Mini CNC: A Handmade Masterpiece

Overview

One day I talked with a colleague of mine about a microcontroller for my ceramic furnace. He was talking to me about Arduino. A little googling and I found that Arduino can run stepper motors. With GRBL and Universal g code sender, everything clicks and the little CNC machine was born.

Because of a very small budget, the first steppers are chosen to be DVD steppermotors. Everyday I came from work I built one part of the machinery.

Micro CNC was alive! Little 2D carvings are plausible.

I didn't stop, I wanted 3D!

Going for 3D

I found stronger stepper motors on the web - 28byj-48, and cheap Johanson DC motor for spindle. I wanted a bigger area and bigger models, so I built a new frame and linear motion with ball bearings on ALU l profiles.

Everyday I pushed my self, and little by little the machine was growing.

The first 3D model

After lot of ups and downs with the first real 3D model:

Then second:

A lot of people on the tube asked for plans I didn't have, so I made a little video.

Complex models

Then I wanted more complex models. For them, I needed more power. Upgrade was on the spindle (dremel like engraver with carbide tools) and, of course, nema 17 stepper motors. Results are flawless.

I wanted to test durability so I stressed my mini CNC with 14 hour job.

She passed but I kept stressing with more models.

There is a lot of stuff that I can speak of but this was an unbelievable journey.

Here are close-up views of the machine.

I wanted to share my journey with all of you. I will update this project and I will share all info that I collect. A new end mill experiment is coming soon: