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CNC Wood Router

IMAG2942The Pen-Plotter Turned Wood Router from an old dell printer, this time cutting a sign for my workshop, and some wooden gears!

 

 

In the video, the CNC machine is still using for the Y axis, the original friction roller from the inkjet printer’s paper feed! I thought that I might use this for continuous feeding long strips of wood, theoretically unlimited.  But I gave that idea up pretty quickly.  There seemed to be accuracy problems, but later I determined it could have been a belt slipping on the X axis.  Anyway, now the Y axis is a 36-inch long board with v-shaped aluminum angle rails, and a toothed belt drive.

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Some closeups of the belt drive:

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The V-rail with standard ABEC skate bearings:

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The machine’s frame is made from marine-grade 1/4″ birch plywood with 5 plies.

Then later I upgraded the X axis from belt drive (it had a VERY thin toothed belt that was skipping) to a screw.  Boy I love allthread!  This is by far the most solid drive.  I was worried that it would be slow, but the DC motor + optical encoder type of positioning is both snappy and accurate.  If I were to buy a Shapeoko, I would immediately upgrade the drives to these.

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I have also changed out the spindle to a dremel.  The motor that I was using was very powerful and high speed, but it vibrated badly due to the poor chuck alignment.

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Now with a dremel and screw driven X axis, I can cut even more precisely, but it’s slower.  Here’s a closeup of a gear partway through cutting.  The width of the tool is 2.8mm.

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That gear shape was generated using Matthias Wandel’s excellent gear generator program, and the g-code generated with BlenderCAM.  The dremel is set to cut 0.5mm per pass, so it takes a bit to get through 1/4″ or 3/8″ plywood.

All in all, I’ve learned a lot about CNC machines.  Especially considering that 3 months ago I didn’t know the first thing about G-Code or GRBL software etc. Now, I will probably put this CNC machine to use cutting out precise parts for a bigger machine that will operate my 1.25hp Black & Decker router, and have a much bigger work area, more like 4×8 feet.  This machine has about 24″ x 10″ work area.

Ultimately I hope to cut puzzle joints and plywood panel shapes for some more boat building projects.

 

 

 

 

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