Hey, everyone, I am currently finishing up my first year of Mechatronics Engineering at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Our class has decided to host a design symposium in approximately 5 months so that everyone can show off there projects that they were working on during their co-op terms ( Waterloo Engineering students switch between school and co-op every term to get a good grasp of real engineering practices, this also leaves us with lots of free time, due to having a void of homework and studying).
I have decided to embark on designing and building a CNC router.
My main goals are:
- Keep it fairly cheap ~ $1500 initial investment including a router
- Ability to machine 1/4" aluminum and polycarbonate (I am also a mentor for a FIRST robotics team and I hope to accurately machine gearbox plates from plate aluminum)
- A cutting surface of 12" X 24"
- A small enclosed design so that I can keep it in my basement
- A good portion designed by myself / an old design modified to meet my needs
I started off buying the Momus design, because it appeared to fit my needs the most. I read through the plans and looked at ways I could modify it to meet the rest of my goals. This meant to remove most of the gantry and design it a bit more rigidly using a Joe's hybrid approach of aluminum extrusion, V bearings and angle iron. I also decided to use lead screws instead of the belts due to the increased accuracy for aluminum.
As this is my first CNC build / design, I am looking for help and advice regarding the design. I included 3 pictures of the rough design that I have so far. So if you see any issues or anything I can improve on, or if you have any questions about my design decisions please let me know
So far I have purchased
$20 - Momus Plans
$105 - 200 oz-in steppers (They are fairly weak but I am hoping to use them for now and in the future upgrade the one on my Y axis and put two of these on my X axis)
$25 - computer with parallel port
Well I hope this will be my first of many posts as I should be starting with the base as soon as my exams are over. Once I have free time I will also be asking more specific questions as right now I should be studying for my calc and statics exams