A year and a half ago I built this router. This was something I, by chance, put on my CV when applying for a workshop technician/advisor position at a University College, Department for Product Design. By strange coincidence this was exactly the kind of person they were looking for as they had, for some time, wanted to expand their workshop capabilities with automation/CNC. In other words, I got the job

As this is a fairly small department, we did not want to go overboard with the machines we purchase/build in this first stage. So this is what I have done so far:

I have just ordered a Sieg KX3S cnc mill for our metal workshop.

My challenge here was that the only machine the Norwegian distributor had in stock was the one prepared for Sieg’s proprietary control software, and thusly has a network port connector. I want to run MACH3 as this is what I use at home and what I intend to use on the router I am about to build.
I am fairly certain that the Sieg prepared machine and the MACH3 prepared machine both utilize the same breakout board internally and that it will be a fairly simple re-wiring job. I have emailed Sieg directly and hopefully they’ll be able to advise me

Now on to the main reason for this thread: The router build

My design is probably 75% done. I will document my design and my choice of hardware in the following posts.

My previous build was fairly lo-tech so I would immensely appreciate any and all feedback and opinions from you guys, so I can end up with an efficient and sturdy router for my students.

Mikael