CNC machine for the London Hackspace

[bikepete]

Just curious - why is your budget in dollars?

Apart from that clearly the best value will be DIY - and you'll also know how to fix it if it goes wrong rather than relying on some vendor (or unreachable Chinese manufacturer) for support.

Plus for extra idiot proofing you could build in things like shear pins or friction clutches so that a crash shouldn't result in too much damage.

Read the build logs here and post the designs here too for critique before you start and you won't go far wrong.

[jcb121]

if you're a hack space you should team up and make the CNC yourself, or with favors from friends...free labor!

PCBs machine have to be high resolution, slow, very little to no play in the couplings and very very flat.

wood needs to be cut fast otherwise it will burn the cutter/wood

and for doing metal it needs to be rock solid.

I'm sure one machine could do it all but building small machines are much easier

[jonboycnc]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I'm currently thinking that realistically we might well end up with a 60cmx40cm size. Or even 30cmx40cm

Any ideas for designs/plans for a machine this size that has enough rigidity to perform OK when going through aluminium? Building ourselves would be tempting, but realistically it's just not going to happen unless we have "painting by numbers" good instructions.

The KRM machine Building the KRMx01 CNC looks like it might have this combination of rigidity and detailed instructions. Any other options I should be weighing up?

One possibility I'm seriously considering is the 6040 machines from Yoocnc 3020 3040 6040 series - carving-cnc.com. They're Chinese and used to have awful electronics but now better. You can buy the main body alone which is a tempting option.

A lot of people on cnczone.com seem to think the mechanics on these is good, and that you'd be hard put to get the materials alone for less than what they cost assembled. What's your take on the value-for-money of the frames of these machines?

I get the impression they can mill aluminium, just slowly.

Jonathan