There seems to be a chicken or egg problem in building a high-quality mechanical workshop, at least for those who are unwilling to mortgage their houses for the money needed to buy all these new tools. In other words, well-built tools often require good tools. To help solve this problem, [Ryan] designed and manufactured this CNC machine, which can be manufactured with common tools, hardware store supplies, and some ready-made parts from the Internet.

Since it is made of consumer-grade materials, [Ryan] has a design concept of "purchasing precision", which means that most of the components required for the construction are sufficient to achieve its purpose, without the need to incorporate into the grinding tool in any way appliance. For example, he uses a granite slab because it is hard, flat, heavy and strong at the time of purchase and can be placed in the machine immediately. Similarly, his linear guide does not need to be modified before it is put into use, with high accuracy and minimal calibration. From there, he applies the KISS principle and uses the simplest parts available. Through this design process, he was able to "guide" a high-quality rolling mill at a price of about $1,500, without the need for any additional tools, rather than the tools you might already have.

As we all know, RIG-CNC is also fully open source, which further consolidates its guideability. There are more details on the project page and the video linked below. The uniqueness of this project is not only the construction of rolling mills with common parts and tools, but also because this design concept is very powerful. Good design goes further in our construction than many of us might realize, and good design usually produces things that are easier to maintain and easier to crack, and these things are more useful than the original creators thought. many.

1,500 dollars is not cheap either. Especially if it is "3D printed".

This is a good build, but it doesn't seem to be everything it advertises.

Look at the scale of the machine, if it is as good as the one suggested (at first glance I think it might be) I would call it very cheap, and probably designed to meet the expected demand-this is you can’t always Everything I bought.

Manual grinders of similar size that need to be refurbished account for a large part of the budget. Good quality manual grinders are even closer...Electronics will not be so cheap and require a considerable motor and motor drive to drive a little Reliable at any speed and cutting depth.

I agree that it does not look very 3D printed-but it is actually a good thing! Using 3D printing to fill in the blanks of suitable parts available, but using better off-the-shelf materials anywhere else means that it does not require a machine shop of the right size to build it. Once built, it can start to make these parts with better materials.

This machine is designed to guide. I don't think there is any plan to keep any plastic in the final version, and all purchased parts have been selected enough to guarantee an upgrade.

When making the video, he has polished his Z backplane.

But I think it’s great that he recorded the steps along the way, because then you will know how much of the benefit from plastic to aluminum and what you can expect. In the best case, connect a bunch of good parts from the 3DP bit. Together.

I still need to shoot the video, but I have replaced the plastic with aluminum, and the initial result is about 3 times harder

Did you watch the video? If you do, I don’t know how anyone could come to the conclusion that “it is 3D printed”. Important 3D printed parts are considered appropriately designed parts and will be replaced by aluminum.

I do agree that $1500 is not cheap, but in terms of the features he built, it seems very reasonable. I think I paid a little bit more for my Taig CNC milling machine, which may be surpassed by this milling machine in some areas (ball screw, stronger spindle, stronger stepper, etc.).

The main props for those who start to build their own factories! It took me a long time to plan and develop the things I made in my factory. I will spend a long time designing and building a mill from scratch.

Exposed ball screw = bad days in the CNC world

You can see the cover at the back. They may be removed to better show the internal design of the Y-axis.

I took them down to make a video, because I often take the mill apart, I have a hand-cut and foldable cover file, I will add it to the file portfolio for anyone who makes this. Legitimate covers are stupid and expensive

IMHO, a good desktop CNC machine housing is Light Machines Prolight PLM-1000/2000/2500. It was an epoxy granite frame bed grinder with a moderately sized cast iron table with three T-slots and a working load of 100 pounds. CNC bench milling machines with this capability have never appeared before or after. The maximum XYZ axis speed of model 2000/2500 is very fast.

The guide rails are supported by round bars on all 3 axes. The 1000 model uses a stepper motor and is controlled in a large external box with a proprietary ISA or PCI card. Model 2000 used a 3-axis or 4-axis Animatics servo controller, but it was underutilized. It communicates with the host PC through a simple RS232-C connection, but unlike the PLM1000 model, the PLM2000 has never provided Windows software. It is stuck firmly in MS-DOS and uses an extended memory system to load G-gode.

I do have a lot of information and software about the Animatics servo controllers used in these factories. There are some potentially useful tricks, such as loading G code into the controller's built-in memory and then triggering it repeatedly to make it run completely headless. I want to build a small PC that can run a lot of LIM EMS 4.0 memory, but finding anything that has a high memory area, provides enough contiguous space for the page frame, and is not an antique itself, proved to be a problem. That ancient space in the PC memory map is always broken up for low-level I/O, and there is no possible way to configure it for EMS.

Both 1000 and 2000 have 5K or 10K maximum RPM R-8 spindle options, but they do not provide spindle RPM feedback.

The PLM2500 has a 42000 RPM spindle, it uses some tiny chucks and needs to be warmed up for one minute before milling operations.

The factory (at least 2000/2500) has a programmable interface port that can be operated by G code, but apart from some very simple examples in the manual, it is up to the owner to decide *what*, like building a part loader or Tool changer.

The spindle bracket is connected to the Z frame with 4 bolts, so nothing prevents the owner from removing it and replacing it with something customized.

What makes it even better is the 30-taper spindle. Emco's F1 bench-top milling machine (manual and CNC version) is inferior to the ProLight milling machine in all respects. It is smaller, has a lower load capacity, and has two grooved tables-but it is equipped with a 30-taper spindle. This allows F1 to easily share the exact same tools as many large knee grinders.

Putting the NMTB-30 spindle on my PLM2000 will make it a *very* rolling mill.

Some huge industrial CNC routers, considered 6×2 meters, (for wood, of course) have exposed ball screws, and can still operate normally. Of course, they are usually much higher than the table/workpiece.

Although it is nice to see what people are doing, different methods etc. It would be great if HaD is willing to admit that featured projects are not always pure talents, and even a little skeptical in their presentations.

So; HaD recommends "the world's strongest 3D printing factory"; – not very sturdy (HaD has a steel structure concrete filling mill before?) – not 3D printed (a few small supports?) – and 2 sets Hand grinder/cheap import/cheap drilling machine XY is not cheap compared to table – some design flaws/compromises that do not exist in commercial/industrial plants – performance has not been actually measured yet

To be honest, the hackers here present it as if you have saved money or just went out to buy the "real" factory and improved.

Owning a cheap imported factory, I can say that they are far from accurate and maintenance cost in nature, unable to really manufacture CNC machines-they are too rubbish, even if it is a design like mine is not a bad machine, just a bit Put it together cheaply, compromise with the weird little design to make it cheaper and ultimately waste a lot of time trimming it and snuggling all the loose things together again-this is when you do manual processing you will realize that you need to Check the fit and measurement of the parts as you do, but it won’t use CNC until it completely discards the parts...

So even if the one you get is reliable and well-made enough to make a good CNC base, a good CNC and a good manual milling machine have different designs-there are several reasons for the tendency of ball-filled linear guides The dovetails that appear on CNC and manual tools do not mean that none of them are not suitable for other jobs-it is not completely incompatible with the ol' engineering design for the intended use.

When it is done correctly, the price of quality looks very good to me, but more importantly, when he designs it, it will fit his space constraints, the amount of work required, etc.-I have been looking for My next big project when the current crop is "completed" for this reason-I want enough work area to meet the needs I know, but it must also fit the space I have-and can't really buy Recently, what I have seen are those very cheap 3080 extrusion "desktop" CNC milling machines, they are still so cheap and useful during the transition period (currently it is manual processing or 3D printer, not a particularly good one) in magic After the smoke escapes, a new brain is needed), although it is too small, especially in Z, it cannot meet my expected needs, but the next size that can be purchased is just not suitable for my space, or suitable but won’t It is truly fully usable in the space, because the design expects to access ideas that I don’t have on s, or hang its bed too far to be practical, etc...

First, it is unfair to compare a CNC milling machine with a drilling machine with an XY table. Secondly, there are a lot of electronic products and heads for any CNC. Third, 3D printing is a way for him to obtain parts that he has not directly purchased, and it is a way to get there instead of the final destination. There is no household 3D printable material with structural characteristics required by a real CNC milling machine. IMHO, this is a great build that allows you to replace 3D printed parts with sturdy parts made in the factory itself. Priced at US$1,500, it is powerful and powerful.

But I want to see a more detailed BOM, because the Open Builds shopping list does not seem to exist.

Reading through the reviews, it seems that if you can't reach a tolerance of 0.002 inches for less than $500, this is a mediocre project.

This plant seems to have an amazing cost-benefit balance, especially when we see the results of further guidance.

thank you for your reply! After upgrading to aluminum parts, a more detailed BOM is my first priority. Now all the "odd" parts are on the website, everything else can be seen in the 3D model, and can also be found on the website.

I saw doing God's work

The rolling mill does not constitute a mechanical workshop, nor is it the first machine I got. I have "guided" three mechanical workshops. Precision is a skill independent of machinery. It takes longer to make precision parts on crappy machines. In terms of machinery, the first machine was a drill press, not a mill. Next is the cut-off band saw, which can also double as a small vertical band saw. After that, a lathe and a grinder are needed. The bench and the serious vise are not machines, but they actually need to be in the first few machines. Similarly, your heating/cooling system. It's hard to work if it's too hot or too cold.

Therefore, mill may be ranked 4th or 5th on the list. Any decent factory may need a forklift to deliver. Lathes, not so many. A cheap hydraulic workshop crane has worked for me several times. Don't forget tools, hand tools and measuring tools, they cost more than machines. The right amount of aluminum, plastic, steel, and other stocks are expensive. Moreover, there are many things that are not suitable for CNC. You still need manual milling machines and lathes. This may take a while, but you can almost always find acceptable used lathes and milling machines. Desktop CNC is not a machining shop, nor is it a small milling machine/drilling machine and a small lathe.

In general, I agree...Although when its CNC precision in machinery is a requirement-no matter how good at solving errors on manual machines, you just have no chance, because the computer is running on All actions prepared for you on inferior machines will damage the parts for you before giving you the opportunity to measure them.

In addition, the scale should not deny that it is a "machine" workshop-many watch manufacturers (etc.) have a complete machine workshop in terms of functions and capabilities, and only you can lift a human machine to make small-scale parts. For the same work with high precision, your huge demand for forklift lathes may not even be close... and according to this argument, your "forklift required" lathes are not even enough to complete the work of a real machining lathe – real Machine shop lathes are not really movable at all, no matter what their specific work is, they are built on the spot!

I would love to have space for band saws. They are great, but I don’t think they are necessary. Manual sawing may require a lot of effort, but its work only takes up a small part of the space-it's not like sawing forever It is a finished surface, and spending money on power tools to save a little time may or may not be worth it, depending on the product you usually make-if each band saw requires several hours of processing into a new stock.

I also want to say that a good drilling machine can be given up, because a grinder (or even a lathe) can serve as a drilling machine very well, unless you really need a better equipment than a hand-sharpened tool directly from the grinder. No grinder is needed, it's just very, very useful...

I am always looking for various options, from buying a new or used factory to building a factory. The second-hand price depends on the situation in your area. This is much less than the new one. Also, thank you for providing a site with links to components and drawings. Many DIY projects do not. As far as the design itself is concerned, from a rigid point of view, 3D printed boards are sub-optimal and a bit fancy. Considering that you can buy a drill press at a lower price than a 3d printer, there are better options. Aluminium sheet is obviously better, but 1/4 inch and acrylic can be rougher than 3D printing even at a price of about $8.50 per square foot. It will be interesting to see how much it actually affects his results, because this is what really matters.

Use a flexible milling cutter to very accurately locate and center all the mounting holes needed to replace the parts in the steel, place them on the drilling machine and complete the holes, and then guide in this way. When you have a repeatable, accurate, but flexible machine, you can still accomplish some amazing jobs.

The disadvantage of using old mills and machine tools is that no matter how big they are, their cost is almost $3,000, because everyone wants a machine that fits a small space. Locally, I can sometimes find Haas and Mazak industrial vertical machining centers, which can complete commercial-grade work at a price of about $5,000. The problem is that they are the size of my entire garage and require 440V, compressed air and coolant. Or I can find an old Bridgeport for about $4,000. It does not have a ball screw. Although it does fit my store, it occupies about 1/4 of the entire store. Or I can find a small desktop mill for about $3,000. It has a small working range, lacks rigidity, and does not have a ball screw. The Monster Cincinnati rolling mill is also priced at about US$3,000 and weighs 6 tons, which accounts for half of my workshop. You can use a 5mm DOC to drive a rolling mill with a diameter of 25mm through steel. But if I have such a large rolling mill, where will the lathe go? As people who have run Sherline for many years often say, a very small lathe/milling machine can still do 95% of the work you need to do, which is much better than nothing at all.

Again: I repeat what OP has already said in his video.

Easy-to-print plastic parts meant from the beginning an intermediate step in fixing the parts together so that aluminum parts could be milled.

At the same time, he also performed a spring constant measurement in the next video for comparison after the aluminum plate is completed.

I think the idea here is to replace 3D printed things with aluminum after the machine is up and running.

Thanks! A quick Google led me to believe that cast acrylic is less rigid than PLA, only based on Young's modulus. I only need plastic that is hard enough to cut rough round holes to upgrade the aluminum plate.

For plastic plates, my MRR in aluminum is ~0.185"^3, and for aluminum plates, my MRR is in the range of ~0.6"^3, running 5000 RPM. I assume that if I equip it with a higher speed spindle, I can go higher because the cutting force will drop

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