My First Home Built CNC Router UT2
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- This is the second video of my CNC Router. I used it to make off-set Gantry Side Supports that increased the Y axis machining length by another 10cm. It is the first real machining job I have performed with this new machine and even though it was not primarily designed for working with aluminium it did however perform superbly. My main intention for it is machining Wood and Acrylic, though now I am convinced it will be able to perform well with Aluminium for similar machining jobs to this. Now it is capable of routing Y58cm X X40cm. All the details are on my web site: www.ghqp.com.au. Sorry there are no drawings or plans as I never created any. I just made it up in my head as I went along, just a few meaningless very rough sketches that now bear little resemblance to the finished product so would be of no use.
UPDATE May 2015
I have just completed a re-design and build of the Z Axis Assembly.
The purpose for doing this was to increase the rigidity and incorporate some new ideas. Unlike the original Z Axis you see in the video that was constructed by hand using a Drill Press and manual mill, this new version was machined almost completely using the CNC Router. I took hundreds of photos and some videos all during its prototyping build and testing. I will make available the dimensions drawings created in the CAD/CAM software I use Vectric Aspire. Look for this on my website in a few weeks. - Навчання та стиль
I was searching the internet for some hardened steel shafts for utterly different kind of project, when I found this video.
That machine is so nicely constructed I almost cannot belive it is home made. Very nice job!
WONDERFULL ! This is the BEST CNC machine I have ever seen on UA-cam ! I love that you keep clean your workshoop , simply breautifull . Greets from Romania !
An effort like this would take me the rest of my remaining lifespan. Very cool and nicely done.
Looks better than 99% of the pre-built ones.
+ComandanteJ Thanks :)
+hamrx8 That's true ...looks so good !!!!
more like 100% of them
Sometimes I get an email that someone has made a comment or asked a question on this UA-cam channel but when I look at the relevant posting I don't see that message so am unable to reply. All I can suggest to anyone that has not received a reply via UA-cam within a reasonable amount of time that they visit my website and use the Contact me form to directly send an eMail.
www.ghqp.com.au
Yo nunca comento nada en estos canales, pero esta vez tengo que opinar, es usted "un genio del diseño" y su máquina cnc, creo que "es una obra de arte de la ingeniería".
si me permite me gustaría saber más de sus diseños, gracias
Federico
+Federico garcia apianes Thank you I appreciate your comments.
I do not only try to make my projects functional but yes also a work of art, it does have to also look good.
I can only say that I am very happy with them. When setting up all the alignment there was one very brief point where I did get a clicking but once I got the alignment set it didn't and now a few years later has never happened again.
This video is so inspirational because he is replicating like a rep rap. Such amazing design and engineering.
Very nice machine. You did a beautiful build. Cutting parts for your machine was very interesting also. The overview of whole is greatly appreciated.
Steven G Rochelle Thank you I appreciate you taking the time to comment.I am currently doing a slight re-designin of the Z axis that I hope to publish in the next 4-6 weeks.
CONGRATULATIONS One of best homemade CNC I ever seen. clean, well mounted, balanced, accurate, my sincere congratulations.
Greetings from Spain
I am very pleased with every aspect of these Spindle Motors and the VFD. To date I have purchased three of them, one Water Cooled and two Air Cooled. I purchased them of eBay.
You made a very beautiful machine and you can be proud of it. Great craftmanship my friend.
I just watched your video again after a few years. Thanks you inspired me to build my own machine.
9 people were jealous. The home made CNC. I would anodise in blue all alloy parts. But this will produce more jealous people with bad feedback. Great job mate
Hello, I know this is quite an old video but I found it very interesting to watch how you slowly milled the aluminium gantry plates and the finish was very good.
I have just buit a DIY machine with 3D printed gantry plates and would like to attempt milling the gantry plates in aluminium to replace the 3DP plates. Could you please share roughly the speeds and feeds that you used.
Unfortunately I cant find that file as it was well over 10 years ago. However if I was doing it today these might be my settings if I were to choose to go with a single flute 4mm End Mill, back when I cut these side supports I exclusively used 2 flute end mills for aluminium but these days I only use single flute. So my settings would be:
Pass Depth: 0.5mm
Stepover: 75%
Spindle Speed: 1800RPM
Feed: 500mm/min
Plunge: 90mm/min
I hope this helps.
@ Nice to hear from you and thank you so much for your reply. I have made a note of the details and will experiment and might need to dial down some of the figures to compensate for my slower 500W spindle that only does around 12,000rpm. What I was thinking to do first is make the plates out of Birch plywood and replace the 3D plates with Ply and then attemp milling aluminium kind of RepRap method. Btw, what is the tool you were using lazer to zero out the axis? Thanks again!
@@MP-mu1kwSounds like a good plan. I used a Laser Edge Finder.
lasercenteredgefinder.com/
I loved the design, I served as inspiration, is a very clean machine, i am building my own machine, I'm using a 1.5 kw motor, and if working space is 3 x 4 ft, thank you very much for sharing this video.
Your machine is a work of art! Nicely done. And you keep a beautifully maintained shop as well.
Fantastic workmanship! That is a top notch home-grown machine.
That is one fine machine you got there!!! I'm gonna jump on over to your url and research this more!! I love how clean and organized your workspace is!! OCD? Perfectionist?! Haha!! But really that is sweet!! Great job!! This is the type and size i would like to have!! Would fit just right in the corner of the workshop and not take up too much space. Kudos!! Peace!!!
The Routers spindle motor is 1.5KW Air cooled, its body temp usually doesn't get over around 33 Deg Celsius even after 3+hours of running. I do use a 1.5KW water cooled motor on my modified Sherline Mill. Much more complicated to setup with all the additional water cooling hardware and plumbing. Comparing the two the Air Cooled motor is fine for home CNC work.
I use Vectric Aspire CAD/CAM software to generate my G-Code. Its an excellent package, though a little expensive to start.
The best advice that I can give is make it one stage at a time. Y then X then Z. Be patient as it will take a while, took me a few months, depends on how much spare time you have. Getting the basic machine up and running is just part of it, I spent more than another month fine tuning and with alignment. I acheived less than 0.3mm Z depth variation from one extreme to the other, corners over the bed. Thats quite OK for machining wood and Acrylic as its thickness can vary about that anyway.
your shop is cleaner than my living room. much cleaner!
Yes it is one from China I purchased on eBay. Not had any problems with it at all. I also have a Shirline CNC Mill I replaced its motor with a 1.5KW water cooled one from China. Both work very well, my preference for me is air cooled as it doesn't need all the water cooling plumbing and still runs just as cool. Though I have to say that even though I am sometimes running the Router up to 6 continuous hours the load on the motor is very light.
Lovely work. Cutter cooling & tool life could be improved with taking the cutter of the job at corners, or adding a vacum tube to pull out warm air from around the cutting tip & remove swarf ...... but it's another thing that will require attention, and get tangled up, may be cheaper to just burn a tip now and again & throw away .
Your home built router is awesome ! It's one of the best I saw.
I use Vectric Aspire. This is an all in one CAD/CAM software package. It is mostly used for wood CNC but works just as well regardless of the material. It is very easy to learn and use.
Hi and thanks for your comments. The material for the gantry arms was well under $100 for both pieces. That was a couple of years ago now and prices would have increased some since then. Aluminium is a lot cheeper from a commercial wholesaler than a re-seller. All the best with your machine.
I purchased the Controller, Stepper Motors and Power Supply from an eBay Store. There is no brand name. However I see that there are a lot of eBay stores selling the same thing. The board can handle a maximum of 3.5A drive current, the stepper motors are Nema 23 270oz-in.
That machine is beautiful. I actually have plans to build a similar mill with dimensions of 520 * 500 * 300 (x,y,z).
I am sure it could, this is what you set it up to be in your control software such as MACH 3 that I use. You must take into account the optimal cutting speed for the Material being cut, the cutting tool itself (Dia & Number of flutes) and the depth of cut.
There are rules for determining this. So it is not how rapidly you can run the router there are other factors to consider. Hope this helps.
i have watched this video atleast 50 times now... I LOVE IT.... GREAT work
Thank You.
I machined all the body parts myself. I have a large Mill and Band Saw. There is a project page on my website that has all the pics and descriptions of how I made it. The spindle motor is a 1.5KW Air Cooled VFD. I purchased it of eBay.
Thank you. Ideally liquid cooling/lubrication is needed to extend the tool life.
However It is messy and requires a lot of extra work to make the router able to handle it. As this router was mostly going to machine wood and acrylic I didn't bother. This is the only aluminium job I have machined with it but it proves that it can do it.
Going to the S style supports the centre of gravity is better over the Y axis bearings. So overall stability is better.
Great machine, thanks for sharing. I am in the process of building my own and have thought a lot about using offset gantry vertical sides to increase travel.
Correct me if I am wrong, but in your design which is similar in principal to mine, you can not achieve any additional travel because what you gain in the negative Y axis by moving the spindle position back, you lose on the positive Y axis because ultimately you are limited by the length of your rails.
Fred Morris For my machine I only gained on Y axis, the positioning is more centralised to maximise the full length of the bed positive and negative. Its a matter of getting the setback of the spindle optimum.
hamrx8 I am also thinking of incorporating a laser on my spindle, do you have a script to auto zero your spindle or do you zero it manually after jogging your laser? If you have a script, would you be prepared to share it?
Fred Morris Cant help you with that Fred, I zero my spindle manually using the laser only sometimes if needed.
Thank you for your taking the time to comment this is very kind of you.
I trust you will have a very long life and a good one.
Nice shop, too. Thanks for posting this. You do beautiful work.
AWESOME! Look very professional. Simply awesome. As someone that is in very beginning of creating something that wont be even close at that i envy you :)
Nice job. May you have many successful projects from it.
Not many jobs that I do require precise accuracy so I don't often measure them.
For the X and Y axis it is accurate to within 0.01mm and for the Z axis over the entire bed surface it is about 0.03mm. For smaller jobs max 150mm x 200mm I have a shirline CNC Mill and that is all over very accurate.
Best Regards... Graham
gorgeous machine compare to my small Chinese cnc, I envy people that have big workshop to play with :)
Very nice sir.
I would like to know if the cutting speed could be increased. Thanks
Thanks, I actually do my own anodising and could have done this. However once I got it all together and aligned I could not bring myself to breaking it all down just to make it look pretty. Maybe the next one if that ever happens. :)
Excellent work. Very well crafted. You are obviously meticulous in your work.
Thank you for your comment. Yes I am a bit like that :)
Like , you i've done the Z axis with manual drill, and i buy a 1.5 Kw motor+inverter. now i have to reconstruct it to increse rigidity. actually i can machine aluminium and bronze withowt problems.
I tryed also a hi speed milling with a 4mm mill with sucsess and without braking the little mill.The only problem is that with Mach3 i've the limitation on readable lines of the cnc program.. 500 lines.. that's a trouble for some finishing passes..
Not sure what you mean. If you are asking can the router make a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) the answer would be yes I just have not had a reason to make one yet. I have though mad PCB's with my Shirline CNC Mill.
Best build I've ever seen!!! Cool.
I use a 3 Axis Controller Board 3A + 263 Oz-in (18.9Kgcm) Stepper Motor (The Stepper Motors have 0.25inch Dia Shafts Double end.)
The build looks excellent. I'm planning on building one with a fairly similar design.
Thank you for your comment. Yes I am a perfectionist and quite anal when it comes to being tidy and organised. I get this from my father who was the same. Many people comment like you when they first see my workshop. As for the router I had been thinking about making one for nearly two years before I started. Hope you find my website interesting.
Sorry I will check it out as soon as possible. I have a very sick mum in hospital at the moment. If you get a chance please try my website form again perhaps on another computer.
Regards Graham
Simply beautiful. May I ask what projects you create with this, or are you just building better and better tools? My hobby is model shipbuilding, and I have yet to buy a scroll saw! I would love to start a project such as this, but I've not done research into homemade cnc machines.
Building my own machine.... What are those sbr bearing like? operate smooth? no slop? they are def. Cheaper to get but The linear rails (square ones) are more robust but also with a heftier price. Your thoughts on these would be great.
You got the 2.2kw spindle with the 3kw driver? Very nice router, great job!
I was wondering if thats one of the cheaper chinese spindles and if yes how its keeping up.
nice machine by the way, i have my own as well and want to get rid of the noisy Kress router
Nice to see your are using Mach 3
*You are
Yes I am and have done since getting into CNC about 7 years ago no. Mach 3 has performed flawlessly.
I use Vectric Aspire for CAD/CAM and Artsoft MACH3 for CNC Machine Control.
Hola. Felicidades por tu trabajo. Me gustaría saber como refrigeras la herramienta.
Muchas gracias.
this is the kind of cnc im looking to build, top work!
Great job! Just one question: What is the stepper motor force in Nm ?
they look like 1.8 to me but also might be 3 or more, it's hard to approximate the size.
Thank you for your comments.
For the Router I used a 1.5KW VFD Air Cooled motor. This works well and can run for hours at top speed 24000RPM and not get above about 32degC. Hardly warm. There is a lot of information on my website. Go to the PROJECTS section. The motor will run up to 24000RPM. I mostly use mills from 1mm to 4mm at speeds from 2400RPM for the smaller cutters down to around 1400-1600 for 4mm. Depends on the grade of Aluminium. Another new video soon.
Were you pleased with the spindle? In terms of run-out and play? And has it held up well in the time since you've bought it? How about the VFD? Sorry to ask so much! I'm up to my ears in my first CNC mill right now! It takes a lot of thought! Thanks for a great video!
I have found no problem with the linear bearings that I used, there is absolutely no slop that I can detect or measure. I guess what it all boils down to is what you can afford to spend vs the type of machining you will be doing. Not a lot of especially home built CNC machines I have seen use square linear bearings. Probably if I were ever to build another router I might use square bearings just for the Z axis.
wow such a pro job! well done. i'm thinking of building a cnc myself. do you not need to liquid cool the router bit while working on aluminium ?
one of the best CNC .... great work !!!
Yes I have used WD40 and it does work quite well. It all depends on the grade of aluminium being machined. For instance 6000 grade's are very soft and sticky so does need some sort of lubricant to stop buildup on the tools cutting edge. I have used Trefolex C.D.T. Cutting Oil and does not evaporate like WD40. Other lower number grades of aluminium do chip off quite well and do not stick to the cutting edge. The plate I am machining in the above video is 5083 Mill Finish Plate & had no problems.
Beautiful. Home built commercial quality
Nice work there. I'm building an open source version of the CNC my self with some help from my friend Cw. Would love your feed back and any advice you may have.
One very important question... how much did it cost you to build it?
Indeed is a work of art, congratulations!
I liked very much your job. i thinking remodeling my cnc in his work.
You are a lucky man! I wish you success!
Hi, nice machine!
where did you buy the slotted aluminum table plate and the spindle?
is that a 2.2 KW Spindle?
I am building one myself right now. I have everything but the Slotted Table Plate.
I have a Bosch Router for the spindle motor but I would like to change it with one like yours.
Is Mach3 working out good for you?
Yes... most of the main components were purchased off eBay. There is a text file you can download at the bottom of the CNC Router project page on my website. This has a lot of specifications and information where I purchased some the components.
Piece of art! Where did you get the laser thing from?
Store Name for the spindle motore is: love-happyshopping
There is a lot more information on my website.
Also at the bottom of the CNC Router Project page there is a downloadable text document with some specifications and purchase information for some of the main components.
Hope this helps
Regards
Graham
I have been looking to buy a mill station. I am sure that building one would be more satisfyiing. Is this something that is available on the market as a package or did you piece it together as per your own specs?
Very nice craftsmanship
machines building machines :O now we just have to wait for skynet to kick in
Purchased the Stepper motors on eBay there are lots of sellers, remember if you want to use handles ask for double ended shaft motors. I made the handles myself.
A very professional built!
Did you have the body parts of the CNC laser cut of machined?
Also, what kind of a spindle motor do you use?
The full bed size is 450x720mm
The maximum machinable job size is 400x580mm
Sorry to those few people that I don't reply to in particular when the question or comment is not in English language my translator is not the best and sometimes I might not have the time to reply. Please always go to my website the URL is overlayed and and at the end of the video. There is a lot more detail there that will answer many questions.
Excellent work, I am doing my homework on building a cnc router. What size stepper motors are you using?
The CAD/CAM software I use is VECTRIC Aspire and yes you can load DXF files. The Acrylic clock I made, I purchased the design as a DXF and used Aspire to create the G-Code. Aspire is a fabulous program though it is a little expensive however Vectric have other lower cost solutions.
They are specified as 18.9Kgcm or 262.4 Ozin don't have the spec in Nm.
Sorry I dont have a spare 2 months. Though I may make another one for myself one day. I enjoyed almost every minute of making this one though there were some frustrations along the way.
That is a thing of beauty!
Well Done. Fantastic machine.
very good machine. congratulations.
Beautiful...you should consider manufacturing them for resale. By the way, can you tell me the grade precision level of your lead / ball screws for the y-axis? You must be achieving very high tolerance compare to many gantry routers which have the gear rails, even the helical gear rails?
+Drake Dimitry Thanks Drake but I am retired now so only make things for my own enjoyment. I do however put a lot of detail especially regarding this router on my website so as to encourage and help others with their own design and construction. I am achieving good tolerance with my machine but must take into account I am mostly working with acrylic and not stressing the machine by taking lots of shallow cuts 1mm/pass for a 3mm cutter, for example. For me time is of no concern as I don't do this as a business. Lots more information on my website. Best regards
Hi, that machine looks super pro.
Thank you for your comment. Yes and if I ever built another one I would use this one to do an even better job. The principal probably goes back to the start of the industrial age where the first machine, lathe, mill etc was built all by hand and then it was use to build a better next one and so on and so on..... interesting to ponder upon.
Nice machine. I am working on one myself. Is there a reason why you put the top Y axis bearing blocks in a different orientation as the bottom ones?
Yes it is 24,000RPM the maximum spindle speed this motor will do. I use only Carbide cutters. There was probably no reason to run that fast, it was the first job. For most jobs now I use between 10,000 to 16,000RPM rarely do I crank it up to 24,000. Then again I mostly use my router for Acrylic projects.
Did you build that machine yourself? Do you have the plans? How much did it cost? Sorry about all the questions I am from the UK, that machine looks brilliant.
Great job!! Been looking at a few but would mine building one
Very good job! I very nice to see this machine
how much power about the spindle motor ? thanx
Very nice, just a question I know you've been asked, do you have any diagrams of your machine? I'm a college student and I can't buy a cnc milling machine and I really need one for making nice looking projects. I'll be very grateful if you send me your plans or whatever you have. Thanks in advice :)
With changing the Y from Straight to offset so you gain 10mm ..
Did you gain or loose Stability ?