I`ve had a couple of emails lately asking about the CNC machine on my youtube video and I believe in the background on one of my pictures. I`ve not posted much about it purely because I built it between Jan-April this year (2012) and during that period I was busy with work and for some reason didn`t take many photos in the short bursts I had in my shop.
I`ve always been nervous about a CNC machine – truth is, I`ve never known where to start!! Some of you will have seen my wooden MDF CNC build but that failed miserably as I just felt the machine was going to be useless for the money I needed to put in.
Anyway, I was trawling ebay and came across the base and axis of a TEP CNC mill. They really are a terrible machine but I thought it would be a good foundation to get me going and cost no money at all. You`ll noticed that even a complete TEP doesn`t have ANY z axis, just a solonoid spindle to lower the cutter into the work
THIS PICTURE IS NOT MY MACHINE BUT AN EXAMPLE OF A COMPLETE TEP MILL: I just got the base and the linear slides
First job was to flip the X axis – what possessed them to mount it this way around in the first place?!? I also built up a Z axis from ally bar and some leadscrew and nuts I`d harvested off an old lathe:
This was my first poor attempt to get something work – drawing a picture of peppa pig for my daughter. However terrible you might thing this was… I was jumping around my workshop for joy!
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vISjtg1zHRY&feature=player_embedded
I then made the brushless DC spindle (which you can find under the links to the left) and tried to cut a door sign, which was also not good but I thought it was fab at the time:
After quite a bit of tinkering with the machine I found that I was being let down by the TB6560 3 axis stepper driver. It took quite a bit of configuring and after moving over from linuxcnc/EMC2 to Mach3, the machine was running very well!
It now stands in this state:
This is a hall effect sensor connected to Mach3 gives me a good tachometer for the cost of £1.99 (that was for 5 from china!!)
I`ve now cut a few nice pieces with it:
And some engraving which you will have seen on my “Drag Engraving” video:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJSLlZPUckI&feature=player_embedded
Not really given it a full work out yet but I have plans brewing!!!…
Thank you for posting this. I really like the CNC spindle that you have made. A friend and I are working on a little CNC machine and I plan to implement a design similar to the one you have made for the spindle. I will be using some equipment on campus to make it but the same 12V rail on an ATX power supply. We are using a homemade design similar to the Fireball V90 but with less quality components, used a lot of hardware store parts. Also my TB6560 is on the way. You said that it was letting you down and I was wondering if you might go into more detail, I will be using it with Linux CNC so might help. This will be my first machine but not my last. Thanks again for the post.
Hi John
Thanks for the reply. I`m quite harsh on the TB stepper chip – it does its job just fine when setup correctly but it did take me a long time to get it setup!
Just a note to say that the spindle recently blew the ATX supply, it just wasn`t supplying enough current. I`ve now swapped it for a £10 48A 12v server power supply and it works a treat! Keep us posted on how your cnc machine goes!
Chris