CNC Mill

From Fusselman.org

Nothing much here, at the moment. Basically this is just a placeholder for my planned CNC mill project. I've considered buying a manual mill from HF or similar, but have determined that this machine will be more capable and more edutaining to build and operate.

The entire mill body is going to be built from 3/4" MDF, though it could be built from any sheet material that would resist warping.

The cut-list is as follows:

• 18" x 18" table top
• 4x 18"x6" with 45-degree ends for the base
• 2x 18"x6" for gantry sides
• 2x 6"x6" squares for X and Z carriages
• 20.25"x6" for gantry back
• 18.75"x6" for gantry back

These measurements (Specifically the lengths of the gantry backs) depend heavily on the width of the ball-bearing slides (in yellow) that traverse the Y axis being 3/8" thick.

Other parts required:

• Drawer slides:
  • 2@15"
  • 2@18" (or 2 more 15s)
  • 2@6" (possibly double-expanding)
• 4 matched stepper motors
• 1 spindle of some sort. Possibly one of the following:
  • A Dremel tool (I have one of these)
  • A Rotozip or similar
  • Pieces of a 18v cordless drill (Also have one of these)

Relative to this drawing, I'm thinking that it could use additional slides on the X and Z axis, to give torsional rigidity. Frank's 1850 series mill has dual slides (on each side) of the Y axis as well, to help keep the gantry square to the table. Not sure if I'll need that or not.

Basically everything I know about building CNC mills I owe to Frank over at theworkshop.ca. Thanks Frank!