Rock Solid PCB Mill Built At Home

August 16, 2013 by Mike Szczys 41 Comments

Let’s all slow clap for [Daniel Taylor] who, after a long journey, got his home built PCB mill up and running with remarkable precision. That’s 10 mil traces with 0.5mm pitch pads. We’re impressed! The board will be used for breaking out the connections of an LCD screen he has on hand.

After seeing a CNC project as yesterday’s Fail of the Week it’s nice to look in on one like this that does some amazing stuff. In fact, [Daniel’s] creation has been working for months already. The link above is the project log he kept while hacking, tweaking, and retrofitting his rig to get the level of precision he was after.

Improvements include swapping out drawer slides for proper linear bearings and completely reworking the Z-axis along with a motor upgrade. For those that aren’t fans of the reading (how did you make it this far into this feature?) you can take a quick look at his image gallery which includes captions.

Fail Of The Week: The Follies Of A Bootstrapped CNC Mill

August 15, 2013 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

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Anyone who’s built their own CNC machine from scratch will tell you that it’s no walk in the park. Heck, even commercially available (but hobby priced) 3D printers are no picnic to get running reliably. This offering is the tale of how [Brian Amos] failed at building a CNC mill over and over again. But hey, that ‘over and over again’ part is what makes great hackers. He not only documented what didn’t work, but shows the hacks that he tried using to work through each scrape.

We think the most interesting bits are in his second post, but start with the first one (it’s a quick read) to get the background on the project. The real issues start with a common one: a bed that is severely unlevel compared to the cutting head’s axes. The solution is to use a sacrificial bed, milling it out to match the surface to the tool. This exposed the next issue which is a misaligned Z axis. Some give in the entire support structure means problems with slop and backlash. And there’s even a very creative spiral-cut coupler to help account for alignment issues between the lead screws and motors.

The nice thing about building a mill is that you can turn around a use it to mill more accurate replacement parts. Just keep telling yourself that as you toil away at a project that just won’t seem to work!

We’re already looking for next week’s fail post topic. Help keep the fun rolling by writing about your past failures and sending us a link to the story.

GRBL Compatible Arduino CNC Shield

July 28, 2013 by Mike Szczys 33 Comments

By the time you get to the point in a home CNC build where you’re adding control electronics you may be ready for the simplest means to an end possible. In that case, grab your Arduino and heat up that etching solution to make your own GRBL compatible shield.

This familiar footprint manages to contain everything you need for a three-axis machine. The purple boards slotted into the pairs of SIL headers are Pololu Stepper motor drivers. Going this route makes replacing a burnt out chip as easy as plugging in a new module. The terminal block in the center feeds the higher voltage rail necessary for driving the motors. The DIL header on the right breaks out all of the connections to the limiting switches (two for each axis), spindle and coolant control, as well as three buttons for pause, resume, and abort. There’s even a header for SPI making it easier to add custom hardware if necessary.

This is a dual-layer board which may not be ideal for your own fabrication process. [Bert Kruger] posted his Gerber files for download if you want to put in a small run with OSH Park or a similar service.

CNC Router Built With 80/20 Rail

July 26, 2013 by Mike Szczys 32 Comments

There’s still quite a bit of machining that goes into a CNC mill build of this size. But using 80/20 brand extruded rail optimizes most of the build process into tasks manageable by the average basement hacker. That’s not to say that we think [Jim] is average. He took this mill from start to finish in just two weeks.

He picked up the set of three ball screws on eBay for $180. Two of them drive the X axis with the third moving the cutter assembly along the Y axis. The X axis travels along a set of precision rails instead of precision rods. He machined his own mounting plates to which those are attached. For now he’s not running the motors at full speed because the vibration starts to make the table shake. He may end up bolting the base to the floor once all is said and done.

We see this extruded rail used all over the place. We could highlight some other mill builds or 3d printers, but instead we think you’ll enjoy an extruded rail robotic bass guitar.

Oh, one last thing. We’re not against a bit of pandering. Below you can see the mill cutting out the Hackaday logo:

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Cyclone PCB Factory: 3d Printable Circuit Board Mill

July 24, 2013 by Mike Szczys 27 Comments

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If you can 3D print most of the parts for another 3D printer, why not also for a PCB mill? That’s the question answered by the Cyclone PCB Factory. It will help you kiss those toner transfer or photo resist days goodbye.

Homemade circuit boards tend to be rather small, which really helps keep the cost and scope of this project down. Most of the mounting parts, as well as the gears, are 3D printed. Of course there’s the usual machine tool items which you pretty much have to purchase: the ball screws, precision rod, stepper motors, and a motor to spin the routing tool.

Check out the video below to see where the project is right now. One of the crucial aspects of PCB milling is to have a level build table. The cutter head tends to be ‘V’ shaped so cutting just a bit too deep can blow out the traces you’re trying to isolate. The demo shows that this can automatically calibrate the software to account for any variances in the height of the copper clad.

We remember seeing a snap-together PCB mill. But we’re pretty sure that that one used parts milled from HDPE rather than 3D printed components.

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Predator Suit For Monsterpalooza Includes Over-engineered Shoulder Cannon

July 24, 2013 by Mike Szczys 11 Comments

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This Predator suit was premiered at this year’s Monsterpalooza conference. It’s nothing short of incredible. But the shoulder cannon is really what caught our attention. The thing is fully motorized and includes sound and light firing effects.

We saw a glimpse of what [Jerome Kelty] is capable of about two years ago. He was showing off an Arduino-based animatronics platform he put together for a Predator shoulder cannon that tracked based on where the predator’s helmet was pointing. But other than a video demonstration there wasn’t much info on the that actual build. This post makes up for that and then some.

A replica of this quality is rarely the work of just one person. A team of fans joined in to make it happen. After getting the molded parts for the backpack and canon from another team member [Jerome] set out to fit the support structure, motors, and control electronics into the space available. That meant a ton of milling, cutting, and shaping parts like the support arm seen above which integrates a servo motor into its rectangular outline. All of the controls fit in the backpack, with cables running to the helmet, as well as the cannon.

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DIY Pick And Place Just Getting Under Way

July 22, 2013 by Mike Szczys 14 Comments

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It’s not totally fair to say that this project is just getting under way. But the truth is it neither picks nor places so there’s a long road still to travel. But we’re impressed with the demonstrations of what [Daniel Amesberger] has achieved thus far. Using the simplest of CNC mills he’s finished the frame and gantry for the device. You can see some of the parts on the left after going though an anodizing process that leaves them with that slick black finish.

The demo video shows off the device by driving it with a joystick. It’s fast, which gives us hope that this will rival some of the low-end commercial pick and place machines. He’s already been working on the software, which runs on a mini ITX form factor computer. This includes a gerber file interpreter and some computer vision for a visual check on part placement. He hasn’t gotten around to building the parts feeders but we’ll keep you updated as we hear back from him.

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