Hi everyone, new here.
I'm a bit of a bodger and always tinkering at something and have always wanted to build a CNC.
After seeing JD's YouTube videos, I thought I surely have enough scrap lying about to have a go..
Had some stainless box which is nice for the rails as any mild steel box I had was rough when cleaned up..
Running an old Sealey 40amp plasma cutter I had kicking round.
It is old and HF and was torturing the laptop connection every time it tried to spark up so after a bit of digging on the net, I earthed the torch back to the dinse plug on the machine and that cured that issue..
Once I got it up and running of a fashion, I managed to cut the backplate for the Z-axis and so fitted it and the touch-off setup.
This seemed okay but I was getting a bit of deflection on the X-axis rail when moving along the Y-axis, not much but enough to annoy me so I cut a few plates to hold another piece of stainless and added a couple of bearing runners to let it rest on.
I made the holding plates adjustable and once setup I reckon there's maybe a mill across the 4 corners of the bed, so not too bad..
I have done lots of practice bits and bobs with mixed results, I seem to get a lot of undercut on some parts and none on the next..
I am running it at the full 40amps (I have a good 32amp plug) and 5bar (70psi) generally as that seems to give the most consistent results.
Sometimes seems to struggle with cutting perfect circles, not the outer, it's meant to have a straight edge but as you can see, the inner is far from perfect.
Any advice on feed rates and settings would be welcome as I am pretty much learning this as I go..
And don't be too harsh on my build.. I'm a farmer and most of my work is agrispec.. lol.. this fine work is a bit of a challenge for me..
I'm a bit of a bodger and always tinkering at something and have always wanted to build a CNC.
After seeing JD's YouTube videos, I thought I surely have enough scrap lying about to have a go..
Had some stainless box which is nice for the rails as any mild steel box I had was rough when cleaned up..
Running an old Sealey 40amp plasma cutter I had kicking round.
It is old and HF and was torturing the laptop connection every time it tried to spark up so after a bit of digging on the net, I earthed the torch back to the dinse plug on the machine and that cured that issue..
Once I got it up and running of a fashion, I managed to cut the backplate for the Z-axis and so fitted it and the touch-off setup.
This seemed okay but I was getting a bit of deflection on the X-axis rail when moving along the Y-axis, not much but enough to annoy me so I cut a few plates to hold another piece of stainless and added a couple of bearing runners to let it rest on.
I made the holding plates adjustable and once setup I reckon there's maybe a mill across the 4 corners of the bed, so not too bad..
I have done lots of practice bits and bobs with mixed results, I seem to get a lot of undercut on some parts and none on the next..
I am running it at the full 40amps (I have a good 32amp plug) and 5bar (70psi) generally as that seems to give the most consistent results.
Sometimes seems to struggle with cutting perfect circles, not the outer, it's meant to have a straight edge but as you can see, the inner is far from perfect.
Any advice on feed rates and settings would be welcome as I am pretty much learning this as I go..
And don't be too harsh on my build.. I'm a farmer and most of my work is agrispec.. lol.. this fine work is a bit of a challenge for me..
