Build it up to break it down again

I am going under the knife for ACL surgery in under a week, so I've been putting in hours on the CNC project like my life depended on it. I'm gonna be on the couch for about a week straight, and I'd like to be happy with where the project sits during that time.       I have [...]

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it's been damn cold up here in the north country, but I've been out in the garage working on the gantry for the router. I often struggle with the problem of redesigning each piece a hundred times before I build it once. For this project I am trying to focus on getting a version 0.1 [...]

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So here are the fruits of my weekend. These are the slide bearings for my CNC router. They're made up of skate bearings, and angle aluminum. A really simple concept that makes my life simpler. you can see my new Keg-o-rator here. It's almost a perfect fit in this closet, with just enough room left to to [...]

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I'm going to try to avoid being one of those blogs that only links to other blogs. That whole idea seems really recursive and redundant to me. This post did interest me however. Here Stuart McFarian is building a (probably) slower machine that looks a bit less heavy-duty. It also looks like it will [...]

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...so i hooked up my camera and uploaded some photos... this is a closeup of the xylotex controller this is an earlier version of the frame from when I wanted a smaller machine. this is the bigger, newer version of the frame, 4 feet by 2.5 feet! I have the black pipe installed with the leveling setups, [...]

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here are a few links you might find interesting if you're doing what I'm doing. http://www.cnczone.com/ THE forum to check out what others are doing like this. http://www.geckodrive.com/ Pretty nice stepper controllers. Pricey, but very niceby all reports. http://www.smallparts.com/ Exactly what the name implies. all kinds of small part you would otherwise have to dig around in dumpsters [...]

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So here are the bits I've bought already Xylotex 3 axis system kit with 425Oz/in stepper motors enco 12' of 1/2" acme rod 8 matching nuts thebigbearingstore.com 6 1/2" 2 bolt pillow block bearings 8 1/2" shaft collars Home Depot Tons of bolts, nuts, washers, bits and doodads. 20' of galvanized steel u-channel (not really sure what to call this stuff) specialized u-channel bolts, nuts and spacers aluminum [...]

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I'm currently building a cnc router. This is a machine that will take a line file generated by a computer, and cut it out of / into wood. Depending on how precise and strong my build is, it might be able to cut almost anything up to (possibly including) soft aluminum. I was inspired by [...]

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