CNC machine for metal work/rack panels

hey all

Edited by kevinmcdonough - 20 August 2015 at 12:10pm

Interesting topic, I'm halfway through building my own currently for a similar level of work (light metalwork down to PCB engraving) I'm guessing you are not interested in building your own? But do you want a one stop delivered solution, or would you be ok with some assembly? I'd certainly stick to routing for simplicity and safety. Would you like the mill to come with all s/w and a PC or would you supply that. Then there are the motors, motor drivers, and breakout board from PC. Like anything DIY you can save a lot by careful self building depending on the time vs money equation.

A lot of the cost could end up being software, but there are reasonably priced CAD packages out there such as Cambam which people seem to like. More of a concern is the s/w used to run the g-code that CAD produces. If you are going to buy a mill check what comes with it. For windows a lot of people seem to like Mach3 and the pricing is not too bad. There is also LinuxCNC which is free and quite powerful. It installs using its own distro so is pretty painless if you're not linux experienced, don't let that put you off trying it. You will need a PC with a parallel port to run it. I got it running my motors without too much drama but have yet to assemble the full frame and try a complete toolchain of design to cutting.

Some more modern cnc's use USB breakout boards and I think mach3 supports a few output boards via it. So for future proofing that may be something to consider, who knows how long motherboards will continue to offer suitable parallel ports (these are the majority of home level CNCs).

Something to think about is that if you use your own PC, laptops are generally bad and sometimes older is better. I had to do a bit of tweaking and basically force the CPU to constantly poll and not pwoersave before I could get good thread performance on a Dell 960 (Core duo so a bit old now). Modern processors have so much going on it can mess with real time output of gcode if setup is not done properly. This is where a breakout box that buffers gcode output rather then just directly controlling motors such as the smoothstepper can pay off in a modern system.

So I guess to make any recommendations it would help to know if you want a total turnkey system or you are willing to do some bits yourself such as the PC end and just puchasing the mill + electronics. If you have the patience and go slow then there are always Ebay bargains out there. I bought second hand ballscrews, closed loop motors, broken Kress 1000 spendle (which I fixed) and I think when I am done I will be less than £1k for the whole system. But I got a lot of free and second hand parts which puts the total system cost of even a small mill in perspective.

Another thing that would be helpful to define is what sort of feed rate and minimum dimension you would like to achieve, then work backwards from that in terms of motors and drivers. If you are willing to accept some backlash and play then you can save a lot of money on cheaper lead screws. One good quality ballscrew on its own can easily be >£100 with no problem.

I think that you may struggle to get quality at £1k, most quotes I looked into years ago were £2k+ for good quality mills and that was usually without PC and software. Perhaps prices are a bit lower now, a lot of people buy the cheaper chinese mills and then set about improving them in various ways. Some even like them as they come.

Check out http://www.cnczone.com/. There is a ridiculous amount of knowledge there, reviews of turnkey hobby systems etc etc. Like any engineer type community (cough, cough) some people can be a bit dickish but if you lurk and read a bit before stating what you're after I think you will get advice from some people who know their stuff.

snowflake wrote: I would be interested in this as quotes from UK seem ridiculous - £88 to do a 1U panel! best quote I have got is from US and shipped over.

Have you tried these dudes - http://www.schaeffer-ag.de/en/downloads/front_panel_designer/

Integrated CAD designer with upfront costs, did a couple of 1u panels with them and was about £80 for both +shipping a couple of years back. Costs can go up quick though if you start adding loads of cutouts and text.

Try Alan at Lincoln Binns, for custom rack panels, cut, printed, etc... Good prices too.

I 've bulilt a cnc router machine last year.dimensions are 100cmx100cm.Motors are nema234N and the spindle is a Kress fme1050.Except wood and plastic I also cut alluminum panels and recently tried on steel with very good results.Engraving on anodised allouminum is also possible.
It is built with high grade parts and materials.It is driven from Mach3 from artsoft.Rhino3d v5 is my CAD software and Aspire v8 from vectric is the CAM soft.I use an old desktop with parallel port which seems to be the safest and fastest way to run it.I only work cad/cam files from a laptop.
The whole thing with routers has to do with bits and knifes.Choosing the right one for the right job and run in the correct speed is essential for a good result.
Pcb boards is also an easy task after designing it with eagle and aspire.Bits that we use for pcb's are 0.4-0.8mm end mills and 20degrees v-bits.

some old pics and projects

Not sure if the would be suitable.