Exellent CAD drawings, this will be a great build to follow and I can't wait to see the final outcome, as this will certainly give me a lot more insperation to start mine.

Paul

 

A really nice work. Can You publish files in STEP format ?

 

Very nice indeed and I am flabbergasted at the quality you grabbed out of Solidworks on those first pics. HOW?!?

 

I figured that is what you used but I hardly hear of that anymore since the days of SW 2009/2010 days.

 

Nice build. I will be watching this from a SW enthusiast point of view and a future CNC builder point of view too. You have done a lot of work. Very nice. Did you ever consider the Shapeoko 3 that is in the works? I am tossing back and forth between ordering a Shapeoko 3 or building an OX. The $1000 dollar with router price tag is appealing for the Shapeoko 3, but the size of the OX keeps calling to me! Do you have a price estimate that you expect to be coming in at?

 

Check out the OXcalculator to get an estimate of a 'typical' OX build. Give it as little as the X, Y and Z dimensions of your OX build and it will generate a BoM and cost. Default item costs are mostly from OBPS, but you can drop in your own. A few updates are in works ...

 

I don't care much for Shapeoko 1/2 and while 3 is a lot better it still is just too much for too little imo. It is getting there though so I have hopes S4 will be sturdy enough for my needs at the same cost as the S3 INCLUDING the spindle which has always been a toy version with the Shapeoko. If the Spindle is not at least 800 watts it can just stay at home imo.

 

Exactly, the part about knowing what is in something matters a whole bunch but the part about designing something then seeing it work is priceless. The only thing I can think of that tops that is when someone, or a lot of someones, end up building your design. I can't think of anything that thrills me more than designing something and knowing at least someone besides myself was able to use it.

 

there is an ox in that price range as a kit also.
http://www.spark-concepts.com/zeus-cnc-router-kit/
the owner has pulled to kits till he get's caught up, but for the money it's a great kit....
Bob

 

Thanks Bob and all else who answered. Bob this is exactly what I would be interested in. Something around $1000, that would not take a year to build. I just want to get a working router as soon as possible without breaking my bank. So aa 'everything you need' kit would suit me just fine. I get nervous when I see people who post their 'hello world' video and describe their year long journey bringing everything together. Is this what it typically takes someone who goes down the OX path? I ran that calculator, great work by the way, whomever did that, and I was seeing $1700. I am not familiar with all the components so I do not know if the one I downloaded was a typical build or not.

I just emailed the Spark Concepts guy for more info. Thanks for the tip.

 

I can only speak about a CNC 3d printer not a CNC router but the concept would be similar for this purpose.

For a 3d printer if you buy an all in one kit they seem to go together over a weekend or a 6 hour no break sprint. For a self sourced 3d printer with only the wiki to go by it took me 16-18 hours non stop and another year to finally get it all dialed in (long story).

So, I'd imagine if you buy a kit for a CNC Router you will end up paying more (10%-30%) BUT you should have a point of contact if anything is missing or isn't working properly. If the person you buy a kit from is not there for an after the sale session, if needed, they should be shunned from the open source community.

Now, what I didn't see in that kit was a mention of a spindle and let me tell you they run some bucks. The controller (don't touch the Chinese craptastic controllers), Spindle (Chinese spindles seem to be okay for the most part) and a water cooler (air is alright but I value my hearing and 50-100 dollars more for that is worth it to me) can run 600 (expect so-so at this price) to 1200 (expect prosumer quality) to 2 grand (very good quality but way overkill for what we build).

So, I have found that whatever the machine runs double it for a nice spindle setup. Too rich for my blood still but ymmv.

 

I will be cutting wood and plastics, rarely metals. My plan was to start with a strong wood router. Would I still need cooling?

 

Well, cool

Well, cooling is always needed but some spindles come with air turbines on the top of them and others have holes where the water+coolant connections go. Think of it like active cooling versus passive cooling in a PC but there is another reason I want it (I will be doing soft metals mostly myself) and that is the water cooling one you will mainly hear the bit whereas the turbine cooling is more akin to the ancient days of the 486 and those 60mm 8k rpm demon fans. Try being a PC tech and having to work on those darn things all day, lol.

So, you can always go the air route if you wish and it will save you a C note approximately (50-100 dollars) I just have never liked air cooled spindles (besides the wind blowing from the spindle blowing the chips all over the place).

 

that kit does come with the spindle it's a harbor freight trim router. there are only 2 things you need to buy are a spoiler board and a bit. board 11.00 home depot, bit 20.00 home depot.
link to my thread about mine.
http://www.openbuilds.com/threads/zeus-cnc-router-kit.773/

 

Nice to know but lets be real a HF router does NOT a spindle make. Two entirely different beasts with the winner being the spindle in every aspect. One of the biggest differences is that a spindle can go for hours and hours every single day whereas that router (or a palm router, Dremel, etc...) is not made for continuous duty like that. Oh, and the spindle, even an air turbine cooled one, is 10 million times quieter too.