Hobby CAD, CNC machining, and resin casting

 (lcamtuf.coredump.cx)

36 points | by hughgrunt4 hours ago

6 comments

  • sottol1 hour ago
    Shameless plug if anyone is interested - I'm working on a $600-ish open-source, reasonably capable, but small and somewhat "tidy" hobby CNC machine with BOM cost around $600 that requires some DIYing.

    It's meant to be an alternative to the Desktop CNCs like Nomad, Carvera, Bantam, ... moreso than a PCNC or other proper entry-level CNC.

    The ultimate goal is to make it hobbyist-friendly, capable of easily cutting alumin(i)um and not taking up a lot space, not being messy or loud enough to require a dedicated workshop. Unfortunately, cutting metal is inherently loud so you probably would not be able to run it in an apartment as I'd hoped.

    I've made a couple decisions around being friendly for people coming from the 3DP space around probing, using roborock CPAP as chipvac, running it mostly dry, fully enclosed. I'm also starting to work on computer-vision-based probing and the idea is to later enable a host of more user-friendly and safety-focused features and maybe integration with Kiri:Moto's CNC mode for "guided" CAM and so on - basically a beginner-friendly CNC that guides newbies using an integrated web-interface.

    More info on Github: https://github.com/thingsapart/mini_nc

    GH is a little outdated but I've been using the little machine to cut alu for a while (mostly parts for itself) and it's working quite well. There's more videos and such on the Discord linked in the GH readme - feel free to ask questions on the Discord, I try to respond as quickly as I can. The full model with all its components is completely open in Onshape (I know it's not ideal but how I learned CAD - link also on GH).

    • hnisoss15 minutes ago
      that looks like a nice project, reminds me of the ghost gunner 3 machine. I like the safety note too. might hop into discord sometime next week. thanks for sharing!
  • WillAdams1 hour ago
    Previous discussions:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41467268

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645605

    This was a resource which was mentioned on the Shapeoko wiki --- while it's off-line, it's still on the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20211127090321/https://wiki.shap...

    Since then, some of those pages have been made available on Reddit:

    https://old.reddit.com/r/hobbycnc/wiki/index

    https://old.reddit.com/r/shapeoko/wiki (ob. discl., I work for Carbide 3D)

    And there have been a number of other developments

    - FreeCAD has hugely improved since that was written.

    - Solvespace as greatly improved, adding some basic CAM functionality

    - Blender has had the Solvespace sketcher ported to it as https://www.cadsketcher.com/ and BlenderCAM has gotten quite a bit more workable

    - Dune3D was created and is remarkably capable: https://dune3d.org/

    Also a fair number of forums discussing CNC were gathered at: https://forum.makerforums.info/

  • syntaxing24 minutes ago
    Former MechE for a decade and I owned personal CNC routers and on my 6th 3D printer. The biggest issue with CNC is the cost for consumables and accessories. Need a special bit? $$$ Need stock to cut? $$$ Want a nice ER11 or R2 collet set? $$$. A nice vise? $$$ Cut something wrong with a carbide bit? Shrapnel explosion. 3D printing has a bunch of limitations but is a way better machine for hobbyist. But I have been eyeing the Millennium Machines Milo. A very fair price point for a traditional style CNC. You can also decorate it however you want with your 3D printer.
    • sottol1 minute ago
      It is definitely more expensive than 3d printing in terms of consumables but china/aliexpress has really good hobby-quality equipment now - if you don't mind the country of origin. Many of their coated end-mills are decent and < $5 depending on diameter.

      Maybe not stuff you would want to run professionally but it works quite well in a hobbyist setting and a mistake won't cost you $50.

      I also looked into the Millenium Milo, only downside for me and kinda why I decided to design my own Voron V0-ish sized machine was the really large footprint for about 3x the work volume (work _area_ is ~2x afair). An enclosed Milo would take up about the same volume as two 350mm Voron's side-by-side. So footprint of a small desk.

      Imo besides the price, the other big factor is just how much less forgiving CNC machining is than 3d printing - so many mistakes you can make, zeroing the WCS, wrong WCS, mounting the work different than you had it in CAM, ... bam, at least the work is ruined. That's kind of another longer-term goal with my CNC machine, reducing some of these errors if possible with a web-based UI and maybe some computer vision. But that's far off, I'm currently playing with using a camera for work-probing/WCS-zeroing and it's sloooow progress :')

  • hnisoss17 minutes ago
    oh my! I found this exact page in ~2017. I m something of a tab hoarder and I had around 2k open tabs back then. I loved the page and content and wanted to get back to it, but you know how it goes. Somewhere in early 2018 my browser crashed and I lost the tab. I distinctively remembered losing that page and I tried to find it, over and over again. I actually had one of the pictures saved (blue-red-white wheel), so I opened it in new tab as placeholder until I find the page. 6 years later here we are!!! tnx hughgrunt xd
  • dekhn1 hour ago
    With some concerted effort and money spent over several years I was able to more or less reproduce most of this document (but not nearly to the level of detail or variation on process). Eventually I was able to finely CNC engrave a wax block with extremely fine (0.1mm) features, make a mold, and then stamp out as many copies as I wanted. This guide was really helpful in understanding some of the core ideas.
  • AnarchismIsCool2 hours ago
    I remember reading this around a decade ago. Still holds up though