Club CNC project

[Dan Hockey]

I have some stuff I've decided to part with, one of which is an old
brother daisy wheel printer that still powers up,
some old arcade boards one that a M68000 on it. Also some 12v wiper
motors that I was going to use on a large robot frame I never finished
welding up.

[kristau]

Hearing a phrase similar to, "there are lot of usable components in
old printers -- especially laser printers" brought to mind the fact
that I have an old HPLJ4 Plus on hand which I could stand to part out.

I may try to "componentize it" before the next meeting and bring the
bits and bobs I think may be useful?

--
Tired programmer
Coding late into the night
The core dump follows

[Matthew Nuzum]

I have a couple smaller stepper motors, I have numerous H-Bridges and
some power MOSFETs (for motor drivers) and I have some
micro-controllers. I have plywood and shop space. I also have a router
(a porter gable) and a dremel. I'm willing to kick in some money to
get us started w/ other pieces we need. I can also make PCBs.

I looked at my sliders I mentioned, I have 8 sets (think four kitchen
drawers) but I think they're way to small to be useful. I also have a
desk-sized laser printer.

I'm all for the cnc project but my shop won't hold one the size of
Nate's brother in law's machine. We'd need something more table-top
sized. Think 30" wide and 40" long. I saw some plans a while back that
I thought were very interesting, I'll see if I can find them again.

--
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode, skype, linkedin, identi.ca and twitter

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 1:38 PM, Matthew Nuzum<ne...@bearfruit.org> wrote:
> I saw some plans a while back that
> I thought were very interesting, I'll see if I can find them again.
>

http://buildyourcnc.com/latest.aspx

Not sure this is the right way or not, but I like his style of teaching.

[Dan Hockey]

sherline uses linux.
http://www.sherline.com/LinVsWin2.htm

On Jul 12, 9:48 pm, Matthew Nuzum <n...@bearfruit.org> wrote:

[MisterFuji]

I preface this question by explaining that my only exposure with a CNC
is from American Hotrod/Chopper and Monster Garage type shows. With
that said, will the club CNC be able to fabricate metal, or will it be
limited to softer materials such as wood and plastic?

Cheers,
Randle

[Dan Hockey]

About 30 yrs ago I got to see an NC mill that my oldest brother was
trained on, outside of that I've yet to see a CNC in person. I don't
think anyone uses 35mm paper tape any more.

If I were to build a cnc I think I would have to build it so it could
handle the hard stuff, aluminum, steel, etc since that's the media I
know how to work with. The ability to use it with a plasma cutter
(wishful thinking) would be a nice option.

For a club project starting small/medium size may be better for
working out the software and hardware bugs. Hopefully whatever that is
developed can be scaled up or down to whatever size needed without
having to rewrite the software. Keep in mind I know nothing about
cnc's.

[Matthew Nuzum]

I've seen small ones handle brass.

My original thinking when suggesting it was that a CNC would allow us to fabricate small parts like gears or platforms for creations, and also our own PCBs. Since a PCB is going to cost about $25 each in small quantities and take days or weeks to receive (and possibly have errors on first revision) even a small machine made for light-weight materials would be useful.

I think the secret to doing metal is the bits, the router and the speed things move at. Many slow, shallow passes are needed.

[Dan Hockey]

Would something like the following work for a small cnc?
http://www.parallax.com/Store/Accessories/MotorServoControllers/tabid/160/ProductID/375/List/0/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName