CNC machines

[alastair]

Please use this thread to share knowledge of any low cost CNC machines (or any tech related to WikiHouse project), and any experiences you might have of using them (in terms of tolerances,difficulties etc). A few options to start with:

Blackfoot CNC

From BuildyourCNC. Not only is this a fantastic project which radically altered the game on CNC, from our emails exchanged, the guys behind it are also really friendly, passionate and smart! Currently at $3235 USD (£2166). 

DIYCNC

Again, an awesome affordable CNC project, $465 kits, but too small for most WikiHouse parts -  currently I don't think they've done a 4'x'8 table version, or if they plan to. Doesn't seem like it would be a massive leap...

Get it cut by professionals

The other strategy, of course is to find a local workshop with CNC capability, or to use a service like Ponoko, but obviously those come with production costs! For projects of any reasonable scale, it very quickly becomes more cost effective to get a machine.

[Alastair]

ShopBot

Not to forget ShopBot, who produce more industrial level CNC tech, at higher price (around $24,000)

[nick]

Yes, how could I net mention the brand of equipment that we use! we get a tremendous amount of work cut at a very high tolerance on our machine. it is well worth the investment.

[Martin Luff]

Be keen to hear if the Blackfoot is set up in Rio now? Also, if it copes OK with 'production' quantities of cutting... 

Out of interest, which router did you get with that?

Regards

Martin

[Chris Musselle]

Came across these guys offering CNC services in London. They seem keen to automate jobs as much as possible, and therefore keep price down. There quotes seem to vary between £40-£100 per pannel, depending on the amount of detail required. Not sure if this price includes the cost of the plywood board itself though. 

http://www.cncworkshop.co.uk/3-axis-cnc-router.php

There machine is the Pacer 2512K series router. 

They also have a few guidelines on design considerations and hot to prepare designs.

http://www.cncworkshop.co.uk/how-to-do-it.php

[nick]

Very impressive portfolio from that cncworkshop!  I see that Facit design is part of that group.

[Alastair]

Marchant Dice

Rack and Pinion CNC machines in the UK from between £6000 and £8000. Link here.

[Gregory Witkamp]

Might I suggest taking a look at this THIS website that has used CNC router list from around the world. The have a filter to only show CNC under $30,000. Even though some of them might be pretty old, they can still pound out a ton of parts. Where I work I program machines by hand and using a CAM software that were built in the 80's and 90's. 

I just wanted to list this as an option to get a commercial grade machine at a hobby machine price.

a couple things to keep in mind with these machines is rigging cost, current condition, maintenance, and tooling costs.

[i...@fabhub.io]

Chris:

From their FAQ:

" Q: How much will it cost?
A: Typically cutting a full size sheet of 18mm thick ply or MDF with few lines/ simple shapes will be around £30 – £40 per sheet. More complex drawings or with multiple cutter types we estimate between £75 – £100 per board."

For reference, in the UK:
Construction-grade ply sheets (panels) are in the £18-£25 range (depending on no of sheets ordered, check lathams.co.uk) and cutting should be in range of £35-£70 per sheet depending on whether it is single sided or double sided cut, how much work the cad conversion is, etc.

There's cheaper options in the UK but probably a good option if you need a central London location and are confident your dwg needs no check/touch-up

Ian

[nick]

A new machine that may not be up to cutting a full wikihouse, but has some serious digital fabrication upside.

Www.handibot.com

Sorry, I am posting this from my mobile. Worth looking into.

[Neil Berrow]

I was looking around for a machine which would be up for the job, down in South Africa these machines aren't available yet which is a pity.

[Brian Korsedal]

There is an open source, 4ft by 8ft CNC machine here:

http://www.sindrianarts.com/kikori-1-4-design-files/#

I have no experience with it, but it should be a good starting point.  I'd like to collaborate with you guys on building open source CNC machines.  I'll probably purchase one of these:

http://www.digirout.com/DR1000Eco.html

To get started but hope to manufacture my own CNC machines.  I had a few good ideas.

Good idea #1.  Use optical mouse sensors and low cost motors in a closed loop fashion with advanced algorithms on an FPGA. 

http://www.avagotech.com/pages/en/navigation_interface_devices/navigation_sensors/laserstream/adns-9800/

You can get mouse sensors so dirt cheap that you can even just make an array of them for redundancy.  Also rotate a few to get fractions of a measurement.  With an FPGA you can have an individual bus for each chip and continuously be reading them.  These are a lot of sensing capability for next to nothing.  VCSEL lasers.  Ultra high tech stuff.

Good idea #2.  FPGA based motion controller which performs ultra high speed numeric integration of bezier curves.  Everything is a curve.  Straight lines are just degenerate curves. 

http://reprap.org/wiki/Elegant_multispline_motion_controller

[Andy Parkinson]

Also comparing CNC machines, I have looked at both Blackfoot and ShopBot.  I also found cncRouterParts.com that have kits starting at $3975 plus electronics starting at $1195.  They are in the US just outside of Seattle. http://www.cncrouterparts.com/crp4896-4-x-8-cnc-router-kit-p-139.html  I saw recommendations on one of the forums and also got in touch via email.   They claim that their pro kit will perform at a similar level to ShopBot (but at a kit price).  Kit is broken down into small packages so easy to ship internationally.  So seems like a potentially good option, and now on my shortlist.

This is what they (Cory Kocher) said when I asked how their kits compare:  "Our PRO series machine will produce similar results to a comparably sized Shopbot. We have many customers that were previous Shopbot owners, and all of them love our equipment.  I'm not as familiar with the Blackfoot Kit, but in reviewing their plans, I can tell you our system will be much stiffer, allowing faster movement and more precise movements"

[Philip X. Diaz]

For those of you brave enough to go the DiY route, I *highly* recommend the Mechmate plans. The Mechmate started out as add-ons to beef up the ShopBot machines, and evolved to become full plans in their own right. I've found the plans to be well thought out, very easy to follow, and fairly easy to construct.

All told, building one will cost $4,000 and will be on par (better, probably) with the ShopBot PRS Alpha 96"x60", at a quarter of the cost.

There's a fantastic community of Mechmate builders over at http://mechmate.com/

I am almost finished building mine. I'll post photos when it's online and cutting. I'll spare you for now - there's not much to show yet except my meager welding skills.

Philip Diaz

Los Angeles CA