Ryan's projects! (That sometimes work): Cnc router build from scratch. (updated 9/28/15)

Hmmm, I'm a little new to this blogging thing, but hey there's a first for everything right? Just a warning I'm not the best at writing or grammar. YOU BEEN WARNED!

So I guess I'll talk about my homemade/home-designed CNC router, cuz well, that's what I like to do. Does your wife give you that "I heard this 1000 times" look too? Every time you bring up your hobby to someone that'll listen to you? Haha. Anyway, as I get time ill try to post pictures of the building process. Its currently completed now (7/11/2015) (Here's a YouTube video of it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO20dkWkDqo ) but figured it'd be fun to go back and write about my build, for anyone that may stubble along my feeble blog. =P

P.S I'm finding blogger don't always let you arrange pictures in a nice format, so sorry in advanced!

First linear bearing design.(Homemade)

My first design was a homemade idea I had. I bought some 1 3/4 delrin rod off amazon, ( http://amzn.to/1ijhiFW ) and with access to a lathe at work, lathed'er down.
I lathed it down so the center ridge would just so fit inside the t-slot grove. Then added two pockets to push the bearings ( http://amzn.to/1ijgK2R ) in on either side. Somewhere along the line, I found out i needed a spacer between the bearing, to keep them from binding when i tightened them down.
I liked the idea of them being homemade, but like a lot of my ideas, they work better in my mind. Do you ever have that problem? haha. So i may have been able to use them, but I just had a few concerns. First, they would roll nice at some spots on the t-slot, but get tight at others. Second, time. It took me roughly 30-45 minutes to make one, and I would have needed 10 altogether. Sooo, I decided to go with an alternative.

Second linear bearing design.(I just bought em)

Man it's been 2 months since I last wrote. Time fly's! So anyway like I said in the last blog post...The homemade delrin wheels didn't fit my fancy. So I decided to go with 3/8 V-groove bearings. If you shop around ebay you can find some pretty good deals, though amazon has them too. Here is a link to my amazon store. ( http://astore.amazon.com/cat05ff-20/detail/B002BBK2IQ ) I started an amazon store to group all the hobbyist style stuff I personally bought/used. So anything on my store feel free to asked me about. Anyway, the V-groove bearing worked perfect, and aren't extremely expensive. But after buying 12, and a few extra for spares, it did seem to add up!
I got the idea for V-groove bearing, after seeing a guy on YouTube using them. He ran them on a piece of steel angle iron. So I decided to dive into that method, and so far haven't regretted it. What I did was, took 5/16 carriage bolts (http://amzn.to/1O3l3eL) and slid then down into the tslot. Taking the angle iron to the milling machine, I drilled 7 holes. Then set the angle iron on the tslot, so the threaded part of the bolt would come up though the holes. Then bolted it down.

Next I milled a plate out of 3/8 steel, to mount the bearings to. In the picture i'm using grade 5 bolts. Later, after having the heavy weight of the gantry on them, I changed them to grade 8. Maybe it was just me, but they seemed to be bending ever so slightly.

Cnc router frame.

So i have a small obsession with bolting freshly made/new material together. I guess because well, it looks awesome. What more of a reason do you need?

So for the frame I went with aluminum t-slot, love that stuff! Found it on a shelf at work and bought it for a decent price. 5$ a foot, which adds up rather quick. I also used 1 1/2 x 1/4 steel angle to complete the frame, reason being...Its cheaper.

Not sure what to say about these pictures. I guess just look at em, and ask me any questions you have! =D

I found it really helpful to draw up all my pieces on a 2d cad program. DraftSight. There was a few times, when I wanted to look back on a piece I made, to copy, or to see dimensions to design a mating piece.

First Z axis linear rail.

My first design for the z axis, didn't work. From the pictures you can kinda see what I was going for. In theory it should have worked. I used cold-rolled steel, which is suppose to be closer to tolerances. (then hot-rolled) But after building the whole assembly, The piece I wanted to slide (when all the bolts were tightened down) didn't slide. Soo, I had to move on to something...better.

Yes, I used a soda can as shim stock.