CNC (Mostly 3D Printed)

Bill of Materials is here: http://www.vicious1.com/blog/parts/

Build instructions are here: build instructions

Parts can be ordered directly from Ryan's shop here: http://www.vicious1.com/shop/

If you don't have a 3D printer, you can still be all in on this for about $500 USD.

Above is the build in progress.

I got to the point with my projects that I wanted to be able to create my own printed circuit boards. This meant that I needed a milling machine. In doing research for Chinese cheap CNC machines, I ran across this one.

It turns out that this is a highly configurable CNC and 3D printer. It takes just a little bit of work to put a 3D printer head on the machine and then just a couple of minutes to switch it to a CNC toolhead. This allows for a lot of flexibility.

Pictures - Gallery of pictures of the build process.

Completed machine

Closeup building a circuit board.

The circuit board above is in progress of being built.

This machine has an active community behind it and a well documented build process. The machine is getting very mature now and each iteration of parts adds stability and increases the simplicity of the build.

Using Repetier to control the machine should make it very familiar to users of 3D printers.

ESTLcam (recommended for milling tool paths) is also fairly simple to learn. Additionally, the web site for the machine has tutorials that are available to teach it's use.

Sprint Layout 6 is a good tool for designing your circuit paths. It's an older program, but it's very easy to learn and make high quality boards.

For many electronics hobbyist types, this is a recommended device to start building your own circuit boards.

Start to finish in the build was around 3 days for a total of about 12 hours of work.