After quite a bit of cobbling and rigging things together, I got the Y-Axis working. I used a plywood base, and used cut sections of 2x4s to mount the far roller-bearing, and used a piece of plastic cutting board to mount the near roller-bearing.


Here's the motor mounting block -- you can see that the motor is not screwed to the blocks yet.


Here you can see the cutting board where the roller-bearing is mounted.

This linear actuator uses a lead-screw instead of a belt like the X-Axis is using. It feels more solid and precise, but I don't know if it actually is.

In any event, here's a video of the Y-axis is motion.



The motor is not fully mounted to the wood base yet -- that's what's causing the knocking sound.

comments [0]

After buying a few wrong cables (it turns out that you cannot use a parallel-to-USB adapter) and collecting as much information as I could from the CNC Zone forum, I made some tremendous progress on the CNC machine.

The first thing I had to do was to figure out how to wire up the stepper motor to the controller board. The board has 4-pin terminals for the motors, but the motors I purchased were 6-wire motors, so it took me a while to figure out which wires were unnecessary, and then what order the wires need to be to work with the controller.

I went through nearly every configuration possible before I read that you can control the voltage going to the motors by turning a surface-mounted potentiometer. I had nearly no voltage to the motor, causing the motor to hum, but not actually do anything. Once I figured out the problem, I set the proper voltage and got the motor to move.



I currently have the X-Axis of the CNC machine set up. After getting the motor to run last night, I figured it was now time to get the X-Axis to move.

Check it out:


Now that the X-Axis is complete, it's time to start building the table, and mounting the Y-Axis on top of the X-Axis platform.

comments [6]

I received the power supply for the CNC machine I'm building about a week ago, and it's a bit smaller than I thought it was going to be. That's good - smaller is better.

I had to do a little research to figure out how to wire a power cord to the little box. The power line I used was from an old computer cable I had sitting around, and inside that cable was a white, black, green, and bare ground wire. The power supply had a spot for ground, "L" and "N", which I determined were for "lead" and "neutral."

Ground: bare wire and green wire.
N: white wire
L: black wire

Alternating current is so weird. DC is so much easier, with it's easy-to-remember black and red wire.

I tested the power supply with a multi-meter, and it's pushing out a full 24 volts. Good deal.



($596)

comments [0]

After reading through the manual for the CNC controller board I picked up on eBay, I discovered that I needed a 24v/2-6amp power supply. And then I discovered that such a power supply isn't exactly cheap unless you want to build one yourself.

From the start, I really wanted this to be a DIY project. I wanted to feel like I put this thing together myself and only ended up spending 1/5th the cost of an actual production CNC machine. However, trying to navigate through the the time/money continuum has been really tricky. I'm eating up tons of project time working on other projects that make money instead of cost money, so... I feel justified taking money from one project and dumping it into the other. It just feels more efficient. That said, I picked up a power supply on eBay for $58 after shipping. I could have gone cheaper and gotten an unassembled power supply, but the idea of being the grounding point for 24 volts and 5 amps (ie., DEATH) doesn't really sound appealing. So... I decided to go the safe route by purchasing a completed unit.


($596)

comments [4]

I've been thinking about my CNC machine project for a little while, and now that I've made a few bucks selling my welded figurines, I've been on the prowl for information on how to build the machine in a cost-effective manner.

The two plans I picked up for building the CNC machine call for building slide actuators by using a threaded rod picked up at Home Depot. This is great for a shoestring budget and a lot of extra time, and also great if precision tolerances aren't an issue. However, I think that my budget allows for some machined pieces to help speed up the process.

Hunting around on eBay, I found a 19" slide actuator for $80 shipped. Granted, 19" isn't terribly big, but I think it'll provide enough travel for me to make the things I have in mind.





I also picked up a 36" belt-drive rail for $163. It's a hefty price jump, but I think it'll be alright. I'm not sure I could find a 36" rail for much less; the 19" size is an odd size that I think most people probably aren't looking for.



($538)

comments [1]