I am sure this has been thought of, conceived, tried; but I am gluten for punishment.
I want to build an “all in one”.
A gantry I have recently built is pretty large. Dual Y motors, single X, Z controlled at the head. So pretty much run of the mill (pun intended) cnc mill, plasma cutter, laser cutter.
I want to be able to put all these things plus an extruder and a blast head on it. Yep love a challenge.
So talk me out of this, off this cliff. Challenges I am aware of.
Stepper motors: I need to go with something with umph. I believe the heaviest load would be the mill head, I don’t want to use a dremel. I want to place a Dewalt motor (heavy) on it.
Deflection: I currently have open builds 20x40 running across the X. I had to use 80/20s second moment of inertia on their 20x40 to calculate, open builds does not have this information, but should be similar. This would suffice for all things but the mill head.
And the creme de la creme of challenges all in one software: so I can finagle a marlin/repetier/slic3r-cura to do almost all things… Additive and removal, but not without major firmware changes every head change. I can play with a grbl/Chilipepper for all things but the plastic extrusion, I think.
Tell me other design challenges, why not to take this design on.
This would be for my own amusement, not looking for speed, but accuracy and precision.
@Patrick_Becker my current thought is a nema 23 body. The size will need to be determined. Belts for X and Y. The Z will be a single head configured in such a way all the items I want to attach will have a universal mount made for them and will simply have a four bolt attachment, motion controlled be lead screw/acme screw. Considering a 100 mm of travel should be sufficient.
@Miguel_Sanchez true true. I have a large number of nice Lite-on brand 1200w 12vdc PSUs laying around, but not opposing the 24v idea.
My thought on this is, the mill head will run on its own power supply, signal delivered via a SS relay I have laying around. Signal provided by whatever the board choice I make PWM signal out to control start, stop, and speed. The plasma cutter’s power is provided by attached machine, this interface is the same. You can buy machines preconfigured for this. The laser cutter head, I am still looking at this. The blast head, no electronics needed. Extruder, simple.
These are all just ideas.
Nice project, but belts will not work for milling. You have to resist the changing forces of the mill while cutting, not just move the wight of the head. I would recommend at least acme screws, or better ball screws.
Belt drives work well for laser and plasma cutters, because the moved mass doesn’t change. But on a mill, the belt has to push against the cutting flute, and the force changes continously while turning the cutter.
Belts could work well for low forces, like cutting foam, soft woods or PCB milling.
True true. I print at 50mm/s appears the mill would be far under this. So yeah… Just going to buy some sherline’s turn them into cnc machines. Keep my printers and figure out something to do with all this nice extruded al.
