Desktop CNC Machines

[Eventorizon]

Could you modify a PCB mill for your needs? We had one at uni that had been extended to accommodate A4 sized sheets for board prototyping. I believe it started as 100x150mm.

Edit: Looked a little like this - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3Axis-DIY-...gAAOSw9eVXUA78

[Shakey]

Could you modify a PCB mill for your needs? We had one at uni that had been extended to accommodate A4 sized sheets for board prototyping. I believe it started as 100x150mm.

Edit: Looked a little like this - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3Axis-DIY-...gAAOSw9eVXUA78

Certainly an option, my worry is though that after all the conversion I'd be left with a lacklustre machine for not much less than doing an electronics swap on one of the china mills. It's going to be pretty heavily used so I'm going down the buy right buy once line.

[bigsi]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Denford-No...AAAOSwHoFXrwLU

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Denford-Or...cAAOSw65FXtgcQ

Don't worry about it being 'spares or repair' you are going to replace all the bits that generally need repairing!

Both are good quality, precise machines.

[Shakey]

I quite enjoyed your plasma cutter CNC table writeup, I had some plans for my won hand plasma cutter and it gave me some ideas.

The denford looks nice but there were 2 reasons I was considering hacking a china CNC mill. For what I need they're actually fairly solidly built (As long as you're not aiming at the cheapest on the list) what typically lets them down is the electronics and that leads into my thoughts. My plan is to throw away the parallel port controller and convert it to more modernised controllers, there are a ton to choose from that will run them and allow it to be run from USB like my printer. This appeals as it keeps the flow of operating the machines similar and gives me the tinkering I'm used to having on the printer with familiar electronics. The other point is that I simply don't have the room for more fully fledged solutions!

[bigsi]

There's nothing wrong with a Parallel port controller. My lathe uses a Parallel port. The mill uses both the Parallel port and a Smoothstepper Ethernet controller and the Plasma is USB.

Be careful with the USB controllers - I had endless problems with a cheap one from eBay and eventually bought a UC100 which is spot on. It turned out the eBay one was supplied with a hacked version of Mach3 - and wouldn't work with a 'proper' one. Unfortunately, the 'hacking' rendered bits of it useless, made the behavior unpredictable and the PC crash a lot! You may be more lucky - but for me it was a waste of money!