5 axis anyone?

Hey guys
I’m new to the site and cnc

What brought me down this route is my curiosity for cnc machines. I have 3d printer and that’s what started the whole thing off. With that being said, I would like to make body parts for cars and I think that a 5 axis cnc would be a lot better then a 3 axis. I would like to know if anyone has already gone down this road with this set up. I know control board will have to be swapped out to accommodate a board that supports A and B axis and I would just like to know how they set it up the hardware.

any info on the subject will be helpful Thanks!

I can’t imagine how much true 5axis software would cost. Being able to use it is another story.

If you can find software you could do some hd foam, wood would be a stretch I would think with any reasonable sized bit.

At this point and time, to do this at home for a reasonable amount of money is a long way off.

Pocket cnc can do 4 axis (or a true 3, I’m not sure what they call it) I believe, but adding another is extremely complicated.

We do 2.5D or 3D in two planes.

Are you sure you have to have 5 axis?

I can’t imagine how much true 5axis software would cost. Being able to use it is another story.

If you can find software you could do some hd foam, wood would be a stretch I would think with any reasonable sized bit.

At this point and time, to do this at home for a reasonable amount of money is a long way off.

Pocket cnc can do 4 axis (or a true 3, I’m not sure what they call it) I believe, but adding another is extremely complicated.

We do 2.5D or 3D in two planes.

Are you sure you have to have 5 axis?

The ramps board can support 5 drivers. You’ll just need something other than Marlin. I wonder if grbl for ramps can do that?

I guess the part I’m missing is what the 4th and 5th axes would look like. I’ve seen the big robot arm stuff, and I’ve seen 4th axis stuff, but most of those are really just replacing the y with a rotational axis.

Then, as Ryan mentioned, what does the 4-5 axis CAM look like… Not sure on that either. I would guess there are some easy things to do, like rotate a 2.5D design around a cone or something. I could also see just doing 2.5D on different sides. But taking an STL and creating 5D cam seems like magic to me.

Would you just mount the workpiece on something that pan and tilts the work?

4th axis could be to have the router rotate on a pivot so it could attack the material with an angle (now we are limited to 90degree plunge only).
5th axis could be to rotate the workpiece itself to get this 4th axis angle available for both X and Y axis planes.
There are many ways to have 5 axis actually.

I think it wouldn’t be very hard to do mechanically speaking. But I have no idea how this could be controlled. There are a few boards who are advertised to manage 5 axis, but I’m not sure what software should be used. Theoretically, the Arduino/Ramps, could do it, but not with Marlin firmware. Maybe the high end 3D CAO softs have some plug in for that, I don’t know.

Once you start rotating an axis the CAM has to be sort of self aware so it doesn’t hit itself.That is what I am getting at. The CAM is difficult, but not impossible, just a lot more feeds and speed to dial in, but only available on really high eng CAM, fusion just released it extra axis capabilities but that might have just been a rotating axis.

On the machine side of it, you multiply the rigidity needed, that is easy enough to deal with…but then you also need rigidity in multiple directions. Imagine adding 2 large servos to the end of the z axis and mounting one servo on the end of the other 90 degrees offset and then putting the dewalt on the end of that.

Awesome, it does exist but without software for it developing hardware isn’t worth it. A $500 router with a $8000 software package.

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So you guys all bring up some good points but from some of the research that I’ve gathered as for as software mach3 support up to 6 axis gcode and using fusion 360 to generate the gcode, I don’t think it’s as hard as we are making it out to be but then a again that’s why I’m here to ask these questions. So as long as we have a control board that support A and B axis I think the only real obstacle I’m seeing I figuring out out where to mount the extra steppers. I’m not to worried on rigidity because I just want it for HD foam and some wood from time to time.

Mach 3 is control software, repetier can do the same for free as well as just using the LCD. The firmware, I am sure smoothieware has 6 axis support. fusion 360 costs $1500/year to enable 5th axis support.

Pocket NC is $4k and comes with 1 year of fusion 4"x5"x3.5" workspace. http://www.pocketnc.com/pocketnc/pocket-nc

5axismaker is at least $1k more than that and has a xyz with 2 rotary axis on the end, the way that you would have to do it with the MPCNC. Same deal on the software +needs mach 3.

It isn’t that it can’t be done but the cost of the software that is limiting it. $500 for a cnc and 3x’s that for the software/year is a bummer.

Why not just flip your part? If you make jigs/fixtures (on the cnc) you can easily do angles as well. Theoretically you can flip it to any angle and achieve extremely similar results.

Thanks Ryan I hadn’t looked that hard into the software, I’ve got fusion but I never tried getting into those setting. Well… Now I see the major obsticle. Thanks again for your quick response.

I would flip the part but I would be worried about not getting it aligned perfectly. Once I get my mpcnc put together play around and figure what works best for me.

I think Fusion includes 5 axis CAM in the startup/enthusiast plan now. No idea how to use it though :smiley:

I hate to ressurect a dead thread but, as far as I understand it, Fusion 360 now includes 5 axis toolpath generation in all licences, even including the free versions, thus solving the $300 robot, $2,000 software conundrum.

I haven’t started printing my MPCNC yet, but I’ll be able to start work on it in a few weeks. Once I get mine up and running, would anyone be interested in collaborating on adding 5 axis capability to this project?

I am interested in 5 axis. It’s definitely on my list and making its way near the top. I think 3+2 is realistic but full 5-axis is probably not going to work with Marlin because the feed rates are going to be associated with XYZ only. So in other words I’m expecting to index to some A and B orientation and then do 3-axis milling in X Y Z. Or possibly turning with A and X and Z. I want to make a turner’s cube with a single setup.

As for collaboration, I think in general loose collaboration is realistic where each person does stuff on their own and they learn from each other and post questions or challenges to the broader group. Tight collaboration like working side by side in a lab I don’t see as feasible because people will generally have different pace and schedule, not to mention hardware, and shouldn’t be waiting for each other. I’m not sure what you had in mind for collaboration but I’m just throwing this out there.

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I think I read somewhere recently that grbl only supports 3 axes, but I’m usually wrong. I think there is a fork to get 5 axes with the mega.
To solve the original problem (word that I have the same one, right?) , I’m planning on slicing models up, cutting foam gluing back together, and fiberglassing as is or using it as a plug/mold.

Hi Tony. Check out Grbl Mega5X and Grblgru posts elsewhere in this forum. I built an ABC (that is axes 4,5,6) stand for my Lowrider and MPCNC and have been running it with Grblgru as a learning exercise. I hook a Mega2560 board to my computer to get the real-time feedback and timing without having the whole CNC machine with 6 axes hooked up.
I also posted here about how to get a TTL signal to run a laser using the Arduino Mega2560 as well.
It seems to me that one of GrblGru’s setups/videos is about a foam cutter one of his friends uses.

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Thanks. I guess I’m not 100% wrong, which is nice! First step, fix my laser build. Next step, build another mpcnc. After that…dedicated foam cutter? Hmmmm…

Lol. I hear you… I started with a MPCNC, then built a gantry style CNC, then a Lowrider and have just finished a MP3DP with a SKR v1.3 board. I don’t see a foam cutter down the road though.
I run my laser with an Uno or Mega2560, Grbl 1.1L, and Lightburn. It turns out that Marlin isn’t the greatest with lasers compared to Grbl.
I also found an Uno programmed with Estlcam is best for most of my milling projects.
As a result I have Many control boards to play with… all good fun

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There’s a few ways to have a 5 axis machine. If you’re asking the head to do all the “axis”, you will need B and C. The router/head will need another stepper to rotate the additional tilt/axis that are added and the part stays fixed.

Conversely, you can have a tilt table/ rotation table that moves the parts in multiple axis, while the head moves like a normal 2.5/3d machine.

Hope that made sense…

And I just realized that this is a old post…

Just today I noticed that the Instructables CNC contest has a 5-axis entry. It’s basically a clone of the metal ones that can be purchased for ~$250 or so, except 3D printed. It has a tilt/rotation table like you described. I’d love to do this after my current project is wrapped up. Tilting the head itself seems like it would be extremely difficult to adapt to the MPCNC.

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Hello. Dear you can use mach 3 software and mach 3 5axis breakout board for this. By this you will able to run 5 axis currently I am using this to run 3 axis cnc machine
I am also thinking to upgrade my machine by adding a rotary to my machine. Hope this will help you.