Many thanks Stephen and very kind of you to say so I know it states 'Veteran' next to my forum name, but I'm far from it Personally, I think that you couldn't go far wrong with a WorkBee kit for many reasons, firstly, it's the quality and excellent design of the machine itself, that all leads to an extremely tough machine that I think can deal with just about any type of milling or routing you intend to do. And secondly, very important in this day and age, customer service ! .......... the best I've encountered in a long while

The first stage of DIY CNC'ing accomplished ................ top quality cnc machine, the rest is your choice of software. When I got into this a few weeks ago, I did notice the extraordinary amount of software available, both free and paid, that is available to produce your master piece. I chose my 750mm x 750mm WorkBee as a smaller package for a particular task, but for general use a larger machine would work just as well, my way of thinking was, a smaller cnc machine would always be stronger than a larger one.

As for the CAD and CAM software I have been quite surprised at just how good the free alternatives are, I thought I would try the free alternatives first then move onto the paid versions at a later date. I don't think I'll need to, as I'm pretty sure I could achieve everything I need to do with what I already have. The support and tutorials for SketchUp and SketchUcam are also very good, which will undoubtedly make the learning experience much easier. The first steps into learning everything about CNC machines and how they operate, is to join a forum, and the OpenBuilds forum is just the place. Wonderful people, and with members always glad to help

The sheer satisfaction of seeing your very first GCode being transformed into something is brilliant ! At first you're hovering over your machine watching it going through it's paces, hoping that you haven't goofed .......... then you see your creation coming to life. Almost like magic ! The quality of the printed logo is quite amazing actually, it got me thinking that if I had a cutter installed onto the tool holder, that I would be able to cut out vinyl lettering and logo's. So now I've found another job I can do with my machine.

Hope to see one of your builds in the near future mate



TURK

 

Thanks for the kind words Francis and yes, Ryan's the man ! he helped me big style. I was on the phone to him every other day with a barrage of questions
I'm sure you'll have a good head start for when you get your WorkBee ......... not long now ! Did you see just how accurate you can get with these things, the ability to adjust tolerances up to 0.06 of a millimetre ! That should come in very handy for your inlays on your guitars


TURK

 

Hi mate,

0.06mm was just the option I chose on the Z axis when I 'homed' my work position, as I used a feeler gauge, but I'm pretty sure you can set up any axis as accurately as you would need. I haven't calibrated the machine yet, but it looks to be just about right at the moment, having said that, I haven't had to do any precision work yet, just a test logo. Still learning at the moment mate, but when I need to profile my headlight mounting bracket parts they will have to be bang on target.


TURK

 

How nice of you to say so Mark, many thanks

What at first looked like a very difficult process in learning everything about CNC machines, how they operate and how to assemble one, was all made quite straight forward actually .................... thanks to guys like yourself and Ryan, and of course this great forum. It's I who should be thanking you.

I hope this build thread will continue to be a valuable resource for others, I've still got an awful lot to learn but I do hope to share some of my creations, and the things that only a cnc machine is capable of. I've spent countless hours viewing your videos that undoubtedly helped me a great deal. I've only just started with some very basic videos of my own, as I learn I also hope to upload more howto videos also. All this stuff has really given me a new lease on life, how to get creative and make stuff ! Including another bigger CNC machine


TURK

 

Hi Spandadk,

I'm by no means an expert at this myself, I'm sure they'll turn up soon enough to put me right though, but the first thing I would check is the tension on the ACME drive screws, it may be that you tightened them too much ................ as in compressed them. Try to loosen them off first. If that doesn't seem to make any difference the only thing left to do is to remove them, find a nice flat surface and roll them to see if they're slightly bent. That's the very thing I did before I installed mine, just to see of they were dead straight.

Sounds like a nice machine a metre square WorkBee, and I'm glad that some of my build thread helped to clear-up a couple of things. The 'Homing' thing is what had me for a while, as everything I read or saw on YouTube was referred to as 'Homing', yet they were in different places ! It was a couple of days before I came across David The Swarfer' thread about the 'Work Position Homing' as opposed to the 'Machine Home Position' .................... kind of a 'Eureka' moment you could say


TURK

 

I agree Spandadk that 'wobble' is quite severe, and now that you've done the 'roll test' I would look at buying replacements. And as fwm891 mentions, if it doesn't effect the operation of the machine now, it will in time due to excessive wear. I may not of emphasised enough in my build thread the importance of assembling the various assemblies accurately with precision, I treated all my assemblies as different sections, I assembled them on a known flat surface and used an engineers square, then assembled the different sections and double checked everything with my set square again. The image below is a classic example of assembling one of the Y axis gantry plates with the V-Slot wheels, what looked square by eye proved it wasn't ! The minor difference of a mere millimetre told me that the assembly was twisted, which would probably lead to the V-Wheels not running true >>




Same goes for the rest of the assembly, I think it's quite wise to check and double check that everything is square during the assembly. CNC machines are precisions tools and should be treated as such. But me being me, any old excuse to get my callipers, micrometer and engineers square's out ! >>





Don't worry about 'Spamming' my build thread mate ..................... I started this build thread with the intention of showing how I built my WorkBee with the hope that it will help other members to build theirs. As a 'WorkBee Owners Discussion' group any tips or issues can be discussed here, we're all here to learn from one another




TURK

 

What d'you use yours for ? ..................

I've seen a lot of great cnc builds on this forum, but not many people actually discuss what they're doing with them. Many I've seen quite a few ( judging by the sizes of them ) are purely for routing wood, sign making and the like. In my case ( as I may just as well get the ball rolling ), my prime objective is to help me design automotive headlights. Up until now, I've been doing everything by hand with the help of numerous jigs. Now that I've spent a few weeks with my WorkBee I'm really beginning to realise just how versatile that particular design is. The two different spoil board levels is a genius idea, 'Method Two' in the user manual will give you a maximum plunge depth of up to 47mm, but that can be increased even further by adding extra V-Slot extrusions under the base, this would also increase it's rigidity.

This is set up as 'Method One'. Whereas your spoil board would sit on top of the vertical V-Slot extrusions >>




And this is 'Method Two' .......... simply by installing the V-Slot extrusions horizontal your spoil board gets mounted inside the machines frame . And here we come to the reason why I bought the WorkBee, I can sit my work piece inside the cnc machine so I can machine the top of it. I've yet to make a proper work piece holder to secure my part firmly in the frame, but you get the idea >>




The other idea I had was to actually form my headlight mounting brackets, usually done by hand this can be a time consuming exercise ................ and as I'm using PU foam, the stresses involved will be minimal. This is one of my designs I completed last year, the basis of a prototype headlight mounting assembly >>




Once the PU foam above is formed it's then coated with a special resin, sanded and polished, I then make the moulds using silicone rubber >>




I then pour into those silicon moulds a special formulated heat resistant resin to make the vacuum forming 'plugs' >>




Then the part is vacuum formed using 3mm ABS. Here my WorkBee CNC will come in very handy yet again, as I need to profile and cut all the mounting holes to install the headlight units. Needless to say, all these parts must be absolutely precise >>




And here's one of my prototypes ..................... It's all very fine designing, fabricating and assembling one or two prototypes by hand but on larger quantities, you certainly couldn't guarantee accuracy every time, but with a cnc machine you can >>





I've still got a few things to do to my WorkBee, I'm going to buy extra lengths of C-Beam extrusion to install underneath to make it higher, this will give me a little more depth of cut as my part is quite an awkward shape, and I need to design a mounting block to install my part on, this should help to position my part accurately every time. I thought of using blocks of wood to mount the cnc machine on, but in a workshop where the temperatures seem to fluctuate depending on season, I think the wood would throw the WorkBee out of square due to the wood contracting. So what modifications do you guys intend on doing to your WorkBee's, and what special jobs d'you intend in using your cnc for ?

Would be nice to know ................ particularly the modding side of things, maybe someone's got a real nice idea I could use !





TURK

 

Thanks Mr Gray

Well that's my plan, and in theory it seems OK ................. but sometimes we have to change our carefully conceived plans. Another way to increase the cut depth would be to have a cut-out in a torsion box style worktop, that I'm also considering. But wouldn't that sacrifice the rigidity of the torsion box work top ? The point I'm making here is, once your WorkBee is completely assembled and ready for use, there are other ways of customising your CNC machine to fit your needs. I thought it may be interesting to see what others have done to theirs, and why.

I've spent a couple of weeks with SketchUp and SketchUcam, and then USG Platform, they all work perfectly well together, but fwm891 but me onto 'Cut3D' which looks to be a fantastic piece of software. The obvious advantage is, it's capable of everything within one package as opposed to going from to another. And it's quite a respectable price also. Anybody got any experience with it ?




TURK

 

.................. Funny you should say that Francis, I've just been reading it ! I'm currently looking at their members gallery, it's pretty amazing what people are doing with it.

As you say Mr Gray, Vectric seem be a rather good company, excellent choice of software with prices to suite every pocket. I also just found Cut3D on another UK site for £195.00 plus £6.00 postage !
I guess I'll download the trial version first and have a play.


TURK

 

One of the reasons why I asked Ryan was, while looking through and reading some of the comments on the forum, I noticed a great deal of members were planning on building or already have cnc machines of 1500mm and even 1700mm ................. that's a huge cnc machine in my book .................... and some people are even discussing machines of 4' x 8' ! So I was wondering what sort of work they would be doing on a cnc of those dimensions. I've also seen some very very large DIY cnc machines on YouTube, but you never actually see them make anything.

I guess that's what the 'Projects' page on this forum is for, but yet again, no big stuff. So lets see some BIG stuff guys !


I noticed yesterday that 'Vectric' are a UK company, I'll be talking to them soon about 'Cut3D' as I'm still a little confused about the built-in 'Post Processor'. The way I understand it, you still need a CAD program to design your part, then you import that .STL file into 'Cut3D' to create the tool paths ( Gcode files ) then run that Gcode via your 'Post Processor', in my case I'll be using 'Universal Gcode Sender Platform' .............. but UGS Platform isn't in the list of 'Post Processors' ! at least, that's what I'm reading on the Net. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, the 'Post Processor' ( the piece of software that's required to send the Gcode to your cnc machine ) has to be compatible with GRBL. Am I understanding that right or am I completely off with that one ?

Vectric have some superb tutorial videos on their site ( and on YouTube ), but they never show the entire procedure. They tend to always show V-Carve Pro in operation, how would that compare to 'Cut3D' though, is the process exactly the same ?



TURK

 

Thanks for tip Francis

I remember reading somewhere that somebody tried a 'universal' Post Processor that he found in the Cut3D PP list ..................... he didn't say how he got on though ! Unfortunately many of these discussion threads tend not to follow through with the matter at hand, so you're kind of left in the lurch ! I haven't spoken to Vectric as yet either, but I'm pretty sure you can download test Gcode files off their website, so I'll be trying that as well.

Of course, I will let everybody know how I get on, and probably end up doing a little write up about my thoughts on the Vectric Cut3D program if I decide to buy it, just got a few things to sort out first though.

It's pretty obvious to me by now that your CNC machine, as good as the WorkBee is, the true potential of the machine really lies on your workflow and the software you intend in using to create your parts. And of course, your own ability to use the software correctly. And as you rightly said in your build thread, your option to go for paid software as opposed to OpenSource software, is the ease of use and the time it takes to complete certain tasks. It's certainly worth considering investing a couple hundred quid and do away with all that extra frustration.


You got yours yet ?



TURK