[apollo]

Hello everyone,

I've just found this site; I'm really impressed. Anyhow, I'm about to begin construction on my third mill. I thought you might be interested in a few pictures from my second. As you can see it's mostly made out of lego bricks. The only thing not made out of legos are the dremel and the three stepper motors. The steppers are computer controlled via a motor controller I built.

I'm pricing parts for version three now. I already have the new stepper motors. These are NEMA 23, the lego mill used NEMA 17s. At 3 amps per phase, I'll have to build a new motor controller and get a new power supply. I have the parts for that picked out, too. I plan on getting a surplus graphic LCD display for a digital read out. Suppose it doesn't matter, since I don't have (read can't afford) encoders I won't be able to operate it by hand, but seems like a nice feature...

Anyhow, I'll let you know how it goes when it gets going.

[apollo]

Here's the side

[apollo]

and the top

[cncadmin]

Woo, way cool, who would of taught to make one out of legos.

[balsaman]

Sweet. Have you cut stuff with it?

Eric

[apollo]

Sweet. Have you cut stuff with it?

Well, of course ...but there are a few problems. As you can imagine there's a bit of backlash. The yellow springs on the gantry were added to help with that, and did a little. And of course the dremel is not held as tightly as it should, but it is actually secured really well, for legos. Also the gantry is also heavy, so I had to really torque up the y-axis motor so it would move. It uses 2 screw gears, so the gear ratio is more than 576. SLOW... The x-axis is much faster and lighter. z-axis is also no problem.

My goal is to mill circuit boards. I'm an electrical engineer, and just starting to pick up this mechanical stuff. The lego mill did help me learn a lot. A good place to start before the bigger investment.

[HuFlungDung]

Apollo

LoL, you should sell the plans for the Lego machine, maybe that's your calling

[hardmill]

Is this you:
http://www.ozbricks.com/bobfay/newmill.htm
There is actully a 5 axis mill on this site.

PEACE

[apollo]

No, not me, but I had seen that site before.

I think I might have been ambiguous before, the next mill won't be made out of legos.

[anoel]

...

[ezland00]

very nice

[balsaman]

Do the Lego people know about this?

Eric

[WOODKNACK]

seems like the dremmel would vibrate everything loose!?

[apollo]

No, the dremel is quite well supported. It doesn't vibrate any noticable amount. Although I'm sure that if I ran it long enough, the legos might start to melt.

I'm pretty sure that the lego people don't know about this one. They might be more interested in the one that hardmill gave the link to. That one is 100% legos. Though I didn't have much use for a toast cutter...

[oracle99]

I am extremely new to cnc. From the research I have done on CNC machines, I though hey why not build a CNC out of legos. Being a poor college kid it would make sense with my limited resources. I just joined this site to learn more. Low and behold what do I find, that my bubble has been popped. I am thinking 3 axis and my dremel it will only be used for small projects workspace about 6 X 12. I have not bought any materials yet though I am definitely intrigued. Thanks for the inspiration!

[Nono]

You know they pay big bucks to people that build this stuff. There are guys that work for lego that all they do is build things and make prints. Most of them are not kids (at least not by age) and get paid more the a hundred K a year to play with toys isn't to shabby. You are my Idle :cheers: