Is This Book Any Good?

I am interested in building soykaf (especially funs) and I am just wondering if there would be any limits to building my own CNC machine (besides needing skills for more advanced things)? Would it be better to just purchase a machine or would this be all I need? Thanks.

>>6734 I haven't read that book but it depends what you are machining and your tolerance requirements. If you were just building a little bitty baby gantry mill, like on the cover of that book you linked, with a router and some wood, using allthread as leadscrews or something, that would be fine for woodworking and craft projects with low tolerances. If you're going to do anything precise, or something with metal (even the soft stuff like brass or aluminum), you're really better off buying some old soykafty Bridgeport or Colchester off somebody and retrofitting it. However keep in mind that putting servos on old knee mills is really hard on the leadscrews. Thats why CNC machine tools use ballscrews and not leadscrews. If getting your hands on a decent manual machine is difficult, Harbor Freight has small lathes that run off 120 volts at a very low price for a new machine tool. They are even small enough that one person can move them around. t. machinist.

>>6819 Thanks. I am going to try and get into 3d printing first and see how that goes but I an see the benefit in making my own soykaf overall instead of consuming so I will look into this a tad more closely. Thought the book looked neat but don't want to pay an arm and a leg for it.

>>6734 Obviously purchasing a machine would be much better but if you want to play around then this book is a good start. It wont turn you into a master craftsman but its good for getting your feet wet.

Patrick Hood-Daniel, James Floyd Kelly - Build Your Own CNC Machine (2009).pdf https://anonym.to/https://anonfiles.com/F4N1T1d9xf/

>>8033 Thank you. Much appreciated !

>>6826 You should definitely buy your first 3d printer to get started, it's the easiest way to start making parts for more machines. Once you get familiar with 3d printing, you can try building a cnc mill out of commonly available materials and 3d print the more specialized components. And don't bother with wood, aluminium extrusions are the tried and tested way to build cnc frames, and with lumber prices going to soykaf, they're not even that much more expensive.

>>8043 While these extrusions are stiff, they have low mass. Real machines are heavy for a reason - it's so they don't "ring like a bell" with mechanical vibration. Not so much a problem with 3d printers, but a real concern for a cnc mill. People do stuff like gravel filled resin as a compromise...

>>6734 I built a wooden CNC, I found that book late in the life of the project, but I did copied the Y axis rails idea ( the book calls it the X axis) , it's a good way to get cheap and stable-ish rails. Try to find the author's YouTube channel, it has other CNC projects. >Would it be better to just purchase a machine or would this be all I need? Thanks. It depends on what you want to make, ad someone said above, a 3d printer would be good, but you could attach an extruder to your z axis and have a sort of multifunction. Check the mpcnc project, I know some people did that multifunction thing, here's a video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJfYTv88YvI

>>6819 >little bitty baby gantry mill don't you mean "itty bitty baby" ?

>>8058 Not really, No.

>>8033 Re-up. Patrick Hood-Daniel, James Floyd Kelly - Build Your Own CNC Machine (2009).pdf https://a.pomf.cat/hhklhy.7z https://pomf2.lain.la/f/b3h6b0nc.tbz2

>>6819 >t. machinist. The problem with machinists is that in their advice, specially their online advice (and even morevif they're american), the best machine just happens to be whatever machine they work with, as in if you get something weaker you're eating your time or if you get something stronger but more expensive you're wasting money, and don't even think about making something on your own, are you crazy? Just buy what I tell you to buy.