All I Want for Christmas is a CNC Machine

I love having a 3D printer. It allows me to make so many things that would just be impossible otherwise. However, there are limitations. 3D printers are slow, the plastic can be brittle, and lets face it sometimes the prints have a look that only a maker could love. So with that I decided it was time to build a CNC machine. A CNC machine is the opposite of a 3D printer, instead of extruding material to build an object it mills away material to create an object. A CNC comes with its own set of limitations, but the fact that you can mill wood, plastic, aluminum just to name a few materials will seriously up my maker game. Not to mention you can make custom PCBs.

Putting my mind to making a CNC turned out to be a fairly complicated task, so I looked for a way that I could leverage my 3D printer. A quick search on thingiverse and bingo!

Meet Mostly Printed CNC 525 "C-23.5mm OD" by Allted. This is quite the design IMHO. Basically all the red and black pieces in the above picture are 3D printed. The total print time is >100 hours. You can buy kits from his website, but I am going to print all my own parts and maybe buy the electronics/hardware from him. We will see how cheap I am feeling. I have around 95% of the parts currently printed so it is just about time to order all the other hardware/electronics.

Printing the last large piece!

My box of parts