cnc hacks

935 Articles

One-night No Budget CNC Machine

November 10, 2013 by 44 Comments

The Hackerspace Kraków in Poland hosts a weekly event on Fridays called NightHack. The idea is simple. It’s late Friday night, all the stores are closed — something needs to be hacked.

Just this past Friday night, they decided to try making a CNC machine using only what they had in the space. And gosh darn it, did they ever succeed! The build makes use of an Arduino Mega, broken Playstation 3 drives, a few spare L293D ICs, some hot glue, and wood. The resulting CNC machine is an awesome example of what can be done in a night with the right group of people working together.

It might not be powerful enough to do milling, but works quite well as a small CNC drawing plotter with its massive 5x5cm work area, with a resolution of 0.16mm. Next week they hope to modify it to allow for PCB drilling, which at the right feed rates, might just be possible!

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HHH: Delta CNC Mill

November 9, 2013 by 3 Comments

hhh-delta-mill

[Dan] wrote in to show off the delta-bot CNC mill which he and some buddies got up and running over the course of about two weeks. The team from Mad Fellows — a hackerspace in Prescott, Arizona — put their heads together and managed to build the thing from mostly parts-on-hand. Would you believe they’re only out-of-pocket about $100 in new materials?

After a bit of modeling work they started scavenging for parts, recovering most of the acrylic stock from dead LCD monitors. But there are many parts like the stepper motors, precision rods, bearings, belts, and pulleys that can’t or shouldn’t be salvaged in order to end up with a reasonably solid machine tool. We like [Dan’s] tip that the parts should be screwed together as gluing them would be problematic when it comes time to replace broken components.

You may be wondering about the strength of a delta-bot for milling. The purpose of the build is to make molds for investment casting. The lost-material (we don’t know if it’s wax or something else) is quite easy to machine and you can see in the clip after the jump that the mill does a great job. But they also did some tests on aluminum and apparently it’s not a problem.

The CNC version of HHH is over, so why are we posting this now? We messed up. [Dan] sent in a qualifying entry before the deadline and somehow we let it slip through the cracks. Sorry [Dan]! Better late than never — we’ll get a T-shirt in the mail right away.

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Full-size MRI Machine Replica

November 9, 2013 by 15 Comments

Foam MRI machine

It’s been a bit dusty lately in Seattle’s Metrix Create:Space. That’s because they’ve taken on their biggest project yet — a full scale replica of an MRI machine for university research.

[Tom Grabowski], a professor of Radiology & Neurology at the University of Washington, needed a replica MRI machine. This is because time on real MRI machines is very expensive, and when performing research on Autism, it is important to get the test subjects used to the process before using the real deal. He originally turned to the Center for Human Development and Disability, also at the University of Washington, but the project was just simply too big for their facilities. He did however get to meet a fellow researcher named [Fritz] who then contacted Metrix to see if it was possible, and like any good hackers, the members of the space were more than up for the challenge.

The replica MRI machine is made out 2″ thick, 4′ by 8′ foam insulation sheets, which is the maximum size their router can handle. Not having made use of the 3D z-cutting capabilities before, they had a bit of learning to do, but as you can see from the pictures, it worked out quite well. Over a few weeks they were able to construct the general shape of the MRI machine, and finish the surface nicely — it’s far from complete though, as they might even be adding lights and other features to make it one heck of a replica. It’s a great project, and those who have helped are happy to do so as the replica will benefit not only [Tom] but many other researchers at UW — for science, yeah!

A New Old Lathe For Your Hackerspace Or Garage

November 8, 2013 by 51 Comments

3D printers, or even small CNC routers may seem like relatively easy machine tools to obtain for your hackerspace or garage. They are both very useful, but at some point you may want to start working with round parts (or convert square-ish items into round parts). For this, there is no better tool than a lathe. You can buy a small and relatively cheap lathe off of any number of distributors, but what if you were to get a good deal on a larger lathe? Where would you even start?

In my case, I was offered a lathe by a shop that no longer had a use for it. Weighing in at 800 pounds and using 3 phase power, this South Bend Lathe might have been obtained economically, but getting it running in my garage seemed like it would be a real challenge. It definitely was, but there are a few mistakes that I’ve made that hopefully you can avoid.

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Open Source Telescope Control

November 4, 2013 by 17 Comments

board

Telescope mounts connected to computers and stepper motors have been available to the amateur astronomer for a long time, and for good reason, too. With just the press of a button, any telescope can pan over to the outer planets, nebula, or comets. Even if a goto command isn’t your thing, a simple clock drive is a wonderful thing to have. As with any piece of professional equipment, hackers will want to make their own version, and thus the openDrive project was born. It’s a project to make an open source telescope controller.

Right now, the project is modular, with power supply boards, a display board, motor driver, an IO board (for dew heaters and the like), and a hand-held controller. There’s an openDrive forum that’s fairly active covering both hardware and software. If you’re looking for a project to help you peer into the heavens, this is the one for you. If telescope upgrades aren’t enough to quench your astronomical thirst you could go full out with a backyard observatory build.

Danke [Håken] for the tip.

HHH: CNC Winners

November 4, 2013 by 18 Comments

hhh-cnc-winners

Congratulations to the winners of the first Hackaday Hackerspace Henchmen series. We asked hackerspace members to send us stories about CNC hacks. Here’s a roundup of the three winners:

[Rich] from the Connecticut Hackerspace gets the top spot having sent in the story of their desktop CNC mill hacks. He gets a $50 gift card to the parts vendor of his choosing.

[Barnaby] is also a winner for sharing the story of how they hacked a script to translate G-Code into the proprietary format accepted by the desktop CNC mill at rlab.

And [Tim’s] submission showed how a movable storage base was built for the CNC carving machine at The Rabbit Hole.

We had hoped for more entries and planned to send out stickers to all and shirts to the top five. We’ll be sending both shirts and stickers to the three winners. We’re undecided as to whether we should continue the HHH program with a new theme. We’d love to hear what you think about it in the comments section.

A Nightmare On CNC Street

November 2, 2013 by 43 Comments

[James Dressman] emailed us about his two-year journey of getting a large CNC machine running in his home. He doesn’t currently have a webpage, however his story was so incredible that we just had to feature it.   [James] started by doing plenty of research online, and ordering a new CNC. The real fun started when he opened up a wall to fit the 2300 pound monster into his home. [James] found so much insect and water damage that he ended up rebuilding the entire rear half of his home.

Once the CNC was safely set up, the fun still wasn’t over. Not all family members are keen on having an industrial machine tool in the house. In [James’] case it was the smell of way oil that drove his wife nuts. This was all before spindle problems with the tool itself began to rear their ugly head. Illness and family tragedy put everything on hold for several months, however once [James] strength returned, he attacked the problems with renewed vigor. It was a long and winding road, but he now has a fully functional CNC.

But don’t just take our word for it. Continue after the break to see his photo album and to hear James tell the story in his own words.

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