Really interested in this as well, Where are your stepper hiding and what kind of spindle do you have?

 

Excellent looking machine Andrew we definitely need to see more details of this build.

Tweakie.

 

Very nice. Seems like the work area is larger that the 14cm x 14cm you've indicated. Maybe its just the photo. Whats the Z axis range ?

 

Man thats sweet! Super jealous. May have to build one before building a laser cutter.....

 

Its a beauty! and I have a soft spot for this sort of thing (300mm cubes, O'course) and while I am not (yet) using any openbuilds components - I have watched to introduction and maturing of this concept with keen interest.
I have a related project (related to small CNCs) called CubeSpawn

Website http:/cubespawn.com
Pictures picasaweb.google.com/103828779781480193226

 

@CubeSpawn,

Very interesting project, thanks for sharing.

Do you have any videos of a CubeSpawn machine in action ?

Tweakie.

 

Not really, but I'll be happy to post one as soon as I finish the new smoothieboard/R-Pi control stack -its ROS (Robot Operating System) over Raspbian, commanding smoothie - using MTConnect for cube to cube messaging and distributed control.

Earlier attempts have not been suitable in my opinion, lacking either power/fidelity/interoperability or reliability so the quest continues...

http://www.raspbian.org/
http://www.ros.org/
http://www.mtconnect.org/
http://smoothieware.org/

 

I love it!
Having had this for a while now, what are your lessons learned, mods, future build plans or wishlists? Appreciate your thoughts!

 

I'd really like to build a turning center and a surface grinder to complement the 3 Axis mill and the 3D printer. Other things needed are a pallet transporter to move work between machines, a tool changer and tool magazine that adjoins a mill, a tool setter cube, a tool grinder cube, a modular fixturing cube, an assembly cube, a pass through chop/cold/band saw whose maintenance can be automated... ;-) not all that much, really!!

I'm also re-thinking how the mechanical module fits into a cube, thinking it should have a track to roll in on at the bottom of the frame, (from the pallet/module transporter) rather than a friction rail at midpoint...

For the future - I'm hoping to get design help from communities such as OpenBuilds, and maybe CNCZone to spread this micro-factory Concept - if we all build to an interchangeable standard, then everyone benefits from anyone's efforts - combine that with a standard set of controllers (or at least standard interfaces) and we can leverage each others work - I want every Walmart in the world (or whomever has the big stores, locally) - to vacate their retail space for the regional factory - (they have already built at the best current demographic nodes ;-)

Throw in materials recycling designs, and small power plants and it could transform the worlds economy - Recycle all materials, use locally generated power (I am working on a Cactus->bioGas->methane->Fuel Cell system for here in TX - much smarter than Fracking for the LONG term) as well as a pyrolytic gassifier (wood->internal combustion->electricity) solar thermal (similar to gosol.org) and of course PV and wind. Commiting these designs to digital templates that can be made on the machine arrays could accelerate the adoption process.

Everyone is invited to participate, and reap whatever benefits you can - I feel that owning an array of machines will be a licence to "print" your own material wealth at whatever level you desire.

Sorry for the big answer to your short question, but I'm pretty committed to this concept ;-)

 

OH! and here is a shameless plug to try and get votes for CubeSpawn on the NASA TechBriefs Contest: goo.gl/xXlmfT
It is a bit of a pain: you have to create an account to Vote and they seem to want a lot of info...
But! think of the benefits of having CubeSpawn!

 

Hey Mark, FINALLY circled back around to this concept - it has been an action packed 3 months!! how would I round up a set of v-rails to build the motion for one of these machines? does Fairshare provide them at reduced cost? as engineering samples? ;-)
I think I would emulate one of the existing examples, just fit it to a module...