed him in the right direction, and he went on his merry way. Since then, I kept asking him about how it was going, and he always made non-committal noises. Roughly 3 years later, it's terrible news, he's diagnosed with cancer, and he called me up to see if I'd like "a few CNC odds and ends".

Since I can always find a use for some random parts, I agreed, and a few weeks later, there's a delivery at my door.

Few... is not the word I would describe it. I got one little note with one word: "Enjoy". I tried to call to confirm if all this was what he wanted to give me... and I found out that he had died and been buried the week before.

Before it all gets too depressing....

Taking stock of it all... I suddenly have the majority of parts necessary to build a 5' (maybe even 6' by 8') CNC router. Except that ever-so-crucial part of a frame to hold it all together. The delivery included:

  • 2x 2500mm 25mm HGR rails and 4 carriages.
  • 2x 1800mm 25mm HGR rails and 4 carriages.
  • 2x 500mm 25mm HGR rails and 4 carriages.
  • 3x 1800mm 2505 ball screws (why the third one... I don't know)
  • 2x 2500mm 2510 ball screws
  • 1x 500mm 2505 ball screw
  • 1x 2.2KW VFD
  • 2x 2.2KW spindles of different makes (again I'm not sure why)
  • 5x Nema 34 steppers, drivers, power supplies, and what seems to be miles of cabling
  • 1x cooling rig for one spindle
  • 10m or water piping
  • 10x industrial grade limit switches
  • Even more multi-core cabling... presumably for the switches.


So I had a couple of gaps, the controller card, the spindle cable, spindle mount and those have been since addressed with yet another quirky tale. This is getting long, so I won't bore you here. The result is I unexpectedly I have two mesa cards, and a spare 4 axis Mach 3 card, as well as the spindle cable I originally ordered.

Finally... the unusual situation.

Unfortunately asking what he had in mind with all this stuff... isn't an option. I presume he had planned to build a table, frame, and gantry somewhere. But the odd numbers of parts confuse me. Some of this stuff is pretty heavy duty, I sometimes wonder if he was trying to build a mill instead of a router. However, I can tell that he had plans to use single phase power, based on the the power supplies.

So I'm thinking about building a moving gantry CNC router, out of T-slot aluminium extrusion (Ok, not exactly unusual at first glance) but I want to build it in a vertical orientation (well 5 degrees off from vertical) mounted to my existing lumber storage trolley made out of plywood. Simply put, this is the only place I can fit a machine like this.

If anyone has any pictures of a vertical oriented, T-slot router, I'd love to see them. I've never built a CNC router before, and would greatly appreciate any guidance, or tales of experiences, things to watch out for.

So now you know more than you probably wanted to know, feel free to say hi. Also, if anyone knows a good place to buy t-slot aluminium in Australia, I'd love to from you.

I don't really have a design, yet. My CAD skills are growing, but I'm not at the stage of simulating the stresses a working CNC router model. I know I'll have to use heavier duty aluminium to make the frame... but my knowledge of T-slot is limited.

Anyway, constructive thoughts, concerns, or links to pertinent info will always be greatly appreciated.

Take care and happy tinkering!
Harmo.