While I don’t actually suggest anyone do this to their own 3D printer – it’s a pretty common thing to have 3D printer components such as electronics, motors, drivers, software, etc drive machines meant for subtractive work as well.
There are just too many problems with converting a 3D printer - best to just build a machine from scratch if you’re interested in CNC machinery other than 3D printers.
This is joke and everyone that do this will just bust 100$. Yes you can do it but you will achieve worse result in term of accuracy than if you print the part. Except the movement algorithms everything else is just different as too many things should be considered. If someone thing that could get CNC that mill aluminium for less than few thousands of $ is dreamer. I was dreaming same that I can build machine that could print and mill same time. I did greate light construction capable to go above 200 IPM (6000+mm/m) with decent acceleration without shaking, but when I start milling the construction start to deflect and bent causing huge inaccuracy so I need to add stiffness that lead to weight and to acceleration decrease. Just movement is same but hardware is different. Here is pick for my first failure attempt that cost me 2500 Euro: missing/deleted image from Google+
@George_Novtekov cut slow and shallow for aluminum. A dremel can cut aluminum. Cutting wood and plastic should be easy on something that turned from 3D printer to cnc, but you still need to keep chip size small. Shapeoko2 vs this, the Shapeoko2 has a stiffer frame and close your the same mechanics.
Shapeoko is a joke compared to this mechanic I used. But this not the problem. You need to keep certain chip size and speed depending on the tool used. If you slow down more than minimum and chip size go bellow the vendor minimum recommendation you will find that you no longer mill but rub the material. You will start melt the the material instead of milling it. There are plenty of calculator in internet that also show the forces your frame will experience. you can than check what will be the deflection, in 99% of the printer you will find the deflection is between 0.3-1mm for the 3D printer just because it is not designed to have any collision forces but flying on top without any resistance.
You also should be aware that if you go for this mod milling forces and vibrations will dramatically decrease the lifetime of your printer mechanics and easily could cause damage to your printer.
Some of us make do with what we can afford. I will not try to claim that Shapeoko2 is a professional device. I will not claim the cnc mill that was a printer is professional either.
No my idea is that with 100$ you can do much more improving your printer that trying to do something that it is not made to do. And because I made this mistake that cost a lot of money I just want to share so less people do not go same wrong direction.
