Aluminum DIY CNC Mill: Parts and Cost
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มิ.ย. 2024
- Parts list is here:
pastebin.com/raw/qTwZPJzE
Note that the base width in the video isn't what I used. My base is 7 inches wide, not 6, because I got a good deal on an off-cut. I wanted to show prices for building it new, so that's why I put 6 inches width for the base; the supplier I looked at didn't have an option for 7 inches wide. - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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Really helpful and insightful for those of us who are yet to try this. The pastebin doc is great! Many thanks.
Fantastic build. Excellent looking machine, and it really hums when milling.
Awesome job! I'm on a Taig CNC mill, and what you did seems more capable than a stock Taig, for sure.
Thank you for being thoughtful enough to share your knowledge...
Thank you, simple and concise and useful. I'm trying to figure out how to build mine and what parts and sizes.
Thanks man. Great video and great machine you built. Glad that youtube recommended your vid to me.
thanks for sharing all the information and supplier !
I am using your dimensions and material list to make a mill like yours. I am a trade machinist 20 years. You could buy a bench mill but retro fitting a bench mill has limitations also. # 1 they have ways not linear bearings. The RPM is also limited due to gearbox.
I will be substituting aluminum for steel and I am making it thicker. 3" Cold rolled for frame and column. I want it heavy to dampen vibration.
This is awesome! I'm currently in the end stages of getting my own CNC Mill online, much heavier though (and more expensive, but nothing close to Tormach prices). I used hot rolled steel, grinding it as flat as I could using smallish and cheaper granite surface plate and Prussian blue. The thickest I could obtain from typical metal shops was 1" thick without paying an absolute fortune, but that seems to be good enough for now. I just used a rectangular tube for the column, welding another 1" plate to the bottom to mount it with 6 M10 bolts to the base plate. I want to fill that column with Epoxy granite when I get the time. I wanted more torque and fewer RPMs compared to the typical Chinese router spindles you will find all over the place on Amazon, eBay, and Aliexpress, so I got a cheaper Chinese BT30 spindle (one of those green ones that lack an automatic drawbar) and a 1.8kW AC servo motor and driver so I could eventually set it up to do rigid tapping. Maximum Spindle RPM with my current GT3 (15mm wide) pulley belt setup gets to around 4700 RPM maximum since the Servo is only rated to go up to 3000 RPM. I also did this since I didn't want to be stuck with a spindle that didn't have taper tooling, and just having a fixed collet nut on it. Much easier to swap tooling repeatably and quickly even if I have to use a manual draw bar. Plus my lower RPMs and higher torque allow me to use smaller face mills and larger diameter tools. :D I decided to run the machine with LinuxCNC, which has horrible newbie documentation, but it is so powerful and the IRC for it has helped me out a ton with building the machine overall. Much better than GRBL. I am using a raspberry pi 4 (4GB) to run LCNC, and it is connected to a couple of Mesa Anything IO controller boards over SPI do handle the step/dir signaling in real time while the Pi and LCNC worry about the actual path planning and calculations that normal computers are good at. I am using closed loop steppers at the moment for the machine, Nema 24s from stepper online. They have been working great so far. I really don't want to deal with the game of "was there a step loss?" and let my controller know when they happen and stop if the stepper drivers can't compensate for the loss. Now I just need decent CAM software and more time to finish things up... Getting good CAM software on Linux natively seems impossible, so for now I'm stuck with FreeCAD's path workbench.
Sounds great! The lower RPM will also allow you to more easily drill and machine steel. You should make a video about it!
I'm no expert, but Maybe at some point :) I don’t have much footage of me making it. Just some pictures. I’m guessing you use Fusion 360 for CAM?
@@Thorhian Yes, Fusion 360. Although I've been wanting to learn FreeCAD.
You not an expert but.... your project is like one.... very very beautiful machine.... Congratulations from Brazil...
Very handy and informative video.
Thanks for uploading.
Great build! I had about the same parts in mind to build one, so I'm really glad to see this machine in action.
Interesting idea to use a solid aluminum column. Did you need to straighten the end sides to make it 90 degrees? I fear suppliers in NL might use a bandsaw to cut it to length which might be too rough, but I don't know.
Great build I’m going to borrow some elements of your design for mine!
Super well made machine well done
Lovely job - very helpful. Thanks.
Thanks for Sharing and the BOM
Was great.
So I subscribed.
Great video super information Thank you for Sharing
15mm rails are very encouraging for beginners.
Very nice mill :)
Thank's!
Now, almost 2 years later, the price has doubled: $2,495....
Great build. Not to knock your design but I just wanted to point out that you can buy the base and column for a sieg SX2.7 or 2 at littlemachineshop for around the same cost as the aluminum. The column for the sx2.7 is ~142 and the base is ~ 161. These are apparently ~4x more rigid than the sieg X2 mill column/base. You are rolling the dice a bit with the quality of the castings and how flat they end up when they get to you but it is an option many don't consider and quite a lot cheaper than buying a machine and then tearing it down just to use the carcass. the nice thing about your approach is that you can machine the aluminum stock to you desired tolerances and make sure it hits the numbers you need.
I did actually consider that! I also thought about using the mill's head casting. Ultimately, I didn't decide to do it, because I kept waffling between doing that vs buying a complete mill to convert, and ended up finding some cheap aluminum off-cuts in the meantime. I think it would have resulted in a quieter mill, because cast iron does a better job at damping vibration.
I think where you would see the real savings is when you throw in precision parts and things like precision ball screws and linear rails, servos, and a nice control interface.
Id probably go a little more beefy on the actual design of the mill, something perhaps a little more rigid, but all in all, you have a mill that you can actually make proper parts with and with far more rigidity than a router. Very nice man.
Can you buy the aluminum stock pre faced and dimensionally true?
Love the videos! I was wondering what you use as a spacer between the nut blocks and the axis bases? I am worried I am getting some backlash from the torque on my nut blocks because they are so far offset from my axis plates
Yes, they need to be tightly against the axis bases to avoid backlash. I used to 3d print spacers, since plastic is fine in compression. That works great if you have a 3d printer, although it is a little fiddly to get the spacers into position when assembling everything. Now I make my own nut blocks, and build the spacer into the design by using thicker delrin stock.
I am building a weak little router version so I can use it (slowly) to make parts for a better version but even still this stuff isn't cheap like everyone tries to make it sound.
I'm also building a cnc mill right now and the hardest part is building a mill when you need a mill to build the mill.
I 3D printed the parts to put the mill together and then slowly milled stronger replacement part. Expected the build to take 1 month max but now I'm 3 month in and still have a long way to go.
Well, the virus slowed everything down to completely halted my work so will have to wait for this to blow over.
The Best Stooge Funny thing is that the virus gave me more time to work on my own CNC Mill, especially since manufacturing companies and the businesses that make resources for them were still open. I could still source my materials, even if shipping took longer than usual for parts.
RIP openbuilds mill
I love it, it's a lot cheaper than I thought it would be. Have you debated on servos instead? I know they cost more but they are stronger.
I haven't had a problem with my steppers so far, so I don't see a need to spend more yet for servos. If I had ballscrews, I might want servos because then I could do some really fast rapids, but fast rapids are scary. :)
very nice video. commenting for algorithm.
HELL NO!! With the Grizzly you'd end up stripping it down to the frame just to realize the most valuable part is the steel base and column. Perhaps a benchtop model for $900 (Little Machine Shop XD2) - again for the rigid steel frame - $600 of your build build parts. Your design would give a Tormach 440 a run for it's money. Be proud!
Wow! I had no idea stock aluminum was that expensive at that size. Stock steel might have been a lot less.
really nice, how many rpm do you use for milling aluminium? i heard you need pretty slow rpm, does the spindle handle that well?
Aluminium has high RPM, Dia 12mm (1/2") about 12k RPM is normal. 6mm (1/2") goes to 24k RPM
How loud is the machine while running ? I had a CNC router with a 2.2kw spindle and at max RPM my neighbors complained.
Hey, fantastic build. So much so that after much research and coming up short on accessible options like you said you did (and being inundated with all manner of different extruded engraver designs), I'm simply going to duplicate your design. It is exactly what I'm after, and at a not-too-bad cost for what it can do to boot! Bonus.
I'd already begun ordering and assembling the electronics side of things prior to searching for a physical frame design, which is where most of my lingering curiosity lies in your build. I'm interested to know a bit more of the details behind the steppers, particularly why you chose to drive them with 24V instead of 36/48V, and what current you're driving them at and why. I've got a set of Pololu TB67S249FTG 4.5A drivers on their way, which will be driving a set of NEMA23 motors rated at 2.8A. I chose these drivers in case the motors I ended up scoring brand new for $10 a pop end up being too low on torque (and also because of cost and size). This way I have some headroom and can simply drop in stronger motors and keep going if the need is there. These drivers will be socketed in a Protoneer CNC breakout board (basically an Arduino / Atmega328 hat) on a Raspberry Pi 4 running bCNC. I intend to drive the motors at either 36 or 48V, since the drivers are spec'd for 50V by Toshiba (and the board should have no issue with that either, since the caps are 50V too), but I don't have much experience working with steppers yet, which is where my question above originates. Is there a particular reason, perhaps having to do with motion control on the software side of things, that makes 24V more ideal?
Thanks for sharing all your knowledge and trials with us, it really is appreciated!
I used a 24V supply because it's better than a 12V supply, which I had used in a previous 3d printer design. From what I've heard, 36V and 48V will work even better if your steppers and drivers support it.
I'm driving my steppers at just below their rated current (there wasn't an exact setting on my driver that matched the stepper, so I rounded down). I originally started with 175 oz-in 2.8A steppers, and later upgraded to 3.0A 269 oz-in steppers on 2 out of the 3 axes (I have the larger stepper for the third axis, but it won't fit unless I widen my enclosure slightly). The smaller steppers were experiencing some backlash under load (and it wasn't due to the mechanical system, it was definitely that the steppers just weren't turning for small inputs). I think they didn't have quite enough torque to overcome static friction for small inputs; I could have played with the microstepping to try and improve it but the bigger steppers were a drop-in replacement for me and fixed the problem.
@@imnoexpertbut Good info, thanks for that. I figured as much for the stepper current given the method of setting current on those style drivers. That was one of my considerations for choosing the drivers I did, that they have an adjustment pot that can be dialed in precisely based on Vref to arrive at exactly the current my steppers are rated at, that way I can squeeze every last oz-in out of them. The microstepping vs torque is something I'm particularly concerned about with my motors as well, so it'll be interesting to see what I come up with there. I feel like I have bigger steppers in my future already.
I've been looking more deeply into the frame the last couple days and gave Xometry a look for materials. Unfortunately, it seems that they have instituted a $45 minimum order value per piece, so some of the prices for the smaller things like the saddle, x carriage, z carriage & z head, as well as the 1x1 bar used for the bearing mounts are higher than quoted, considerably so for some pieces. I was just wondering if this was something that you experienced as well? Maybe calling them to discuss the entire order to get around that minimum value per piece policy on the smaller stuff is a possibility. Given that I don't have a bandsaw, my bearing mounts would have to be ordered individually pre-cut, which at 6 x $45 each is obviously cost prohibitive. Perhaps I can find a local machine shop willing to cut a 10.5" section of 1" square bar to get the requisite 2.5" blocks, but the cost for some other items is still pushing the total up considerably. Plus, I can't seem to find a metal wholesaler who's willing to cut to size for reasonable prices up here in Canada, so my material source is still up in the air. I guess what I'm asking is what was the ordering process like with Xometry. Did you just add everything to the cart and place the order for the prices quoted, or was there a phone call involved?
Thanks again, cheers!
@@xyphur I added everything to the cart and placed the order for the prices quoted, no phone call required. You can also sometimes find good deals on ebay for offcuts. You're going to need a way to cut stock down to size anyway if you're going to be machining, so you might as well get that sorted out now, so you can order stock more cheaply and cut to size yourself IMO.
Hi, I loved your machine, thank you for uploading such a nice video! About your part list, what is the model or characteristics of your drill bit in the video? Thanks in advance!
It's a Lakeshore Carbide 0.25 inch 2 flute variable helix ZrN coated endmill. I also like YG-1 alu-power endmills.
@@imnoexpertbut thank you very much! Great project.
Bravo 👏👏👏💪💯
Máy rất đẹp mình rất thích
Have you posted the CAD for this design? I have a C beam that I have added 150lb of steel to that works ok, but the z height is less than desireable.
Here's the latest CAD. Note that it's got approximations for some dimensions, so you will need to use it as notional reference only: a360.co/3erh7Vy
What kind of accuracy and repeatability do you get out of this machine? It looks like a nice conventional machine. I worked in a machine shop a LONG time ago and I'd like something larger than my little Taig mill.
Great job!
Thanks! It has a little less than 0.001" backlash/repeatability. I was able to interpolate a circle with about 0.003" error. The biggest issue at the moment is that it's out of square/tram by about 0.001-0.002" per inch depending on the axis (fixable, but tedious). I bet it's similar to your taig in rigidity, although it's got a high speed spindle, which is great for aluminum but terrible for drilling.
@@imnoexpertbut thanks for the information. Getting the tram right is one of my concerns. Without using machined blocks as your base it could prove difficult if you need get it closer to .001" over the full axis. The Taig is very adjustable when it comes to that. I've been thinking of using the Taig spindle on whatever I decide to build. A new Taig spindle is not that expensive and they have an ER16 collet chuck.
I'm not a big fan of the high RPM spindles. They're great for wood working but scary for metal, at least to me.
Great work, what control system you used?
GRBL
Its crazy how much the G0704's have gone up. Id love one, but not for $3000
Would you be willing to share your schematics? I would love to build this machine myself. Thanks in advance.
How did you drill all the holes for mounting the motion hardware?
Calipers to find the correct locations, then a drill press to drill at those locations.
Hello, Recently got interested in making a small CNC mill for Aluminum. Was almost ready to start Milenium Milo v1.5 and then found your channel. I go your metric Fusion project. I will finish the CAD with bolts and whistles, I plan to make it Duet-based ( I think wifi will handle the steppers just well) Are you OK if I publish it as an open-source
Yes, that's fine.
10x
@@imnoexpertbut
i like the fact you didnt use extrusions..I just converted my 6040 to linear rails , steel gantry beam , steel reinforced table and so on.. with the machine purchase, and all the hardware involved im in about 1600 total.So agreed, converting an existing milling machine is a better idea..
Do you think so? I'm in Asia, not in China but with good access to it I'll try to do something similar here I'm already curious how much it will be. I also did another machine (pick and place machine here, and the material cost is at least 30% cheaper than if I would have built it in Europe (where I'm from)).
Chinese people aren't doing it for free Tormach is also sourcing in Asia as far as I know.
In my opinion If you do it from parts you get a better quality.
Is there a reason you wen't with separate driver and an arduino instead of a cnc kit like the mach3 boards on aliexpress? Did they not offer enough power for the motors?
I think that using epoxy granite wouldn't change the price by that much since the epoxy is quite expensive and your aluminum price was not that expensive. You would easily spend $50-100 on a gallon of epoxy and then $20 for the granite. Making the molds can be free or cost quite a bit depending on how much you need to buy. Since some of the mounting surfaces can't easily be made from granite you can really only replace the 2 most expensive aluminum pieces. Overall I think you did a great job keeping costs down without going overly cheap.
Thanks! Mostly the reason I went with an arduino plus individual components was because that's what I knew the most about, coming from 3d printing. To drive a cheap mach3 or linuxcnc breakout board it sounds like you need a PC with a parallel port, and I didn't want to have to find/build one of those, or buy a more expensive ethernet breakout board. With GRBL/arduino doing the motion planning, I can just use an old cheap laptop I had laying around anyway to feed it g-code over USB.
I'm no expert, but Thankfully you don’t need a parallel port for LinuxCNC if you get a Mesa FPGA card. You can get PCI, PCIE, and the more convenient Ethernet Mesa cards. Mach 3 is okay and easier to setup but it doesn’t really compete with a well configured LCNC system with good hardware. I just wish the project had more documentation for complete newbies.
My God, that price? Are you sure? Just over a thousand $$ one can machine Aluminum.....unbelievable!
what feeds and feeds calculator do you use?
I wrote it myself. I've heard millalyzer is good though.
I don't know how much faster the spindle could cut but I think you can get a lot more power/torque out of your steppers by running them off a higher voltage power supply (which is where you'd see a difference between the 42V driver you got and the DM542 50V drivers, I think). From Gecko drives, "The voltage of your power supply is entirely dependent on the inductance rating of your motor, which we learned is translatable to the number of turns of wire in the stator. Every motor model will have a different inductance rating and will therefore have a different maximum voltage. To figure out what the maximum power supply voltage should be, use the following formula with the motor’s inductance in millihenries (mH) used for the L value.
32 * SQRT (L) = VMAX" (www.geckodrive.com/support/step-motor-basics.html) One of the steppers you linked in your BOM, openbuildspartstore.com/nema-23-stepper-motor, says it has 3mH/phase, so that'd be 32*(3)^5=55V, the other one, www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077Z5QJCL, says it has 4.8mH so then ~70V. I don't know how much headroom the power supply and/or drivers need to be safe against back EMF from the motors, but I think you can go a lot higher than the 24V as is and make your motors push a lot harder, faster.
What kind of accuracy did you get?
If I mill a square and measure it, it's usually pretty close, +/- 0.01mm. If I mil a circle via interpolation it's more like +/-0.10mm. I'm not sure if that's the sort of accuracy you mean, so let me know if there's a better test.
Hi, The column width measurement seems like it's wrong
I checked, it's actually the base width that's wrong -- it's actually 7 inches wide, not 6, because I got a good deal on an off-cut. I wanted to show prices for building it new, so that's why I put 6 inches width for the base; the supplier I looked at didn't have an option for 7 inches wide. I'll add that to the description, thanks for mentioning.
Hi, this is a really nice build. I am trying to recreate it in Fusion to match available aluminum blocks and in metric units. Can you perhaps share your Fusion file and the link to the OpenBuilds site if that is OK with you?
Here's the fusion file. Note that it's got approximations for some dimensions, so you will need to use it as notional reference only: a360.co/3erh7Vy
@@imnoexpertbut Thanks a lot, I am just unsure about a couple of things so this might help to set things straight. Otherwise I have it almost finished. So if the price for aluminum is OK I might build it during long winter nights :). I mean I am not looking for a Haas or something, just a more rigid thing to help with cutting larger aluminum pieces aside form the Workbee cnc I currently have, it cuts OK, but the Z axis is the limiting factor for larger pieces. This build seems easiest from what I have found. And it does not require any special tools / materials. Better quality manual mills cost north of 2000 EUR here + conversion, so this might be a lot cheaper for me to build + the fun of building it :) (or perhaps someone can advise a good one in EU for a reasonable price?).
@@chprogress Can you share your metric CAD files? I'd be very interested.
@@HoopstarsGarage sure, I can share the fusion project when I have some time. Can't say it is production ready but hopefully it'll be of some use.
@@HoopstarsGarage a360.co/2QMEorI, sending from phone, it says viewing only, do not know if you can download. If not I'll update the link next week when I'll be able to share it from pc. I changed some dimensions an modified some parts, so no guarantees on the design. Going to work on it during the long winter nights :)
Im surprised you didn’t face off all of the extruded slabs to make sure they’re all square
I recommend doing that. I don't have access to a mill, so I didn't.
Dude, its magic that thing thing can even mill aluminum with lead screws. Those things are super weak, mostly because of the brass nut.
I'm not using a brass nut. I make my own anti-backlash nuts out of delrin.
It can't be long before the Chinese start copying this! :o)
I'm going to give them another idea -ship them with aluminium or thin steel rectangle tube to keep shipping costs low and suggest the buyer fill these with concrete... :o)
Now grizzly g0704 2800$ plus tax Home Depot or 3450$ plus taxes with dro.
Wow inflation in two years. 1600$. Two years ago. Shame.