Starting build, Duet WiFi electronics maybe?

Mostly Printed CNC - MPCNC Advice
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New guy around.

I’m in Edmonton, AB Canada. I have designed and built a few 3D printers for myself, and was looking at designing a CNC router as well when I found the MPCNC.

I have designed and built a few 3D printers. I started with an I3 clone kit several years ago that was terrible, and now have a couple of decent ones. One prints exclusively ABS and one PETg. It’s been long time since I’ve bought a spool of PLA. I think I have a couple of half spools in dry storage, but I would certainly need to buy at least a couple of new ones in order to print all of the parts. It is of course less expensive than buying the parts, but I am considering just buying printed parts. (If any parts end up bright yellow in my finished build, it’s probably because I broke something and had to reprint.) I would consider printing in PETg, as this is my most used medium, but want a robust building area, and rigidity is indeed key.

I am an avid DIYer, I build DIY audio electronics, analog signal processors and amplifiers and the like. I have built a couple of DIY video projectors, and am working on one now, for which a CNC router would be extremely useful. I built the engine in my car up from a bare block, and have some ideas for parts that I would like to be able to mill from aluminum, including some instrumentation panels. (I 3D printed a panel, but it doesn’t do well in the summer sun, of course.)

I have very limited experience in CAD. I am trying to learn Fusion360, but have done most of my work in Tinkercad. I believe that I have stretched that tool to its limits, but have managed to do some good work with it.

I have several electronics boards around from experiments and some tinkering, including a spare Duet WiFi, which I would like to use. I am reasonably comfortable with the firmware to configure the drivers and axes. I’ve seen topics where people intended to use a Duet, but haven’t seen any completed builds that way.

What will probably take me longer is figuring out the chain from drawing to Gcode. I’ve only looked very briefly into this. I modified an old 3D printer with a 50mm spindle, and have so far managed not much of much for getting usable Gcode. I’m sure that once I catch on, I’ll be okay with it.

I’m sure that I’ll have questions once I start building, but for now…

So… Some good primers for Fusion360? What kind of path calculators should I be looking at to be able to do some reasonable milling?

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I found Lars to be pretty good. I think the duet would be fine, the quality of the firmware is excellent and I understand there has been some effort to add cnc capability but I think there aren’t too many users here.

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Take a look at the software workflow doc.

I personally like onshape, estlcam, and cncjs.

The duet is probably fine. About half the board won’t be used, since it isn’t a printer. The real trick is, how close does it follow Marlin or grbl on the subtle things like arc commands, speeds (and their persistence) and the random gcodes (G4, G92, M3…). If they aren’t quite right, you might have to fix the gcode after cam and before sending it. But it will probably be fine. I have more confidence that the simple grbl uno shield will work out of the box. The skr combo or full sized rambo work great though.

It sounds like you’ll fit right in. Can’t wait to see your projects.

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So today I managed to renew my personal use license for Fusion360, and started some tutorials for CAD modelling. I used to use Sketchup, way back when. TinkerCAD is a very different thought process for design, and I’ve adjusted over time. Gotta get back if I want to use more powerful tools.

I’ve been using TinkerCad for 3D print modelling, which has its limitations, but I think that I’ve managed some pretty decent models with. I’ll see if I can make a MicroATX PC case with Fusion360 while I learn to play. Ironically, I’ll be pulling in a lot of SVGs from TinkerCAD, since I’ve already dome most of the stuff for motherboard, power supply and BD-ROM mounting, though I never had a 3D print area large enough to actually make those parts, I should be able to cut 1/8" material on the tablesaw, and put the mounting holes in with the spindle, as well as the opening for the IO shield PSU and video card. The revamped printer that I have should be able to do all that.

Reconsidering the Duet. I’ll probably end up using that for a new 3D printer design, once I can make more solid parts using the CNC. I have 3 or 4 2560 based boards for 3D printers lying around, with LCD controllers. That’s a straight Marlin install, so there should be no surprises at all. I’m happy enough to take the beaten path when it’s laid out before me, no need to reinvent the wheel. 8bit electronics should still be more than adequate.

I see that there’s a 12V power supply in the hardware kit. Any reason not to run it at 24V? Seems to me that with the motors in series, the higher voltage is a safety margin to avoid missed steps. I also have 3 or 4 24V power supplies ranging from 150W to 750W. Since there are no heaters, I assume my 150W supply will be plenty, unless there is some other reason to use a 12V supply. I have a DeWalt DW660 tool in the garage that I bought for some project. I used it the once, and haven’t since, so that’s my planned spindle. That means that I don’t have a 0-10V speed control to worry about.

By way of introduction, I figured I might share some photos of my MAME project. I did all the design. The top panel was laser cut from 8mm acryllic. I have friends in the sign industry who cut based on my drawing. It was covered with vinyl for the wood grain effect. The rest of the box is 1/8" poplar. I cur the holes for the mobo I/O shield and PSU using a jigsaw, so they’re ugly. Also I ended up using a micro PSU, so I 3D printed an adapter from that to a full sized ATX PSU cutout. 3D printed parts inside to hold the HDD in place and the ZeroDelay USB joystick boards and to brace the joysticks. Wiring is spaghetti, I haven’t even zip tied it together.

I connect it to a 19" LCD monitor to play. I also have 2 extra joysticks which I can connecgt to it for 4 player retro arcade games.

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One of the projects that I want to use the CNC for is to rebuild the case to be much cooler than its current box. Maybe integrate the monitor all as one piece.

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Well, I really like the Duet for my 3D printer, and at the moment it looks like I’ll be using the Duet for another 3D printer. probably one I build when I get the CNC running. I have a couple of GEN L boards and more RAMPS 1.4 boards than I really want to think about lying around, and should be good enough for this.

I have (And almost forgot that I have) one of those cheap 300mmX180mm CNC machines, that’s really more of an engraver than a mill. Problem being that it’s just not big enough to make the parts that I really want, particularly since my 3D printer could make just about anything in that size that I probably want. As a result, I never did properly investigate the software chain to go from design to a finished product, and I put it aside for several months.

I have been teaching myself how to use Fusion360, and learning a few other tools along the way. A large part of it is learning how to do the design work. I’ve used some simple tools before, like Sketchup and Tinkercad, but not any “real” cad programs. I also start to wonder when the first step in the tutorials is always “Import your SVG drawing”. Seems to assume that you did not use Fusion360 to do the actual design. It seems powerful enough, but maybe I’m missing something.

Now I’m hesitating, and starting to waffle between the Primo and the LowRider2.

One of the first projects that I want to do is to replace my kitchen cabinet doors and drawer faces. The problem is that my not-soon-enough-to-be Ex never took time to dry the countertops, and the MDF drawer faces and doors are all trash. The previous owner of my house bought all of the cabinetry at Ikea (Fair enough) which should have been great for going and buying new stuff… Except that Ikea has changed all of their cabinetry, and stuff that fits is no longer available. I did do up some new stuff with tablesaw and drill press, but some holes are out by enough that they don’t line up quite right. Anyway, this requires a slightly larger build area, up to 30" square. The MPCNC can do it, but the LowRider2 can do that and more.

Decisions decisions.

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There are off brand duets from places like banggood, right? Has anyone tried one of those? I can’t justify the price of the real thing, when I have so many extra controllers already…

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I have the duet wifi on my 3D printer and it works really well. I like it a lot. Banggood sells them for around $80 US and since the design is fully open source they may be OK. I just remembered that Ooznest in the UK sell the duet wifi as a cnc controller so I imagine it would work quite well.

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Well, I ordered the steel for my build. I decided on a 25" by 37" work area, large enough to do the projects that I have so far planned. I will keep the Z axis to the minimum.

I work as systems administrator for a company that deals with structural steel, so I am getting the steel for a very good price. It should be good and straight, but it is not stainless. I’ll have to maintain it to ensure that it remains rust free, but I don’t expect it to be too much of a problem. It will be remaining indoors and dry, so hopefully rust isn’t a worry. The additional strength that I get from it not being stainless will help with the additional work area that I"m planning, I hope.

I have much of the hardware, though the belts and whatnot that I have are all 6mm, so I’ll need to upgrade that.

I have lots of plastic, but at present it’s all PETg. I have only a small amount of PLA left over from other projects. I’m split on just printing it with PETg or buying more PLA and printing that way. Well, if I buy new PLA, then I can choose colour scheme, I suppose. I don’t suppose that DeWalt Yellow or Bosch blue are available, :slight_smile:

Once the steel is here and I measure it to be 100% sure that it’s 1" material, I’ll start printing.