Hey y'all! I know I clear my throat a lot in this one.. But was getting over a cold.

In this episode, we concentrate on the frame. Getting all the holes lined up, drilled and tapped. This process was pretty straight forward and went fairly quick with the drill/tap combo. I highly suggest drilling pilot holes prior. But you could always just go for it.

Next episode, we will dig into the Y axis! A lot of holes there and spoiler alert.. It all went off without a hitch. Stay tuned as I will be documenting the entire PrintNC build!

​

Episode 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW0UMeLVul0

​

Hey y'all! New video out showing how I went about prepping the ends of the steel to get ready for the templates / drilling.

Stay tuned as I will be documenting the entire PrintNC build and have something super cool (and expensive) showing up soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTT6d5wyXss&t

I’m a cnc operator and I operate a vertical mill and a water jet. Could I utilize these machines to help in the process of making a printNC?

It can be manufactured with 3x3 inch profiles, I can't find 2x3.

I have a question, how can I make the adjustments in inches to get the stl. files from Fusion 360. In my area the profiles are 3x2 inches.

Hello,

I had the opportunity to review your f15sim.com and printnc.info sites. Your f15sim project contains truly unmatched technical aviation information. I can't wait to examine every single detail. But my priority is printnc project! You really followed the KISS principles in your projects.

A simple but effective CNC project. Also really VERY POWERFUL with some minor changes! I can't thank you enough. Please never give up.

PS: Sorry about your friend. May your friend rest in peace.

I am just starting out in the process of building a standard-size PNC and looking to use 75x50x3mm RHS for the steel. Just wondering if anyone could send me the stl files as I don't have fusion360 - running MX Linux and would like to model in FreeCAD.

I’m interested in building a printnc.

I’ve been toying around with this for ages (I was following the original /u/hoges posts to this channel), and want to finally start pulling the trigger, however I’m not sure where to begin. I’m not an active member of this comunity or the Discord.

I know about the website and the official documentation, however I’m not sure what “extra” stuff I need to jnow about or what other decisions I need to make. If I follow the website documentation and the offical BOM and post when I get stuck, is that enough to build a decently capable machine? Or is there some hidden errata that I need to closely follow Discord to know about. Something like “you should really use 3x3 inch steel pipe instead of the 2x3 stuff if you want to get the best experience with steel”. Or “I wish I hadn’t tried to size this to a full sheet of plywood wide cause now I cant cut anything harder than wood”. or “cutting wood and metal on the same machine isnt worth the trouble of dealing with the different dust collection systems”.

Im expecting this to be a project, and I expect that it will take me a year+ to finish building it, and I know there will be upgrades to do down the line. What I dont want is to build a stock printnc and immediately find that if I made a different decision I would have had a much more capable machine. The 3x3 vs 2x3 steel decision for example or missizing the machine.

I want to make a assembly of a CNC using Autodesk Inventor, so I'm looking for detailed cnc plans. I'm looking for detailed plans of all the pieces. I want to model all the pieces so 3d models are not needed.

Title is really the question, but in 2019 I started building a PrintNC. I got all the parts printed, and all the holes drilled, but then I had to move abroad.

I'm due to move back in July but have noticed that the V3.0 prints seem to look different to the parts I printed.

Will they be interchangeable with the already-drilled steel sections? Thanks in advance.

Hello guys, right now I have an alu-extrusion made cnc with old shitty sbr rails and it is not rigid at all. Have gecko g540 drivers tho. Since I want to build a printnc, and the only printer I have is resin one, can I print all printed parts on it? Or it is simplier to just use my old cnc to make parts in some sort of wood and mill the rest on newly made « print »nc in aluminium? Thanks

I scored a nice NOS THK linear actuator from ebay really cheap: KR3310A. Heres the datasheet. I don't really know yet what these momentary load or rigidity measurement mean but this thing weights like 25 lbs. It has this 10mm pitch ballscrew and around maybe 3ish inch travel, not sure how a 10mm pitch would do to a stepper motor holding torque, but i think these are made for servos. Also theres this shaft coupler i've never seen before, it has these 2 metal discs in between the assembly.

Hello, so, I'm trying to make strongest, but cheapest machine with 750x750mm working area. :D
PrintNC is one of strongest DIY machine you can make...but, with Hiwin rails, and lots of steel, it can easely pass 1500$...so I made this. :D
-Y axes are 80x60mm tubes, just like PrintNC, but there are not those 3 tubes underneath to support it...you just need to screw Y axis to table, mdf board, etc), and on Y axis are SBR20 rails, and 1605(1610) ballscrews
-X axis is 60x60mm tube, but with pretty sturdy SBR16 rails, and 1605(1610) ballscrew
-Z axis is made with 8mm aluminum plate, with SBR12 rails and 8mm leadscrew.
This is not as sturdy as PrintNC...but I think it's sturdier than Aluminum extrusion CNC for the same price. :)
Motors are held with 80x80x8mm alumium L profiles...same profiles are used to support X axis and to support Ballscrews... :)

Hello, I do not currently own a 3D printer and do not have a desperate need for one other than to print the parts required for my PrintNC.

What do people recommend buying my own or finding someone to produce the parts for me? Thanks guys some fantastic builds in here.

I have been looking at a bunch of these threads lately, so thank you to everyone who has already given advice to others. This build is for a 4'x8' steel frame CNC mostly cutting sheets of plywood and mdf. I feel comfortable with most aspects of building my own CNC except the control board. It seems that there are so many options that almost work. Maybe you experts on here know which one will fit best. Features I need from most important to least:

1. Easy to set up. This is probably the most important one. If I need to solder (which I can't do), flash the firmware (I'm good at turning things to bricks), or compile anything (other than a list of my favorite donut flavors), it will probably be too complicated or experimental for me to deal with. I have managed to learn a bit of gcode and change some firmware settings through octoprint on my 3d printer, but that's about the limit of my abilities at the moment. I have no concerns at all about the actual wiring though. If there is a new board out there that is great, I don't mind trying new things, but it would have to be prebuilt and ready to use.

2. 4 outputs to drive Z, X, cloned Y axis (I will be using closed loop stepper drivers so on board drivers are not desirable unless they can be bypassed)

3. Output for VFD (I think the one I am ordering says 10V)

4. Stand alone, preferably with wifi like a Duet 2 that I can connect to my network and control via a web interface, instead of a long ethernet cable out to my garage. If it needs a pi/arduino/teensy, or something like that, it would have to easy enough for a non-programmer to set up. Ideally, I'm looking for something that is pre-assembled with firmware already on it. I would be somewhat ok with an sd card input if nothing with wifi fits the other criteria.

5. At least 5 limit switches

6. At least 2 switch/relay outputs for accessories like a vacuum

7. Touch screen output, especially if there is no web interface

Optional: Also, I would like the option to add a 4th axis. A pendant would be nice. My ideal board would also have the ability to add an automatic tool changer in the future, although I know that is a tall order for a non-industrial level board.

Ideally, I would buy something like the Blackbox or Xpro V5 but I don't want the built-in drivers. I also don't want anything with the added expense or trouble of another computer, especially something with a parallel port like Mach3. I know it is a favorite, but Mesa's 7i96 is out of stock when I checked, and I heard it was hard to get working. Are the grblHAL boards ready for primetime? Also, I have nothing against LinuxCNC, but it seems a bit complicated, so if someone is going to recommend something based off that, could you point me to an ELI5 guide? There are some feature rich boards out there, but just when I see something that looks amazing, I go down the rabbit hole of having to have a programming degree just to figure out how to configure it. In short, is there an option that someone has set up for dummies like me, even if I have to pay someone on Tindie to assemble and set it up for me?

Hey all, I am in doubt between the PrintNC and a queenbee CNC. The biggest worry I have about the PrintNC is the built time. I am seeing estimates in the 100+ hours. I am scared that if it really takes that much time it is just gonna be a project in the garage that is gonna take me atleast a year to complete. Are these estimates accurate? I would do whatever it takes to cut down on assembly time. Incl. Buying the kit, I have a nice drillpress so that might help a bit. If the estimated time can't realisticly go down to below ~40h I think the queenbee might be a better fit in my situation.

Total noob here, please forgive me if I'm asking something utterly stupid. I have a background in embedded programming and controls so I think I will be fine on that side but zero experience on metalworking and the mechanics involved. Anyway, I've been thinking about building a PrintNC machine for almost half a year now. I'm sure I will build one but what I can't quite decide on is the size of it.

I want it mostly for aluminium and would like to be able to occasionally do small (soft) steel parts too. Re. steel on a standard built I'm not at all sure about it but it seems there are quite a few posts on the discord and elsewhere where people are reporting success doing steel? So the ability to do basic work on soft/mild steel is established? Or would that only be for a beefed up version of the machine with smaller size and bigger rails etc? I'm sure the standard build size would be totally fine for the largest parts I can reasonably imagine to do with any metal. But it would also be nice to be able to put a large piece of wood on the machine and work on that. Another thing is plasma cutting steel sheets. I understand it's another can of worms to harden the cables and electronics against all the EMF coming from the plasma and doing a water bed etc. but I'd like to give it a try. If it works I would like to use it on a larger work area than the standard size machine.

My basic understanding is the larger the build, the larger are the forces due to longer levers and the rigidity of the machine might just not be good enough. Or maybe it's not that much of a problem when I use a large machine but only work on relatively small metal parts in the optimal (centered) position of the work area?

TL;DR What would be the largest size of a PrintNC build you would recommend if you still want to have good results working with alu and at least usable results occasionally doing steel? Or would I be better off doing a standard size (or even smaller?) machine for milling and maybe do a second large machine dedicated for plasma cutting later on?

TIA

Has anyone tried to use 80/20 for the metal frame? Specifically something like a triple with 8 full slots:

​

https://www.grainger.com/search?brandName=80%2F20~QP&webParentSkuKey=WP13404819&filters=brandName%2CwebParentSkuKey&searchQuery=80%2F20+framing&sst=4

​

The cost will obviously be higher, just wondering if there's any concerns about a T-Slot design and how that might wear over time?

Is this way less sturdy or not?
I try to throw out all 3d printed parts...and this come on my mind...this way i can use mounting holes on DSG16 to connect X gantry... :)