With that said:

Recently I’ve started looking at CNC machines with Kyle Marsh and Chris Gilmer (for a project that I’ll detail in a future post) and we found DIYLILCNC. Unfortunately they’re still in the “working the bugs out” phase and one major thing they were lacking was a 3D model (honestly, crazy engineering respect to the guys who did this using only illustrator and some WICKED spatial reasoning.)

But really… it’s 2010 and anything this complex should have a digital representation to facilitate redesign etc. To that end I threw down maybe 40ish hours of nights/weekend/lunch/dull meetings/etc to bring you this:

It’s a full build (minus the Dremel they use for a power plant) right down to accurately modeled machine screws and bolts.

Full CAD of the DIYLILCNC (JF Mark 10)

Improvements over the existing design/drawings include:

• Made walls square. Now with 90 degree power! (Note: this wasn’t a HUGE issue just a degree here and there)
• All hardware (bearings, bolts, washers, rods, etc) modeled off of McMaster drawings where available. Measured parts I had in the lab when I couldn’t find McMaster drawings.
• Fixed a flaw where the Y Drive Belt dragged against a misaligned hole when the gantry wasn’t working near the center of its range.
• With a fully-assembled model any gaps in the documentation can be referenced against the CAD

At some point I’d like to build one of these but I think I’ll hold off until Version 2.

The plans and model are controlled under the virus-like CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license and have been submitted back to the project as of this morning.

For those interested the package can be downloaded here (again, in the grips of CC A-SA so make sure you post that if you use em)