Quote:
Originally Posted by stinglikeabee
One thing you can do is build a small (2' x 2' or 2' x 4') CNC router table with a water cooled spindle. You can accomplish this within your budget using extrusions, ballscrews, and linear recirculating ball rails. Don't consider the Shapeoko. It isn't robust enough to be considered for doing work in metal.
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Last summer we invested in a DIY 4'x4' (ish...) CNC router. We spent the summer/fall building/integrating it. We then decided to replace the MDF it had with 1" thick waterjet aluminum, and man that upped its precision at a reasonable expense. We finally got it calibrated in Week 2 with first production parts in Week 3. It changed everything with how we design now versus how we did in Week 1 & 2. Precision plates that used to take an hour now take 20 minutes and are lighter. Swapping out different materials is a breeze - take one 4'x4' sheet off and put another on. It really cuts down on material waste and saves a lot of time.
We manually apply cooling fluid via paint brush and manually vacuum as the piece is cut rather than after. We're able to reliably get 1/16" depth clean cuts per pass, so 1/8" stuff is done in no time.
Point is, with the right know-how it's easy to not have to get extremely fancy with a CNC.
P.S. no one is a machinist by trade on our team. It took 1 mentor's drive and the rest of us to follow in order to pull it off.