Hi! I would like to thank Ryan for this beautiful design that gives me abundant of joy when building it, and everyone on the forum. I have learned a lot!
It started one day I wanted to modify one of the 3D printers I built so that I could engrave on acrylic. Then I bumped into Ryan’s MPCNC and it caught my attention right away. I had spare electronics from the 3D printers, and the instructions from Ryan to build a MPCNC seemed doable to me.
Even after I had printed all the parts according to Ryan’s instruction, I had no idea what they were for. When I started to assemble them, I was really amazed how smart the design was! Ryan, you don’t know how much I appreciate your wisdom and your spirit to share. Thank you!
I built it in my room which is full of stuff I made. After I did the test drawing of the famous crown on the floor, I decided to build a table. This is my first real wood project and I’m pretty satisfied with the finished result. In some sense, this table is more like my baby than the other stuff I made:-) I did it all by myself! (by the way, I am a lady:-)) When it came to cut the waste board, I tried quite a few of my husband’s saws (I forget the names he told me, radial saw?) but they were just not lady friendly. Eventually I used the big hand saw (I don’t know if hand saw is the proper name) and cut manually. Now it is over one week after I finished the table but my wrists are still hurting! I used all my strength when building this table and moving it upstairs from basement.
Now the machine and its table are standing in the kitchen. I just don’t have space! I don’t think that I am going to do a lot of dirty work, but I do want to experiment and try some interesting cuttings. Next year we are going to move to New Mexico and then I will have more space.
The waste board has a wallpaper on it. I didn’t mean to do it, that just because that was the board I had, already had wallpaper on it.
Now my new problem is that I am a linux person. I don’t use Windows at all. I have tried hard to find some good CAM programs in linux, but so far I am not satisfied. Last night I logged in to my only windows machine and tried EstlCAM and I really liked it. I have to figure out what to do.
Nice solid table. I’ve been thinking of using conduit for the legs of mine too. I might use a larger size. Can’t decide yet. Your build looks so neat and tidy. Can’t wait to see some projects.
You have a good point about figuring out the CAM software for Linux. It’s out there, but not as prominent. I have had some success with the gcode generator extension of Inkscape. I bit more work to get the depths you need, but is doable for simple stuff.
Have you tried KiriMoto? It’s a browser based solution so it isn’t platform dependend.
Thank you Marion! Yes, the table is surprisingly solid:) I haven’t tried KiriMoto, but will definitely try it. I used inkscape’s gcodetool to generate some simple design, and I liked it. To me, CNC is a completely new area and I know nothing about the bits, tools, etc. One of the things I like about EstlCAM is that just by playing with it for a few hours, I’ve learned quite a lot from the tips, explanations in the program. It is such a joy to learn something and put it in use.
Welcome to the crew. That looks like a nice table. And very organized. What is the speaker wire for (The copper and silver with clear plastic on it)?
I am also a Linux user and I have managed to get estlcam to work in linux under wine (well, play on linux). I just posted an update the other day that it works with version 11. I use i3wm as a window manager, and I have a very high resolution DPI screen, so it doesn’t draw things perfectly, but it’s definitely usable.
There is also a tutorial for using freecad, which works for Linux. It’s focused on grbl, but mostly, it’s the same.
Thank you very much, Jeff! Yeah, I got EstlCAM work in Ubuntu 18.10 and
19.04 following your information in an earlier post. I chose Windows 7. For some reason I ran into many errors when I tried Windows 10 when configuring wine.
Thanks for the freeCAD information. I will look into it.
The speaker wire is for the small 12V DC motor I am using now. The speaker wire is connected to a motor speed controller mounted on the front right side of the table.
That was a whole lot of nice things about me in one post, Thank you. I really have to say I might have all the passwords to this place but I am not alone and everyone here makes this what it is. Excitement like this is exactly what drives me, and I am sure this holds true for most of us. I made that exact same crown after doing all the exact same steps so I love seeing them. As Heffe said, welcome to the crew.
