CNC Router

Home Model Engine Machinist Forum

Help Support Home Model Engine Machinist Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

billscaramu

Member
Joined
Jan 5, 2013
Messages
18
Reaction score
14
Hi All,

I have to say that I sure enjoy this site. I don't post very often, but I do follow along. I did make a Webster several years ago
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yc4G-1DSiGg[/ame] it was a fun project.

I have been working for my son, he owns a Kitchen Cabinet business, ( I am a unpaid employee, of course). One of my jobs is to make all of the dovetailed drawers. I hated the way we made them, so a couple of winters ago I built a cnc router to do the job. Having been a machinist for 40 years and having my own 2 axis cnc mill, I started the build.

I am very lucky to have a connection to the employer that I retired from. A lot of the components for the build are from printing presses 400 of them, that we built in the 90's. They presses have done the job they were developed for and it was time to scrap them.

So with those parts and alot of design and machining this is my cnc router.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABgCsIqapqs[/ame]

Bill
 
A couple of great projects there Bill. Thanks for sharing.
 
That CNC looks like a very clean build, lots of attention to detail. I noticed your wiring & layout, I'm anal that way on my RC heli's :) I wish I knew more about CNC routers & had the time to build one... one day!...

Question about your spindle motor, it kind of has the markings of a smaller router. Is that what it is? If so, do you do anything special to them in terms of heat dissipation or enhancing bearings? Or they are good to go as-is? Would your particular machine deal with milling aluminum ok?
 
Hi petertha,

The spindle is a Hitachi M12VC 2-1/4 HP router. The router is modified, the fan to cool the motor blows straight down, with that air it made dust collection very hard. The mod I did was to block the down air with a plate inside the motor, I then milled slots around the bottom circumference of the motor. The slots allowed air to come out the side to the motor, it worked well.

The Hitachi router is very noisy, I replaced it with a water cooled 3hp spindle. This motor is very quiet, it has a speed range of 0 to 24,000 rpm, and is controlled by a VFD (Variable Frequency Drive).

You could do some light non ferrous machining with it. I use it to do engraving on both aluminium and brass.

Bill
 

Latest posts

Back
Top