A3 Marchant Dice Kit

[neo]

PART1 : More money than sense!
I appreciate this is not quite the same as building your own, but I didn't feel I could commit myself to months of planning and building. So I spent months trawling the various forums for info and then decided to buy a ready made CNC. (I went for a Kit as it was slightly cheaper). I was quite surprised at how much they cost and how few are available at this end of the market I was even more surprised to see there was more available outside the UK than homegrown.
Nonetheless I thought a UK company would be better for aftersales support..........


Here's my 'build log' of my recent CNC in kit form purchase.
I know its a not a true DIY build, it was just a case of bolting prepared parts together. :heehee:
Not rocket science, although there's no plans, check list or parts list supplied. So if there's a part missing (which there was several) its difficult to work out what's missing, what it looks like or indeed what it's called to report it. you end up describing it in your terms not what the company calls it, which can lead to misunderstanding to say the least!

I really was surprised at paying out so much money not to even get a check list.
I can go to Comet and buy a product for a few pounds and get an instruction manual in every language, and you often get a parts list or exploded view of the item included.
You do feel a bit p***** off when you eventually work out its not all there.!!

Anyway back to the build...
Without any reference material, it's therefore a case of looking at the parts, placing them together, more looking at parts, no idea which part to start with, bolting a couple of parts together only to realise its back to front and you have to undo it and start again. the sequence is probably 2nd nature to those in the know but not for a first timer.
Now I pride myself on having a excellent tool selection sockets, spanners, drivers, allen keys etc etc, however,the next 'problem' was discovering you need a longer allen key than standard to put two deep box aluminium sections together. so a quick trip to the hardware store to buy one for 45p and £1.00 to park!

Once again you can buy flat pack furniture for hundreds of pounds and have single use allen keys and spanners to put together your purchase, it's the little things like this which makes it a better experience. unfortunately going out to buy one allen key just made me more p***** off! for the price I paid this is something which could have easily been included.

That a side, after a couple of false starts, it started to come together. my 15yr old helped i.e I told him to tighten the screws 'here' and 'there' and we made fair progress through the sequence.

To be fair there are only two complete parts to build: the lower Y axis and the upper x,z axis parts.
i quess they can be built in any order and then you just bolt the two sections together. I started with the x, z axis parts, then put them to one side whilst i built the y axis base. when It came to putting the two together, you realise how heavy and awkward its all become, turning it on its side to locate screws etc then came the next problem, there were no special nuts to join the two parts together. I checked the packaging several times, I wrongly assumed they were a sort of nyloc nut, once again a check list would have identified their abscense and an exploded diagram would have shed the light on the fact they were of a special shape and design.

I had to wait a week for the 'missing parts' to arrive before I could bolt the two parts together......

Part 2 to follow.........

Neo