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Someone asked me a long while back how this machine performed cutting aluminium. My one and only attempt to cut Al was a bit of a failure, but not really to do with the machine - poor cutter choice,...

Aluminum or steel box - your choice! My machine is all steel box section, welded, including the gantry (which is relatively uncommon). I also used a fair bit of 20mm aluminum plate for brackets,...

You certainly can set up Mach3 to do that - it's just a matter of setting the "direction" flags appropriately in Mach3. However, if you think that you might addle your brain to do it the...

A bleed resistor might be useful while you are testing, but once you have a driver or two wired to the power supply, they look like a waste of time. When I checked my machine, the stepper driver...

I've been using one of these for a few years. It's taken a lot of abuse in that time and just keeps on working. If it breaks, I'll be getting another one. However, the noise is one reason I use ear...

Yes, you don't have to add together the peak demand to give a rating if you are using a linear PSU. For one thing, as you say, the chance that all four motors will be running at full power at the...

I'm currently using a CSMIO-IP/M. The UC300ETH/UB1 combination is very similar with a few improvements from a hardware point of view, and I would be looking at the newer hardware if I were starting...

I've been using the wireless version of the HB04 for a while and still on original set of batteries. It's actually the WHB04B, a slightly later version, which has two knobs (apart from the big...

It's a difficult one to answer, as it's all about compromise and getting the balance between cost, complexity, time to build, materials to cut, etc. However, you are not being over-ambitious in your...

The reason for the problem is that the 2nd set of coordinates is given with a G0, and the next two sets do not have any "G" command. Giving a set of coordinates without a "G" command means "repeat...

I thought that most of the cooling came from that high volume of air going through it? Comes out of mine fairly warm, anyway. Not a lot of scope for cooling apart from that, especially in a...

You have a few issues here, and unfortunately we do not have enough information to answer all your questions. I'll start with a few basics, in case you do not know these things already.

The...

A common fact is that people start out by buying/building a machine to suit their immediate needs, and then realise that they can do so much more now that they have that capability. Or, at least,...

Definitely a rethink needed! I doubt if many people on this forum buy anything from Ooznest, for example. I don't want to sound as if I'm knocking anyone, and I'm sure that the Ooznest machines will...

I'm using something like Mach3 version .028 and that works fine with the CSLabs macro for touch-off and M6start/end. When I tested the touch-off mechanism, I was getting +-1 microstep repeatability,...

If I had a drive with the option of AC input, I would go with that. It will have an appropriate internal rectifier/capacitor setup, and actually the capacitors do not need to be that big. You use...

Generally, use the smallest diameter screw that will do the job. In this case, doing the kind of back of envelope sanity check I like to do:

Target max Z speed = 2000mm/min. You probably don't...

Very simple. The linear bearing carriages are bolted to a 12mm aluminium plate with cap screws in counter-bored holes so that bolt heads are below the surface. In effect, I then have a linear bearing...

The Electrickery

The early design decision which drove much of the design in this area was the selection of the CSMIO-IP/M motion controller. This choice was driven mainly by discussion on this...

Drive system

The drive system on my machine is pretty conventional. Nema 23/3Nm steppers driving the ballscrews through 1-1 pulleys and HTD5 belts.
I fitted pulleys partly because I wondered at...

Epoxy levelling

I want to be a bit controversial here.

First – using epoxy to level isn’t as easy as it looks. It’s not that difficult either, but there are a few gotchas.

Secondly - you...

Basic Structure

As described in the intro, I used 3mm wall thickness box section steel throughout for frame and gantry, with a mix of 50x50 and 100x50. The frame is pretty straightforward. I found...

The title? Medium-size – bigger than a bench-top machine but not as big as a “full-sheet” 8x4. Steel-framed – basic structure is steel box section throughout, including the gantry, no aluminium...

Try a Google search for "mach3 settings explained". There are plenty of sources of info there, and different people prefer different ways of explaining things, so take a browse through what's on...

I'm guessing from the Mach3 settings that you have 5mm lead ballscrews with 8x microstepping in the stepper drivers. That explains the "320 steps per unit" in the motor tuning page. That's about...