My 6040Z HW + Marlin FW 5-Axis CNC Machine Build

hi. CNC newbie here... i've been planning to build my own CNC machine since few years ago, and now i think i've completed 90% of it and ready to move on to SW/PC Controller and CAM side, if not because covid lockdown it will take more time than this to complete the project, probably few more years to come.. the rest of 10% work is mostly for the 5th axis, and some limit switches which is not really critical atm. let me see if i can post few pictures... the build is based on 6040Z frame bought from aliexpress, "smallish" 500W spindle, some TB6600 drivers and NEMA23, some parts such as spindle were bought few years ago, slowly. and now i've managed to install modified Marlin FW in RAMPS + Arduino Mega board (2 extruders setup whether mixing (full 5-axis motion hack) or non mixing setup (4+1D motion)), and the thing is now ready to accept g-code command, whether through offline SD card, or PC USB connection yay! i have a few questions though at current stage, but it more related to CAM side, i will make another thread for that... if anyone of you have some suggestion, feel free to give a newbie me an advice, cheers.

It looks like a solid machine.I can see the fourth axis clearly,have I missed the fifth?I wish you well with the remainder of the project and have a feeling that the software may be a bigger project than the machine build.

Thats great will you share the firmware?

@routalot, assembling the aluminium frame was no big deal, took only few minutes to an hour or so, i think it was about a year ago... the craziest part was to soldering a lot of wiring on arduino ramps board (modding the ramps board) and connectors to LCD etc, it took 2 covid lockdowns period to accomplish all whats shown about 6 months time span, i also soldered the same complexity ramps+arduino board for my other big 3d printer project during the moment, so i was building 2 arduino+ramps boards, so double the time needed to complete electronics side. yes the 4th axis also bought from china. i was considering the 4th and 5th axis rig too but the 6040z y-axis gantry is too low from the bed that i'm afraid the ready made china rig will not be suitable for the frame so i postponed the ready made 5th axis. if possible i'll design my own. so i proceeded with buying the 4th axis only jaw chuck, thinking i can mod a motor to it for lathe operation as well, 5th axis will be the last stage in the process, though you can see it in the picture, just a stepper motor laying on the bed next to the 4th axis chuck/jaw, thats the current 5th-axis (simulation mode) ;). the current physical/hardware built so far (3 or 4 axis ready) is up to a point that i'm satisfied that i will enter the next level ie CAM/controller SW side. and err, start posting here for advices on CAM/etc... i did study and registered into this forum about few years ago when i started the plan for a CNC and started buying stuffs bit by bit. but only now i think i'm ready to join the community, so consider this as my intro thread as well, i'm too busy to find an intro thread in this forum, so sorry. i was busy learning electronics in another forum.

@khalid. the firmware is Reprap Marlin, its open source you can download from their github site and start modding to suit your machine. but i will not recommend that FW in this forum since Marlin is specifically designed for additive 3D printer machine, and the PC CNC controller SW support for it is still at a very poor stage atm, i'm thinking to build my own as well in the future. there are branches for CNC machine using it but i cant find a success story in the net using that machines and FW. and it cant fully support full true 5-axis motion atm although i read the developer will implement it soon, but not yet. currently i'll have to figure out a hack on how to make it support full 5-axis motion by using some diy script, or just simply resort to 4+1D type of motion (A and B axis (E0 and E1 for 2 extruders setup) cant move simultaneously). the reason i choosed it because currently i have 3 machines (2x diy 3D printers and one pcb milling machine) thats using the FW, this 6040z CNC is my 4th machine build. so by using the same FW, i have less effort to do FW maintenance and upgrade for all of my diy machines. FWIW. thanks guys for chiming in.

You should take a look at grblHAL. It is the 32-bit evolution of Grbl and is open source. Supports up to 6 Axes and has a lot of higher end features like tool change, canned cycles and very high step rates (up to 400kHz). I make a breakout board for it that supports 5 axes. There are quite a few machines based on it - see some of them here.

@soasystem
I am also in making of my 5 axes CNC machine, having 3d printers with Marlin firmware..I intend to use RosettaCNC hardware as well as software as it has real time RTCP for 5 axes and on youtube video it looks amazing with real time simulation as well.
I am interested in Grbl 5axes firmware but not have time neither it has RTCP.