From the South West

Hello to all.

Since retirement I have been able to spend more time indulging in hobbies based on electronics, model engineering, and computing. To date I have built a 3D printer and a more-or-less-JGRO router, with a few mods of my own such as 3D-printed components where possible. The router has been working OK, but in my somewhat humid garage the MDF is already sagging 6 months or so after build. It's OK for smallish pieces with a shimmed or machined in situ spoil board but it is clearly showing the limitations of an MDF machine. Taught me a lot, though, and most of the more expensive bits are going to be reusable for the Mk2...

I'm looking for ideas for a replacement, probably in aluminium extrusion as this seems very popular, but I don't really want to design something from scratch. Something about the size of the JGRO would be fine. Scouting through router build logs to see what I can copy, but if anyone has pointers to something along these lines they would be much appreciated!

- Brian

Brian, I found the best way was to knock up a drawing with say Sketchup, specify the sizes, specify what you indend to cut e.g. wood, plastic, aluminium. This way you are likely to get more input because it's something specific rather than something vague. You will get all the help you need.

Hi Brian,

Firstly, welcome! Secondly - How southwest are you? Speaking as someone from pretty far Southwest its nice to see another maker enthusiast, especially one into 3D printing as it is my first love.

Let me know the dims of the machine you want to build - I have some access to a number of machines that could be a project re-build rather than ground up. It might be something you want to consider.

Chris

EDIT: Im cornwall by the way!

Cornwall, eh? That's foreign from where I'm sitting! I'm in Devon, near Totnes. Coincidentally, my house name involves badgers, and I'm working on a design for name boards which incorporate a 3D badger's head, as well as making badger head door knobs for our new kitchen. The prototypes are looking good at the moment although there's more work to do before I actually produce the real thing.


I'm looking at something with around the same capacity as my (slightly enlarged) JGRO. About 1000mm cutting length so that I can get a standard length of balsa or ply in there, and about 600mm width which seems like a reasonable compromise between size and strength. Max 200mm under the cutter, maybe, or thereabouts? To cut anything from balsa to hardwoods (I've used the machine to profile 30mm sapele for components for my boat); cutting aluminium would be nice but generally that goes on the vertical mill (which is waiting for a CNC conversion one day).


I'm sure that there are plenty of people who have built something like this, but it's a slow process to go through build logs and extract and mentally compile information. It's all there, but it needs a lot of work to collate all the ideas. I would rather pick up something close and submit modifications for comment from the community than to go through another "I don't know much but I'll keep bothering you with my random ideas until you get me heading in the right direction" thread when I'm sure that someone must have done this already! Which is not knocking those who have bravely put their thoughts forward for comment but I don't see why the experts should have to go through it again...


I'll go back to reading build logs and see what I can find, and be back again when I have something more concrete in mind. Well, maybe aluminium extrusion rather than concrete:smile:


Would be interested in a "project", though, and comparing notes on 3D printers as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neale

I'm looking at something with around the same capacity as my (slightly enlarged) JGRO. About 1000mm cutting length so that I can get a standard length of balsa or ply in there, and about 600mm width which seems like a reasonable compromise between size and strength. Max 200mm under the cutter, maybe, or thereabouts? To cut anything from balsa to hardwoods

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That's pretty much the spec for the machine I'm building. http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/router...eady-eddy.html

which is based roughly on this one, the gantry and Z at least.
http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/router...ine-month.html
http://www.mycncuk.com/forums/router...ation-cnc.html