Homebrew PCBs

PPC wrote:

>Wonderful! Where will you post the pic? I'll be interested to see how you do 
>it.
>
>Can you list the parts you have in this CNC?
>
>  
>
  Well going to write and list things as I go along, so it'll be a day 
or two, and sticking it up on my webspace..

Really is:

1  8' x 1.5" x 1.5" aluminium angle rail at around $20.
6 rails at $36.  (3 two packs, and maybe a bit more money by now..)
2 metal electrical boxes at $6-8.
Plastic electrical boxes for motor mounts.
Wood base at about 24" by 18" for the base, and wood plate for the tool 
mounting plate.

  Rest is little stuff like nuts and bolts, angle brackets etc.  Main 
goal was fairly decent machine without machining either wood or metal, 
and almost all metal, so no relying on wood parts for anything 
important.  Really I'm sure it could be greatly improved, especially in 
the traveling nut to rail connections.  My initial crude hacks just to 
get it up and running for test worked well enough that I never even gave 
it a proper second look for better common parts at the hardware store 
etc.  Couldn't get rebuilding it when it already worked ok for what I 
wanted at the time.

  First one takes a few days, after that you could probably build the 
second in an afternoon or less.  Once going, I could probably build them 
at the rate of 1/hour or faster, thought about selling them on Ebay 
myself.  Still might do so even, if I get back into it.  For now though 
I have the other products coming, and their price per build time and 
leading into other related products demands my attention, even if they 
won't sell that fast at first.

  Nothing too much special about the machine, other than the work is 
done for how to make it go together and get it aligned.  If I  gave you 
the parts with holes etc as pieces, and no instructions, it'd probably 
take a week or two for most to rearrange things and get it working, and 
have even more trouble making it well.  Several other ways to arrange 
the components of course, but most cut down the work area or have other 
interference problems.  I've already worked it all out for the most part 
over the few weeks it took to get this one ok for use, so you won't have 
to reinvent all the wheels.  I've got to get it up and routing, so it'll 
be coming shortly.

Alan