Longtime woodworker wanting a CNC machine. Mainly For signs both wood and plastic. Need some vinyl cutting at times.
The LowRider seems to be where I have landed. I have a 30x50 shop so space is not an issue.
I am somewhat comfortable work soldering but not much else electrical besides home wiring.
No 3D printer and lack of knowledge of the computer and control boards are what’s keeping me from ordering ( plus I’m moving to this home with the shop first week in Feb).
I guess what I am looking for is a list of everything I need in one place.
I would prefer all the bells as whistles as I am adding this to a business.
Interested in any suggestions and help.
Thanks in advance.
Sounds like you want the lowrider kit + lowrider flat parts + lowrider printed parts (all in the v1 shop), and dewalt 611. You’ll have to find your own tubes, but that’s easy.
Lots of requests for buying guides and that would be good if we can come up with some flow chart thingy. What @turbomacncheese says.
First thing is to source your pipes/conduit yourself. That will determine what printed parts you need to order. There are two sizes of an outside diameter of 25mm or 25.4mm. Either one works but each requires its own set of printed parts and flat parts. Ryan calls for .065" wall thickness stainless steel tubing. You will need to decide how wide your table is going to be and purchase the tubes accordingly. keep the work area under 4’ as recommended. Use the rail calculator on the Lowrider page.
You’ll get a good length of belt, but you will need to establish your table length too for planning purposes.
Once you have assured yourself that you have the right stainless tubing identified, then you can get everything else from the shop except the router.
You will have to decide on what control board to use. Don’t worry about endstops as that adds some complexity. It’s easy enough to do physical squaring of things to start out your work. Then you could get the Rambo mini which is slightly cheaper. However, if you want all the bells and whistles and get comfortable enough with things, you could get the Rambo and latter add the endstops as you feel the need. When you purchase the parts bundle, it will give you a choice. You’ll get the appropriate wiring harness for what you get since there is a little difference in the wiring as I understand it.
You’ll want the 1/8" collet for the DeWalt because you’ll also want to use some smaller bits rather that the 1/4 standard ones. Purchase some bits from the shop while you are at it.
Well, there IS a parts list in the lowrider section, and the kit description in the store is pretty good I think.
I remember thinking the lowrider section seemed less detailed than for the mpcnc, but that could have just been me (if you think I’m green now, you should have seen me when I started!)
I wonder how many questions are ACTUALLY driven by something else, like a lack of familiarity with how diy cncs work in general, or why all the parts and what each one is responsible for, or even “is this REALLY all I need?”
Sometimes people are just looking for reassurance, too, that they can do it, and it’s hard to know unless they ask specifically.
The rail question is crucial. Two choices, quadruple the cognitive load.
Boards: three of them. Why? Can’t be just cost and size. Lots to learn there. Start talking about 32bit and/or series or parallel wiring and that is huge for folks with no experience. It really isn’t that bad. You don’t have to understand what you are purchasing, just ensure that you get stuff that works nice with everything.
And then there are the folks who might order and have never even seen a FDM 3D printed part in real life. I didn’t before I bought my Prusa. So the first FDM parts I ever handled were the parts I was assembling. And that they have to match to tubing size.
We have all had to go over these things, but some have context,. And yes, there are lots of people who look at the end goal and think, it looks simple and relatively inexpensive.
They are right. But you are correct about lack of familiarity. Most people won’t share their ignorance willingly, except for @kd2018. He wins the self-effacing aware of the month for illustrating something I bet more than a few experienced in the drilling topic.
When the guys start talking about software development and git stuff, it gets opaque pretty quickly for me, even though the platform is surprisingly simply and I use it quite frequently. Never to the professional level though. It looks simple and it is simple to use, but that is why it is such a good platform. All the magic is hidden and just works. You don’t have to know how. Just click the right buttons (unless you are really cool and it’s all CLI).
Jeff, I agree. Scrounge is an asset to the forum and a credit to the community.
Scrounge, thanks for being that guy!
The really is an awful lot of material out there that could give a decent foundation to understand what and why we chose V1 Engineering. Has anybody curated a ‘NOOB’ playlist?
I have had more than one email screaming at me about my part print quality, how bad they were…I asked for a picture or two. They were literally talking about the print lines. I guess they expected printed parts to look like injection molded ones.
Not knowing anyone’s experience level makes first contact very touchy. Scrounge, you are a master of it! I always seem to get it wrong.
That leads me to thanking you all again. These new forums are awesome but the order I get notifications now put me perpetually behind and as I catch up I almost never need to actually answer as you all have already done it multiple times. So, thank you!
Many times I have been ready to order the entire kit, only to find out that not always the printed parts are available or the wood boards for the sides. So, I am disappointed. Never have I seen the entire kit available.
Could be Ryan will see this pretty soon, since he’s on the thread now. If you don’t hear back, maybe tag him in a question asking when you might be able to get the kit all together.
If you want it faster than whenever he tells you, you can use the kit description(s) along with the checklist I gave above, the 1/8 in collet Scrounge pointed out if you want to use 1/8 in mills, and the helpful clarifications also provided by Scrounge. Of course, with multiple suppliers and extra shopping it’s not guaranteed you CAN get it faster, but it’s an option.
I missed that you’re looking for occasional vinyl cutting earlier, so you’ll want a mount for that and a knife. Bunch of options there, I’m not sure how many of them are designed for lowrider, though. Might be best to start a new thread. I bet if you can find somebody local to you, he/she’d print the mount for a beer (or coffee or whatever). All the ones I’ve seen are pretty small and simple.
If you still aren’t positive you have everything (for any of the reasons discussed above), post the list and ask somebody to double check. Maybe comment about signs and vinyl, required work area, whether you are open to adding stuff you may not need or even know about, etc. The backstory and your expectations are pretty important, and the experience/help avaliable here are mind boggling (to me).
Good luck!
I have not been out of any printed parts for more than a few hours at night, updated in the morning, in about a month. I have everything on hand these days (finally).
Is there something specific you are referring too?
