Mini cnc

[dbanner]

Having seen many videos on you tube of diy mini cnc from old dvd drives, I decided to try to make one since I have many old floppy/dvd drives. I had idea to use cnc as plotter to draw layout on pcb for etching. Problem is the travel distance of the x/y axis is so small( only about 4cm square). Only good for tiny 4x4cm pcb. Is there a way around this problem by manipulating software(linuxCNC) to split layout into 4 quadrants, so I can do small section of larger pcb, quadrant by quadrant. Or maybe for drilling holes quadrant by quadrant in order to cover larger board?
Here is cnc mini machine, its not yet finished.

[kosacid]

https://github.com/winder/Universal-G-Code-Sender
Mini_CNC_Arduino_Plotter.zip that's all i used if it any help

[homefire]

Or just use the CD drive on a larger Carriage ? https://www.banggood.com/SFU1204-Bal...r_warehouse=CN

[Koala]

Two flatbed scanners ? Instead of drives

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I am using cd drives with longer travel, it is only 4cm travel! Don't have any flatbed scanners to teardown. I'll just experiment with this to see what I can learn about arduino cnc and mach 3. In the meantime, will gather parts for bigger machine. Then i'll move on to bigger and better things. I like the idea of being able to mill a pcb in just a few minutes.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...b+cnc&_sacat=0

[kosacid]

this is mine its just for drawing on pcbs 3d printed

[dbanner]

Very nice! Are those stepper motors? I see yours is belt driven. Where did you get the motors from?

[Qiaozhi]

I am using cd drives with longer travel, it is only 4cm travel! Don't have any flatbed scanners to teardown. I'll just experiment with this to see what I can learn about arduino cnc and mach 3. In the meantime, will gather parts for bigger machine. Then i'll move on to bigger and better things. I like the idea of being able to mill a pcb in just a few minutes.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...b+cnc&_sacat=0

I have a Chinese CNC3020T engraving / milling machine that I bought second-hand from a small engraving company. Its a bit of a pig to configure in the first instance, but once you get the right settings the results are not too bad. I would say that it's ok for doing prototype single-sided PCBs, but alignment errors makes double-sided PCBs a real challenge. Once I used it to make a complex double-sided board, but eventually I lost the will to live, and just gave up. Some of the holes didn't line up correctly, and there were numerous little whiskers of copper between the tracks where the milling was less than perfect. Also, it's a real pain to have to manually connect up all the vias. It's a great toy to play with, but you need to be aware of the limitations. I'm not sure of the quality you'll get from a homemade CNC machine built from scrap parts. Probably not good.

[dbanner]

Your are right. Precision milling cannot be done with any old cnc put-together homemade gizmo. I'm more interested in using cnc to drill holes in pcb. Drilling holes manually can be a real headache when it gets up over 300 holes or so. The other alternative to avoiding too many holes is to go with smd, but this is also real painstaking task unless you are going to use oven , but that is a whole different story.

[dbanner]

How does it perform if used just to drill holes(cnc3020)

[Qiaozhi]

How does it perform if used just to drill holes(cnc3020)

It's perfectly adequate for drilling holes. Milling is the main issue, as it's difficult to get the bed flat for intricate tasks.

[Tibuck19]

Having seen many videos on you tube of diy mini cnc from old dvd drives, I decided to try to make one since I have many old floppy/dvd drives. I had idea to use cnc as plotter to draw layout on pcb for etching. Problem is the travel distance of the x/y axis is so small( only about 4cm square). Only good for tiny 4x4cm pcb. Is there a way around this problem by manipulating software(linuxCNC) to split layout into 4 quadrants, so I can do small section of larger pcb, quadrant by quadrant. Or maybe for drilling holes quadrant by quadrant in order to cover larger board?
Here is cnc mini machine, its not yet finished.

I have tones of these motors also, I'm solving the travel limitations by using the small steppers as a Coryxy ( the motor are the spools to drive fishing line) as the gantry only needs to support the weight of a small servo and a sharpie there no need to use bigger steppers. I have it all built already but only in my head haha.

[Tibuck19]

Very nice! Are those stepper motors? I see yours is belt driven. Where did you get the motors from?

those are Fleabay aka ebay lol motors usually in the 2$ price range .

[dbanner]

Yes, I saw video of machine using fishing line. Interesting and curious, but I think it will involve a lot of calibration and experimenting to get things just right with such a design. I have Idea to make longer leadscrews out of small hot water pvc tubing or some rigid plastic tubes. I can use roller skate or fan motor bearings for gantry slides.
I like to make stuff from discarded parts, or from parts you can obtain over the counter at local hardware. But in this case, buying one from China might be best way to get on with things quickly.

[kosacid]

lexmark printers are a good source i had 2 scanner printers