I have a Smoothieboard that I'm thinking of building a CNC mill with.

General CNC CNC Routers
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I have a Smoothieboard that I’m thinking of building a CNC mill with. Has anyone here done so before? I’d love to compare notes - no need to make mistakes that others have worked out - it’s more interesting to make new mistakes! :slight_smile: For example, is the Smoothieboard actually a good controller to use for CNC milling? The project docs claim it works, but I can’t tell if it works in the real world. I guess I’ll find out by trying…

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Hey !

Many people use Smoothieboard in CNC machines ( either small ones using the on-board drivers, or bigger ones using external drivers ), and it does work great.
I’m available via email directly if you have any question : wolf.arthur@gmail.com
Also if you’ve not seen this : http://smoothieware.org/cnc-mill-guide

Cheers :slight_smile:

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@Laird_Popkin the smoothie will work great with a CNC. A community member @Alex_Lee is building this OX kit
http://www.smw3d.com/openbuilds-ox-cnc-kit-ox-in-a-box/
and will control it with the smoothie. Sure he will be posting all over the place about his build, he’s a great contributor.

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Thanks, guys! @Arthur_Wolf @Brandon_Satterfield that’s very useful.

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Please keep us posted on how you do it, I’m going to be doing the same in the coming months. I have a tinyg but and contemplating trying smoothieboard.

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@Laird_Popkin I’ve got an Ox with a Smoothie 4XC - the Smoothie only arrived the other day, so I am yet to replace my TinyG with it - the first job of the new year. The only downside? I love the screw connectors on the TinyG and am not looking forward to crimping all my motor connectors.

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And my Ox is quite big - 1.5M x 2.3M - with 427oz Nema23 steppers.

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How many axis mill can the Smoothieboard control? I have the 5x, and I’d love to start playing around with 4 or 5 axis milling. Starting with small/wimpy/low accuracy, just to get software and basic hardware figured out. THen if that works (i.e. I’m not crazy) rebuild with real hardware. But in researching, so far, almost everything I see DIY is 3 axis milling. So is 4/5 axis milling still just the domain of the industrial machines so far?

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@Laird_Popkin At the moment, to control more than 3 axes you need to do something hacky and use the Extruder module for the rotary axes.
We are working on native 4/5/6 axis support though.