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We have a new look.
Mark K's CNC Machine
A quote from Mark, "You have really given me a lot of confidence with your web site
and your book to help me build my CNC. I never dreamed I could afford to have one
let alone build it myself. I am actually a shop (industrial tech) teacher and have
built it for use in our shop. I am very excited to see what I and my students can
do with it. I also wanted to point out that in you book you said you wanted to present
the material at a level that an 8th grade student could understand. I definitely
thing that I could help students build a CNC machine using your book and videos
as a reference if I were allowed to hand pick the students. you have done an excellent
job explaining, demonstrating and providing sources for parts."
It is quite evident that Mark has a sense of design and aesthetics with the way
he modified his CNC Machine. As is obvious, the machine that I designed has many
areas that are not necessary. Theparts were designed to make it very easy to build
the machine by hand. Mark obviously noticed these unnecessary areas and decided
to produce a machine that literally cut corners. The resulting design is very attractive.
The first and most obvious change that Mark made is on the gantry sides. He totally
removed the top superfluous area and then added a large chamfer to both edges and
rounded out the corners of the chamfer. The Screws appear more centered and the
overall gantry side has a much more streamlined look. A perfect eleveation was not
provided, but I'll bet that if the point of view is towards the gantry side, the
aluminum angle opooing above the top would appear very harmonius with the gantry
side.
The next obvious change was made to the router mount sides. Again, the superfluous
area was removed fo ra much more streamlined look. You might be wondering, what
about the rigidity and structure of these parts. Mark kept most of the material
and the material that was cut, was overkill.
Mark also produced an example. I note this image because the routing is exceptional.
The inside corners of the text (mainly in the serifs) are very sharp. The only way,
that I know, to do this is to use a drill mill, v-groove bit, or an engraving bit.
A discussion on how much material that should be removed for design enhancement:
It is my hope that others try similar approaches in design like Mark has. Here are
a few rules of thumb to remember. The material that should be kept in this design
should have a couple factors of resistance to the forces that are applied on the
machine on a regular basis. The load on the end mill is the main force that should
be considered in making modifications to the machine. If too much material is removed,
there is a possibility that the machine will flex too much. One example would be
too much modification to the gantry side. If the gantry side was thinned, or the
race was necked down below the screws for the horizontal connection, the gantry
would potentially cause a twisting of the y-axis rails. Enhancement can also come
inthe form of adding material where it would make sense to provide more rigidity,
especially if the machine's size is changed (larger).
As you read above, Mark is an industrial shop teacher and below are some of the
projects that Mark's students did on the CNC Machine.