FP - Please tell us about your CNC machine

[MR COFFEE]

FP -
Saw in the thread on clear-coat where you mentioned you engraved letters on the backside of acrylic like RG using your CNC machine. Don't they cost a friggin' fortune? I've always wanted an engraver like that!

Please tell us all about your CNC machine and where you got it\made it or whatever!

Thanks,

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

I bought the plans online at www.crankorgan.com and built it myself. It took me a year to finish it, I've drilled pcbs with it and also done some stompbox engraving, I've also milled a few 3d parts designed in autocad.

Hobby CNC is a pretty fun hobby, but if you want to build your own be warned that it's not easy. Well worth it though.

Fp

[MR COFFEE]

Thanks for the pointer. I'll check it out. What software did you need to do the engraving?

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

I bought a licence for TurboCNC from http://dakeng.com/

And I used any vector based software to generate dxf output.

Fp

[MR COFFEE]

FP,
Can you guesstimate about how much it cost for hardware and software?

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

With or without labor? 

Fp

[MR COFFEE]

FP,
Actually, I'd intended to ask you about what the materials and software cost, but now that you mention it, I should have asked you about how much time you had to put into making it as well. Important question, huh?

I would assume it was no weekend project, either... 

Thanks for sharing - I've always fantasized about making a CNC machine, but I wasn't confident that, if I *did* make one, that 1) I could figure out what the interface needed to be to connect to my computer, and 2) find user friendly and affordable software to control the thing.

Sounds like your machine is pretty reasonable to use - and pretty accurate as well if it can drill pcb holes.

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

Software and interfacing are the least of the problems. Getting the machine built, that's the difficult part.

My advice is go for it, at least order the plans and help John Kleinbauer, he's cool and lives from the sales of the plans. If you don't build it, at least you'll know what it takes. Don't go buying any software, power supply, motors or controllers before building the machine.

Fp