Hello and thank you in advance for any information and advice! I have always been fascinated in the world of CNC. I have recently been watching my friends CAM business start up and decided I wanted to be a CAD/CNC hobbyist. I am wanting to build a CNC router/laser for a milling and wood-burning hobby. I am partially disabled and can no longer do much woodworking with hand tools efficiently anymore. I would like to build electric guitars and I need to build a machine approximately with a work space of 600 x 1200 mm. Being on a small fixed income cost is an extreme factor. Would anybody like to give a newbie some friendly advice. I worked as a computer hardware technician for many years wit a little experience programming in BASIC (35 years ago) and a little Visual Basic. I have a little experience with Arduino and have a few spare UNO boards lying around. I also have a 3/4 hp 24000 rpm B&D router to use as a spindle. I have some scrap 3/4" MDF scraps which I hope I can use as base framing. I would like to know what would be the the best setup for me ie., moving work space, or moving gantry,... NEMA motors (size & torque), leadscrew sizes, etc. As said before, thank you in advance for any help and advice. I'm sure all my questions have been answered in previous post but I am too anxious to get started!
At that size, you would probably be best off with a moving gantry with a fixed work space. To get the work area you need, you will have to go 1500mm by at least 850 mm. That is what I have and can cut 49" by 26.5". For the 1500 mm length, you will have to use 1/2-10 5 start precision acme rods available at McMaster -Carr if you want to stick to using screws. You can use the 8mm screws from the part store for the other two axis. Or, you can use belts for the x and y. I would read through the many larger builds on this forum to see issues folks have had prior to rushing in and committing to something. The larger the cutting area the more issues, such as rigidity, can arise. For something this large, I would use the high torque nema 23s and the DQ542MA drivers with the arduino boards you have. The Sphinx build shows how to wire them.
If you use the search bar in the top right of your screen and put in "guitar" you'll see several discussion threads that may have some useful information.
