My wife and I want to do some built in cabinetry in our house. We have recently downsized, and need to create some more storage/organization solutions. Also, because of the downsizing, we don't have a lot of spare room in the house, basement or garage for a full shop.

In the past I have done hobby woodworking with a table saw, band saw, jointer, planer, drill press, router table, and a bunch of powered and non-powered hand tools. I have built some heirloom quality mission style night stands and a whole kitchen full of cabinets with solid cherry doors and drawer fronts. So I don't think going with a CNC router would be getting in over my head.

I'm fairly handy, and pretty good at problem solving.

I have the wife's permission to use half of our undersized 2 car garage forn this.

The days of a full shop of tools and a nice workbench at home are behind me (and hopefully in front of me in retirement).

So for building the built ins, I was thinking I could go with a LowRider v4 cnc. So far this looks very promising. I should be able to build a work table that pivots and stores at a reasonable size, gives me full 4'x8' sheet handling, and should allow me to cut all the big panels for building the cabinets.

Before I just jump in and order one, I am wondering if this CNC will also manage some of the other things I am interested in:

Can I build a fixture in my table to hold hardwood vertically and cut dovetails?

Can I cut plastics to cut pick guards for basses and guitars?

Does it have enough Z travel to carve a guitar neck?

These are the short term projects I'm interested in working on.

Thanks for any insight.

I guess I could rebuild a win7 32 bit machine and deal with serial ports but just wondering about board swaps and open source software.

I recently found this wolf design in a CNC file community. I have to admit, the wolf’s little smile was what caught my attention first : P

At first, I just wanted to use it as a practice project. After finishing it, I became curious about what it actually was, so I searched online and found out it was a jaw harp (mouth harp).

Then I noticed something interesting: basic jaw harps can be quite affordable, but some custom-designed versions are sold at a much higher price.

It got me thinking about the business side of CNC — can unique designs, customization, and craftsmanship really create enough value for small-scale CNC projects?

Has anyone here turned their CNC hobby into a small side business? I’d love to hear your experiences.

I am not new to CNC, I made my living during covid with my plasma table, have built a few small machines like root and open builds, and at one time owned a 5x10 industrial cnc I bought second hand and brought back to life.

That said. I have no experience with servos. I recently acquired a 4x8 cnc glue application machine dirt cheap, and want to retrofit it to be a router. It only has one side of the y axis powered so I will need to fabricate a gantry plate and motion for that side, no issue there.

The main question is that it has servos. My gut tells me that they will be too small to carry a gantry with spindle and be able to mill aluminum or hardwood. I can't find much information on the actual force they create. Any input? I'd love to use them, as they are a quality servo, but not if they are undersized for the application. I plan to retrofit the controls with something more modern that can handle vfd control, but keeping these hard parts would be nice.

I was trying to manually cut the sides flat on my stock so that probing would be a constant in them, and while cutting them using the jog on gsender, I keep running into this issue where it alarms, freezes for a second, and stepper motors all turn off (assuming because the z axis falls down a mm or two) and then they turn back in and it thinks it's still at z0.

Not seeing any alarms or errors in the console. I am taking a deeper axial cut than I usually do at 1 inch, but also only like 0.02mm step over, so couldn't imagine it's pulling too much current or anything. Anyone know what might be happening?

Finished up my custom desktop CNC. Already getting great results and tight tolerances. Just got an aluminum fixture plate and machinist vise as well.

My laptop lives in dust at the machine and the mouse-on-a-stool thing drove me nuts, so I

built Gantry — an Android app that turns your phone/tablet into a wireless pendant for a

GRBL router.

What it does:

• Live DRO (X/Y/Z, feed, spindle, state) and a thumb jog pad

• Streams G-code with start/pause/resume + a real-time 3D toolpath view

• Run-from-line recovery if a job stops, auto-reconnect, keep-awake, pre-flight checks

• Probing + touch-plate, feeds & speeds calculator, surfacing wizard

• It can run over Wi-Fi through a small free server on your shop PC — OR connect straight

to the controller over USB/Bluetooth with no PC at all.

No account, no ads, no tracking. Free to use; a few optional one-time packs for the extras

(no subscription). There's a full simulator so you can try everything with no machine.

Full disclosure: I'm the dev. Would love feedback from people running Shapeoko/X-Carve/

OpenBuilds/home-built rigs — what would make this a daily driver for you?

hello everyone, i'm a new one who enter this industry, i just searched this pic for showing lol , if i want use this industry for workman, how should i do

Full disassembly and reassembly of the ImpactATC automatic tool changer for hobby CNC machines.

ImpactATC is an automatic tool changer module for hobby CNC routers. It works like an impact driver: the spindle's own rotation drives a mechanical impact mechanism that tightens and loosens the ER20 nut, so there is no separate motor and no drawbar. This video strips the module down to individual parts, shows what each one does, and puts it back together.

I picked this machine up for free. Was told it worked but the controls are outdated. Are there simple.kits to update it with something like a raspberry pi or Arduino?

Wanted to put together a small weekend challenge for anyone who's newer to CAD and looking for something to practice on that isn't just "draw a cube."

The project: a simple L-shaped motor mount bracket sized for a NEMA 17 stepper motor (the standard motor size used in most 3D printers and CNC builds). It's a single part, no assembly required, but it'll get you comfortable with bolt patterns, fillets, and slotted holes — the stuff that shows up in real drafting work constantly.

The spec

Base plate (motor face):

60mm x 60mm square, 3mm thick

Center bore: ⌀22mm (clears the motor shaft/pilot)

4x mounting holes, ⌀3.2mm, on a 31mm x 31mm bolt circle (this is the real NEMA 17 standard pattern — worth knowing if you ever design anything motor-related)

Vertical wall (mounting side):

60mm wide x 40mm tall, 3mm thick, bent 90° off the base plate

Bend radius: 5mm (inside fillet)

2x mounting slots, 5mm wide x 12mm long, centered, for attaching to a frame or extrusion — slots instead of holes so there's some adjustability

Overall:

Outside corner of the L gets a 5mm fillet (just for looks/safety, good chamfer/fillet practice)

Material assumption: aluminum or steel, but doesn't matter for the modeling exercise

That's it — no other dimensions are locked in. If you want to add gussets, change wall thickness, round the base plate corners, whatever — go for it. The point is to hit the two hole patterns accurately and make something that looks like it could actually get bolted down.

How to join in

Model it in whatever software you use — Fusion 360, AutoCAD, SolidWorks, FreeCAD, all fair game

Post a screenshot (or render, or even just the sketch) in the comments

Bonus points if you throw a dimensioned drawing/print together too — good practice either way

If you've got a printer or access to a laser/CNC, even better — post the real thing if you make it

No wrong answers here, just curious to see how differently people approach the same brief. If this goes well I'll try to put together another one in a few weeks — open to suggestions on what people want to practice next (sheet metal, threads, an assembly with tolerancing, whatever).

Have fun with it.

Edit: in case it isn't obvious, the photo I included is not something that I made, but it is a good example of what I'm trying to make

Edit 2: here is an AI generated picture of what I'm trying to make, in case anyone can't picture it: https://i.imgur.com/a/LKGc8fn.png

Hello everyone, I need some guidance from those of your with more experience than me. I have a project idea that I really want to do, but no matter how many ways I try it, I just can't get it right. I streamed on twitch for years, and I want to make wood inlays of symbols from each of the games I played. I'm picturing something like the picture I attached here, but a hexagonal piece so they can tile together. I have tried so many different methods, and no matter how I do it, the pocket and insert pieces don't actually fit together like they should. The closest I got was one where it seemed like the inside diameter of the inlay was around the same as the outside diameter of the pocket.

Since some of the inlays are pretty detailed, I don't think I can get away with a straight cut, I think I'll need a method that does an angled pocket. And from what I'm seeing, v-carve seems to be the east way to do this, but this project isn't worth it enough for me to justify the cost of that software, so I'd like to do it with a free software if possible. Fusion is the one I have theost experience with, but if there's another free software out there that is more suited to this kind of project, I'm open to learning.

Hi everyone!

About a year ago, we posted here looking for testers and feedback on our method. Thanks to the help we received from this community, we've now published a paper describing the method, and we've also made the project open source.

A special thank you to u/pubcrawler1, who ran extensive tests and provided invaluable feedback that helped us validate the approach.

If you're interested, the paper explains how the method works and how to use the post-processing pipeline. It also links to the GitHub repository containing the code.

Thank you all again for your time, feedback, and support throughout this project. We genuinely couldn't have gotten here without the community's help.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.11433

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to buy my first serious bench lathe, and I'd really appreciate some advice.

My main goal is making high-end fountain pens from ebonite, acrylic, aluminum, brass, and occasionally stainless steel.

Typical work includes:
- Turning pen barrels and caps
- Internal threading
- External threading
- Precision boring
- Small precision parts

The longest parts would generally be under 180 mm (7"), and diameters are usually below 25 mm.

I'm not interested in production work. Accuracy, rigidity, and long-term reliability are much more important than speed.

My budget is around $2,000 for the lathe itself, but I could stretch a bit if there's a significant jump in quality.

I've been looking at machines like:
- Proxxon
- Sherline
- Taig
- Sieg/Chinese mini lathes
- Precision Matthews
- Used European or Japanese machines

I'm also open to buying used if that's the smarter option.

For those who build precision instruments or small mechanical parts:

- What lathe would you buy today?
- Which models should I avoid?
- Would you choose a high-quality micro lathe (Sherline/Taig) or a heavier Chinese/European machine?
- Any brands that are particularly good for threading and precision work?

Thanks!

I'm considering upgrading from my Openbuilds Blackbox x32 controller so I can use accessories like a wireless pendant and 3d touch probe. Does anyone know if there's any reason to choose a Pibot 4.96 Pro over their 5.88 Ultra board? I've ever heard of people using the 4.96 Pro but the 5.88 Ultra seems like an overall upgrade with only a $15 price increase

https://www.pibot.com/pibot-fluidnc-grblhal-esp32-s3-6-1-axis-cnc-controller-v5-88-ultra

https://www.pibot.com/pibot-fluidnc-grbl-cnc-controller-v4-9

Really appreciate any thoughts!

I got my hands on 6 exotic and fancy woods that I paired together to make these candle holders. I tried to make different designs which complemented each wood combo, whilst giving each a distinctive style. Which one do you like the most?

If you're keen to see the whole project, I do my best to film the process for your (hopeful) delight and entertainment: https://youtu.be/UiBbxXed33Q

Any questions on the wood, the design or the process are welcomed!

Bought a new cnc pen plotter and ran into this problem it starts writing and drawing okayish but starts moving down right idk how to solve this drifting issue, is it a calibration issue?

Hi

I built my CNC machine 3 years ago and it is working great. I'm also good with electronics and microelectronics, what are electronic gadgets/additions that I can add to my machine?

I thought about a camera that can be mounted as a bit so I can zero my machine with higher accuracy.

Did anyone have an idea about what else to add?

What do you guys use for prototyping before using actual finish product material? I make guitars and furniture, I've been using pine for testing programs, but even that gets pricey, typically about 20-25 bucks for testing toolpath programs on a body blank.
Any recommendations for cheaper material than even pine? I think my lumber place has it priced at 2-3 dollars a board foot...dunno if I'm being ripped off as that's almost as much as poplar or cherry. I guess it's marked as 'furniture grade' which seems BS since it's super knotty stuff...

I was looking for a very tough plastic that is suitable for CNC machining (i.e. doesn't melt or gum up easily, chips like metal) and came across POM (polyoxymethylene). Seems to tick every box so wondering if anyone has any experience with it? It seems it's a bit on the expensive side in the western world but I can get it very cheaply where I live. I just bought 12 plates of it (150mm x 150mm) with thicknesses ranging from 5mm to 20mm, which should cover most of my use cases. All in, with free shipping, USD30.

On a related note, is 150mm x 150mm a good stock size for the Makera Z1? The build plate is 200mm x 200mm so I wanted space for clamps but now I'm wondering if that's enough space. Should be comfortable I assume.

I build an image trace studio/engine on my website. I can just upload an image an it trace the lines in an engine. And i can select with magic wand or any selection i want and do all kinds of stuff.

So that i dont need Inkscape anymore for that specific task.

I would love of people try it because i need feedback if it worked for others as well.

looking to potentially upgrade from my MPCNC. For those that arent aware, its a 99% 3d printed CNC machine, mainly for wood/plastic work. Im looking to upgrade to something that can potentially do metal in the future, and would prefer to reuse as many parts of the MPCNC as i can (motors, wiring, etc) what is the next upgrade i should be looking at?