[tonydiethelm]

Hi All,

I've been building CNC machines for around a year now. It started with 2x4s and love. It's a lot better now.

This is not professional grade, but it's a really great starting point.

The idea of this machine is that you get a square table, bolt rails to it, and mount a gantry. It's supposed to be easy to do. I actually use an old door that I put legs on.

Ah, but every door/table is different. And what about different spindles? Yes! I have a python script that can be put into FreeCAD. You can change some variables to fit your machine (dimensions of lead screw, dimensions of table, what size MDF you're using, dimensions of your spindle, how much you want to cut in the Z direcion, etc, etc) and the script will spit out CAD files for your machine. You can then laboriously drill holes in all the right places, or get someone to cut it out for you.

I'd like to find some folks to help me with documentation and code. What I have works, but it's just me.

The machine uses a screw for the Z axis, and belts for X and Y. Thanks to the script it's fairly easy to make changes, play with things, etc. No hours spent poring over CAD. Now you can spend hours poring over Python scripts. Ha! No really, it does save a ton of time.

Details can be found at:
diethelmcnc.wikispot.org
https://github.com/tonydiethelm

Thanks for looking,

Tony Diethelm

[Zeph]

Sounds neat Tony- I do a lot of python, but would not be able to help at this time.

Could you post some screen shots and pictures of the unit? Maybe a video?