Lil CNC - ReWork + Hello World, Etch Video

Hi all, been building 3d printers for a few years now, but recently decided to take a dip into the hobby CNC realm with my latest open rework. I found a 3d printed 3 axis mill project over on instructables to get the ball rolling, and dug into it, designing my own set of printed parts for it,..

For a hobby mill made of plywood, plastic, generic 'all thread' lead screws, and economy electronics I am actually really impressed by the results, granted slow results, but still, results that you'd not guess came from such a basic machine.

I quasi plan on releasing it here, but kind of curious what you folks think about this Lil CNC project?
I do sell printed parts kits for this project, but I also make the 3d printed parts available for non compete re-work (points to links above), so i think that still works with this site, right..?

Here is a video I shot of the tool path of a ~20 min "hello world" etch (speed up 2.5x for sanity sake).



The etch is a modification of the open hardware logo i did, I am finding it a good relatively quick calibration / test etch for whenever I make changes.

Close up of the etch job in acrylic (not the first run, but maybe the 5th or 6th) The square border around the logo is 40x40mm for x/y calibration, and the text is at its tallest ~4mm tall. The cutting bit used was a 25deg, 0.3mm flat tip engraving bit, etch depth was about 0.4mm.


A deeper etch in acrylic


The machine


And my etch graphic.

 

Thanks (both), there are a lot of pics on the instructable, but i will be doing a build page here some time this next week.

here are a few from the X carriage / Z lift assembly.



and yeah, its a chunky plastic monkey (~30 oz of plastic 4 entire mill, most of that in the X carriage), but stiff as a brick in all but X, but that's the fault of the melamine sides more than anything, they need a bit of reinforcement still, probably some aluminum L extrusion epoxied to the inside lower edge of both sides...