After 6 months of talking myself into it, and strangely enough the wife actually telling me to "Just do it!" (she's seen what can be done and wants to make stuff herself).....order placed for an Ooznest Ox. Now to count the days for it to arrive at my doorstep in the colonies....

 

After weeks of researching all the available hobbyist CNC's on the market i've made up my mind and ordered the Ooznest OX full kit today! I'm very excited, and so is my 9 year old son, who loves the idea of a CNC machine and kept asking me when we are getting one
There's 2 weeks lead time for the kit at the moment, so this should give me enough time to get all the extra bits that i need.
I have not ordered the router mount kit as i am not sure which spindle/router to get.
I like the idea of having a spindle controlled by software via G-Code. I am planning to mill aluminium, so I have found this
CNC 750W Brushless DC Motor Driver+400W Spindle Motor Kit For Engraving Machine, which I hope will be enough for that. I am not sure what else i will need to connect it to the xPro controller. I am a newbie in the CNC space, so any advice is appreciated.

 

Thanks @Ryan Lock.
I'm considering Kress 1050 FME-1, which is 5000-25000 RPM (€ 143.99 at damencnc.com - did anybody have any experience with this store?).
There's also a mounting block for it. Any recommendations of how to attach it to the Z axis? Here's the schematics.

 

Just got an email notification that my order has been shipped! Woohoo! Thanks, @Ryan Lock, for sending it sooner than expected!

As for the router I might go for Makita RC0700C (which has 10000-30000 rpm speed). It has a 65mm diameter. Do you sell any mounts for those?

Also I found on connecting xPro that "when using a non-ATX PSU, Over-Volt and Over-Current protection is recommended". I suspect the PSU that's shipped with the kit is non-ATX?

 

I received shipment of 2 of the 3 packages that UPS said I should be expecting containing my Ooznest Ox 1500x1500 (1 is the long V-Slot, the other is Mechanical and Electrical plus the extra things I added to the order). To steal my daughter's current favorite phrase, "OMG!" Even though I am still expecting 1 more box (3 of 3 ... what is packed in that one?), I had to open what I had and ogle. The packaging is absolutely amazing. Everything is very clearly labeled as to what each smaller box contains and when you open them, you see just how much Ooznest cares about making the customer experience the best it can be. I had no clue there were going to be 3D printed parts to help make the machine pretty (somewhere above here was mention of the Power Supply stuff, but I didn't really understand what that was going to include). The printed and bound assembly manuals are a great touch.

So looking forward to putting this thing together and making chips.

EDIT: After opening the V-Slot package that arrived and comparing to the item description on the web site, I figured out that the 3rd package has to contain at least the V-Slot for the spoiler board supports and 20x40 for the X-Axis controller support. Hopefully UPS has good news for me when I wake up in the morning.

 

The last package arrived this evening (apparently it was separated when the shipment was held for agency clearing in UPS's Louisville, Kentucky center and sent this morning). Now to try to carve some time out for assembly, although that might have to wait for a few weekends. Have some FIRST FRC Robotics competitions to officiate the next couple of weekends now. But at least it is in the house now!

 

I've received the package yesterday! (it took a few days to clear customs)
I've started assembling the OX the same day, with my son helping me find parst. Everything was clearly marked and instructions are really easy to follow. I was impressed with the quality of the printed manual, and overall packaging.
Can't wait to continue the assembly tonight!

 

On the third day build is complete. Everything works as it should!
The build went smoothly, except for a couple of hick ups on my part: i only attached one board support, so had to remove some parts. Not a major, but I would suggest adding a reminder in the instruction 2.6.6 to insert additional tee-nuts for the other supports.
Having a few spare drop-in-tee-nuts was quite handy, as I forgot about a coupe of tee-nuts during assembly.
Also found a small error in the manual point 2.6.5 A: it talks about a 10mm bolt, however in the part list it references 8mm bolt.
Otherwise the instructions are superb!

Next thing is to tidy up the cables, add waste board and mount the spindle. Also planning to add limits.

Can't wait to do my first CNC project on my OX!

 

Got around to installing a spoil-board and realised i need some drop-in tee nuts and screws, so have to source some more. Perhaps an option can be added to the Full Kit to choose a set of nuts and bolts for the spoil-board with 1, 2 or 3 supports?

 

It's been almost a year since I got my Ooznest OX, so I thought I post an update and go through some of the mods I've made over the year.

The machine has been great, the only mechanical issue I've experienced has been the grub screws coming loose on one of the motor pulleys.



The first mod is the lowered spoil board; I achieved this by moving the support rails out the side as far as they would go, and dropping the board onto a timber frame sat between the original aluminum supports.

This has given me plenty of space for the sheet materials I generally cut, but If I need more I can easily swap out the wooden frame for a shorter one.

Ive added limit switches, at both ends of the X&Y


but only the top of the Z



I use them for homing, and while they work fine as hard limit switches, I prefer to use the GRBL soft limits.

In the early days dust was a real problem. The downdraft from my katsu router ( clone of makita rt0700 ) didn't help. So I made a mount with integrated baffle & dust shoe.



It's pretty good now, and seems to keep the dust contained even without a vacuum attached.

You can also see the speed sensor for my PID router speed control. I was having real problems cutting acylic without melting, and traced it down to spindle speed. The routers claimed 10000-30000rpm, turned out to be 18000-36000rpm in reality. So I set about making an external PID speed control (now this was real learning experience!), that allows me to control the speed from 3000-36000 reasonably well.


I started out with an Arduino Uno and CNC shield, but as part of my aim in building the machine was to learn about motor control electronics. I soon had a more elaborate controller.



Three Boost DRV8711 modules configured via an Arduino, and a separate Arduino for GRBL + bluetooth interface. I love the huge amount of tuning/configuration options these modules offer, but I'm not sure I'd recommended them to someone who just wants their CNC machine to work.

Overall it's been a great experience building, tuning and using the machine over the year.

 

is there a canada distributor? could only find UK.

 

Ordered my 1000 x 1000 OX CNC 5 days ago
Can't wait to get it.
Still need to figure out which spindle I should take.
But I need to use the CNC in my apartment / sleeping room, so I need to be it as quiet as possible and reduce the dust.
Think I will have to build an enclosure around it and use a water cooled 1.5 kw spindle.
I was not able to find any details about the max height of the machine? Can anyone help here? Thank you!

 

Hi guys. Im trying to make some Fairly exact 20mm circles and this is what i get with the ooznest. Im using a 1/4 2 flute straight cutter with standard bottom cutters for plunging.

And i thing that these look rather like rubbish. Any tips as to how i can improve these? I notice when running the machine slow the whole machine Vibrated heavily.


750mm/min 2mm depth per pass


300mm/min 1mm depth per pass


1200mm/min 1mm depth per pass

 

Ahh ok Will try that.

 

Thank you for your reply.
But I can only see "Z Travel Explained" and it says it has a total travel of around 70 mm.
I am looking for the overall height of the machine.
Which height does my enclosure require, so I can put the whole machine in it and it can still fully operate.
Probably the total height is more than 7cm?

 

I would think that a 1.5kw spindle would be too heavy for the ooznest? I thought I read somewhere that the max would be an 800w spindle weight wise, unless you are going to do some mods to strengthen?
I ended up going with a 500w air cooled, thought that would be good to learn the machine on, then upgrade to 800w at a later time if I thought necessary.

 

Thats a good info to know.
Does the 500w air cooled enough power to cut thin aluminium?
Mainly I would like to cut wood.
And may I ask how loud your spindle is?

 

First try after soldering the jumpers on the back of the cncxprov2. Big difference. Thanks Ryan.

 

I haven't actual recieved it yet, just ordered the ooznest last week and spindle a few days ago. Can let you know when it arrives ☺
But as far as noise goes I was wanting something quiet too. From my research the spindle by itself does not make much noise, till it's cutting. And from what other people have said, most of the time the vacuum cleaner is the noisiest thing.
In any case I eventually build some sort of noise damping box around both the CNC and vacuum. Keep the neighbours happy