An attractive orange CNC mill sitting ona bench.

3D Printed Milling Machine Is Solid As A Rock

April 13, 2025 by Tyler August 59 Comments

There are no shortage of CNC machines in the DIY space these days, but sometimes you just need to do things your own way. That’s what [Chris Borges] decided when he put together this rock-solid, concrete-filled CNC milling machine.

The concrete body of this machine is housed inside a 3D printed shell, which makes for an attractive skin as well as a handy mold. Within the concrete is a steel skeleton, with the ‘rebar’ being made of threaded rods and a length of square tubing to hold the main column. You can see the concrete being poured in around the rebar in the image, or watch it happen in the build video embedded below.

An image of the main column of [Chris]'s CNC mill as the concrete is added. The steel reinforcement is clearly visible. — In goes the concrete, up goes the rigidity.

All three axes slide on linear rails, and are attached to lead screws driven by the omnipresent NEMA 17 steppers. The air-cooled spindle, apparently the weak-point of the design, is attached to a pivoting counterweight, but make no mistake: it is on rails. All-in-all, it looks like a very rigid, and very capable design — [Chris] shows it cutting through aluminum quite nicely.

Given that [Chris] has apparently never used a true mill before, this design came out remarkably well. Between the Bill of Materials and 45 page step-by-step assembly instructions, he’s also done a fantastic job documenting the build for anyone who wants to put one together for themselves.

This isn’t the first concrete-filled project we’ve highlighted from [Chris], you may remember seeing his lathe on these pages. It certainly isn’t the first CNC mill we’ve covered, either.

Continue reading “3D Printed Milling Machine Is Solid As A Rock” →

Reviving A Free 1990s Millport CNC Vertical Mill

June 28, 2024 by Maya Posch 25 Comments

When faced with the offer of free machining equipment, there is no realistic way to say ‘no’. This is how [Anthony Kouttron]’s brother [Thomas] got to pick up a large 1990s-era CNC machine as a new companion for his growing collection of such equipment. The trickiest part of the move to the new location was getting the machine to fit through the barn doors, requiring some impromptu disassembly of the Z-axis assembly, which required the use of an engine crane and some fine adjustments with the reinstallation. With that [Thomas] and [Anthony] got to gawk at their new prize in its new home.

This Millport vertical mill is effectively a Taiwanese clone of the Bridgeport vertical mill design, though using an imported servo control system from Anilam. The most exciting part about a CNC machine like this is usually the electronics, especially for a well-used machine. Fortunately the AT-style PC and expansion cards looked to be in decent condition, and the mill’s CRT-based controller popped up the AMI BIOS screen before booting into the Anilam S1100 CNC software on top of MS-DOS, all running off a 1 MB Flash card.

Which is not to say that there weren’t some issues to be fixed. The Dallas DS12887 real-time clock/NVRAM module on the mainboard was of course dead. After replacing it, the BIOS finally remembered the right boot and input settings, so that the CNC machine’s own controls could be used instead of an external keyboard. This just left figuring out the Anilam controls, or so they thought, as a range of new errors popped up about X-lag and the Distribution Board. This had [Anthony] do a deep-dive into the electronics cabinets to clean metal chips and repair broken parts and floating pins. After this and a replacement Anilam Encoder this Millport vertical mill was finally ready to be put back into service.

Continue reading “Reviving A Free 1990s Millport CNC Vertical Mill” →

Wood game piece being carved by a CNC mill with a hacked rotary axis

This $12 CNC Rotary Axis Will Make Your Head Spin

May 15, 2023 by Michael Shaub 20 Comments

[legolor] brings us a great, cheap rotary axis to add to your small 3 axis CNC mills. How are you going to generate G-Code for this 4th axis? That’s the great part, and the hack, that [legolor] really just swapped the Y axis for the rotation. To finish the workflow and keep things ~~cheap~~ accessible to all there’s a great trick to “unwrap” your 3D model so your CAM software of choice thinks it’s still using a linear Y axis and keeps your existing workflow largely intact. While this requires an extra step in Blender to do the unwrapping, we love the way this hack changes as little of the rest of your process as possible. The Blender script might be useful for many other purposes too.

The results speak for themselves too! We thought the 3D printed parts were suspect in a CNC setup, but for the small scale of game pieces and milling wood, the setup is stable enough to produce a surprisingly accurate and detailed finish. If you want to try the same approach with something larger or a tougher material, [legolor] has a suggestion of a tailstock setup that’s still under $100 USD. Continue reading “This $12 CNC Rotary Axis Will Make Your Head Spin” →

3D Print A PCB The Hard Way

February 22, 2021 by Al Williams 15 Comments

There’s an old joke about the physics student tasked with finding the height of a building using a barometer. She dropped the barometer from the roof and timed how long it took to hit the ground. Maybe that was a similar inspiration to [Moe_fpv_team’s] response to the challenge: use a 3D printer to create a PC board. The answer in that case? Print a CNC mill.

[Moe] had some leftover 3D printer parts. A $40 ER11 spindle gets control from the 3D printer software as a fan. The X, Y, and Z axis is pretty standard. The machine can’t mill metal, but it does handy on plywood and fiber board and should be sufficient to mill out a PCB from some copper clad board.

Continue reading “3D Print A PCB The Hard Way” →

Hackaday Podcast 082: DJ CNC, NFC Black Box, Sound Of Keys, And Payin’ For 3D Prints

August 28, 2020 by Mike Szczys 2 Comments

Hackaday editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys check in on the best hacks from the past week. All the buzz is the algorithm that can reverse engineer your house keys from the way they sound going into the lock. Cardboard construction goes extreme with an RC car build that’s beyond wizard-level. Speaking of junk builds, there’s a CNC mill tipped on its side grinding out results worlds better than you expect from something made with salvaged CD-ROM drives. And a starburst character display is a clever combination of laser cutting and alternative using UV-cured resin as a diffuser.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (60 MB or so.)

Continue reading “Hackaday Podcast 082: DJ CNC, NFC Black Box, Sound Of Keys, And Payin’ For 3D Prints” →

Desk-Sized CNC Engraver Does The Job

July 23, 2019 by Lewin Day 22 Comments

CNC machine tools are highly useful for when you want to take a CAD design and make real parts as quickly and as easily as possible. Typically, they’re employed in large-scale industrial settings, but CNC machines come in all shapes and sizes. It’s possible to build a useful machine that’s just right to sit on your desk, as [More Than User] demonstrates.

The holes pictured were made with a 0.5mm tool, showing off the precision and accuracy of the machine.

The build consists of an aluminium-framed CNC engraver, designed primarily for the production of PCBs. However, it can also handle plastic jobs, and aluminium if run slowly enough. Like most garage CNC projects, it runs with a combination of stepper motors and an Arduino. The cutting area is 16 cm x 16cm – more than enough for most hobby PCBs.

There are plenty of interesting details, such as the T-slot bed made from U-section steel bolted together, and the simple probe made from a microswitch. Perhaps most impressive though is the tight precision of the cuts. This is particularly important for PCB work, where otherwise minor issues could cause short or open circuits and make the resulting parts useless.

It’s a project that we’re sure will come in handy for [More Than User]’s future projects, and there’s nothing quite like making your own tools. If you’re new to CNC as a whole, consider picking up some design tips before you get started.

Design Tips For Easier CNC Milling

May 20, 2019 by Lewin Day 12 Comments

CNC machining is a wonderful thing, taking away a lot of the manual work required in machining and replacing it with accurate, repeatable computer control. However, this doesn’t mean that you can simply click a few buttons and become a great machinist overnight. There are a wide variety of skills involved in utilizing these tools effectively, and [Adam Bender] has created a guide to help budding makers learn the skills of design for CNC milling.

[Adam]’s guide starts from a basic level, considering 3-axis CNC milling with the most commonly used tools. From there, a whole range of tips, tricks, and potential pitfalls are discussed to help new machinists get to grips with CNC milling. Everything from dogbone corners, to tool selection and feature heights are covered, as well as cost-saving techniques like minimising the number of setups required.

These are skills any engineer will learn in a hurry when approaching an experienced CNC machinist, but it’s always better to go in forewarned and forearmed. Of course, for those eager to not just work with, but build their own CNC machine, we’ve covered that base too. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Design Tips For Easier CNC Milling” →