Hey everyone! I haven't posted here in 4 years, but I have something that I think you'll find interesting. I built a Swiss type CNC mill-turn center. This was a DIY project, 2k budget. What you see here is actually the 2nd prototype. The reason I'm posting this now is because I'm planning a crowdfunding campaign soon, I and need some feedback ahead of time. To summarize, I got into building this because I was manufacturing 3d printer hotends and the machining costs were kind of high. So I designed and machined the machine you see below.

It's sized for a 6 inch chuck on the main turning spindle, and the swiveling milling head is a 30 taper. I built this thing as rigid as possible. The milling head spindle bearings are larger than on a bridgeport. The other bearings have a 100mm diameter OD. The machine base is a solid 4x4 square bar, just under 4 feet long. All linear axes are large boxways, I know the people around here seem to love linear guides, but I prefer my machines to have that old school stoutness that you can't get with fancy drawer slides. And no ballscrews either. I've extensively tested my linear axis motion; positioning repeatability is a few ten-thousandths, backlash is under 0.0006". Checked with a dial indicator. I wouldn't have been able to make this machine with $2,000 if I had to spend $2,000 on the rails and screws alone!

The whole thing is controlled by a 3d printer control board. Saves a lot of money, and 3d printer tech has a much larger community that has overcome many of the glitches that still plague cheap CNC machine controls. This machine is compatible with NEMA 23, 24, and 34 steppers and servos, but I plan on using a lot of ODrive servos in the production version. The main turning and milling spindles already have them, they're closed loop systems that allow for rigid tapping and threading and stuff. Plus, they're approximately 10 times more accurate than steppers and ridiculously fast in comparison.



I pity the foo who can't see these glorious GIFs. It may take a minute to load them if you have bad internet. There should be 6 of them directly below, and they should look just like a 30 FPS video if they're playing normally. The gifs are hosted on the Hackaday forums since they don't have restrictive file size limits over there.








I don't think this forum allows post editing, so I'll have to fill in the details in subsequent posts. More pictures and videos to come. Ask any questions you can think of. Critique all you want, I'll try to respond to everything.