In this video I’m going to show how I built a basic CNC mill. Most of the hardware was sourced from spare / leftover parts I had laying around from other projects and ended up costing me under $100. It has a working area of approximately 250mm x 250mm x 70mm and is capable of milling aluminum (though somewhat rough).

The axes are moved with small NEMA17 stepper motors running at 24V, driven by A4988 drivers. The brain of the machine is an Arduino Uno running GRBL firmware, and G-code is sent to it via. USB from a laptop running Universal Gcode Sender – so everything is open source.

I have a little bit of experience operating a CNC mill, but this is the first one i’ve built / owned. The biggest learning experience from this build was that everything needs to be tightened up and made as rigid as possible to get good results. Between leadscrew backlash and rails flexing, the spindle could easily be moved +/- 1mm or more, which causes tons of vibration, chattering, rough cutting, and loss of precision. In a future video I’ll be upgrading the spindle and beefing up the structure to use 16mm rails instead of 8mm for better rigidity.

I don’t recommend trying to build this design yourself, because I created the printed brackets based on parts i had on hand, not what was “optimal”. However, if you really want to, the STL’s can be found here:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5262097

Music Used:

Kevin MacLeod – George Street Shuffle
Serge Pavkin – Atmospheric Ambient
Kevin MacLeod – Groove Groove
Eric Skiff – Underclocked
Serge Pavkin – Fractal

, https://i.ytimg.com/vi/R29G3hUiZnU/hqdefault.jpg

source

14 Comments

  1. This is the MOST underrated channel and each upload keeps reminding me of that. I love your work ethic. Your attention to detail. It pays off…

  2. You did a great job I built one of the cheap kits and did a spindle upgrade on my channel. I think your machine works better than the one I built but I haven’t really tested it yet in anger. Another great video you deserve more subs. Thanks regards chris

  3. Now you can cut wood so that you can put in wires/circuits/LEDs and then pour resin to have fancy illuminated (or electromagnetic) wood/resin projects.😉

  4. I hope more people will find this informative quality content!

    Love your work <3
    Greets from Germany

  5. Looks like it'd be great for making Melissa & Doug type toys. It would definitely save you some money vs buying them from the store.

  6. This is a great addition to the weekend. Thanks man! The muzak wraps it nicely. 👍🏻

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