CNC Mill to Precision 3D Printer

Hi!

I own a CNC mill which I would like to convert into an 3D Printer. My goal is to achieve a high precision printer for 0.0x mm person, would that be possible? What do I need?

I found this dual extruder on the net, which looks pretty reliable.
[store.qu-bd.com]

My CNC Mill (High-Z-S-400) already has Endstops, so all I need (as I know) is the extruder and the controller, am I right? Which controller should I use best? I have an SAM-ICE JTAG and a AVR Flasher, so its no problem to build the boards.

As far as I have seen, the Slic3r Software offers the best resolution, doesnt it?
What about the heating table, do I need one?

Thank you very much for answearing my questions

regards

Pat

Hi Pat,

for printing I'm replacing the interface-card of my Isel-CNC-mill with an adapter to an ArduinoMega, that wires the pins for end-stops and stepper controlling from the Arduino to the corresponding pins in the Isel-controller - no other modification needed.

The ArduinoMega controls the heated bed (needed for ABS, but good for PLA too), but my hot-end is driven by an industrial temp-controller ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

I'd like to build a reprap. I currently have a cnc 3 axis milling machine.
Is there anywhere I can get the dimensions so that I can draw and mill
the parts needed on my cnc? Or are there any g-code files that are
alread written out there?

viktor is evil, do not listen to him ... he prints stuff at subnanometer range .... no im joking, im blown away by his subnanometer printing in his basement.

i think, accuracy of printing, secondary to that is the nozzle. cos primarily, your XYZ has to be able to move at at least 2x that resolution. cos print heads at the very least is about 0.3mm (300microns?) ... so you at least will need to move XYZ at minimum resolution of 0.2mm max.

i bet CNC tables can manage that easily normally @ 0.1mm and lesser.

i am making something crude. and i think it can do 0.01 mm and better (i assume). but preliminary runs suggests ... yes it is truly moving at very nice precision. waiting for a 0.001mm dial mater to know for sure.

since you already have a known XYZ precision machine, i think your concern should be, control and delivery of data to print. and ability of print head with materials.

these should be interesting to read :
accuracy : [3roomlabs.blogspot.sg]
power/noise : [3roomlabs.blogspot.sg]
X-axis experiments : [3roomlabs.blogspot.sg]
theory : [3roomlabs.blogspot.sg]

cheers
(btw i have yet to finish building any machine, some are theories, some are works in progress, some are proven concepts)

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2013 10:58PM by redreprap.

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__my mixed bag blog || aka --> [http] || ___ so 3D printing is everywhere ... dont worry, hospitals can now 3Dprint body parts, they will charge you $1million excluding surgical fees ... you will die paying your debts. thats their aim ___ if every patent expires tomorrow, everybody will surely get a 3dprinter and make EVERYTHING ! ____ there is a "DIY-DTG" t shirt printing forum, you can mod an EPSON printer to PRINT like a pro. ___ CNCzone? overly commercialized it seems ___ my country? they will be taxing you for every cm of road you use and track you to your grave using GPS and its government authorized, now they will fire all the traffic wardens instead.___ EEVBLOG? there is only 1 way to do things --> take it apart like a pro

ha !!! i have no idea what part are you stuck at, but this should give you some idea what i did to get things moving

this is just 2D, some of what i did to get to gcode stage by using a picture (raster) --> DXF (vector) --> gcode.
[3roomlabs.blogspot.sg]
no i am not from any software co

but in the 3d printing group in google, someone said he used blender, exports to STL file direct !
his name is richard gain, from [plus.google.com]

cheers



Michaelj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'd like to build a reprap. I currently have a
> cnc 3 axis milling machine.
> Is there anywhere I can get the dimensions so that
> I can draw and mill
> the parts needed on my cnc? Or are there any
> g-code files that are
> alread written out there?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2013 03:19PM by redreprap.

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______________________________________
__my mixed bag blog || aka --> [http] || ___ so 3D printing is everywhere ... dont worry, hospitals can now 3Dprint body parts, they will charge you $1million excluding surgical fees ... you will die paying your debts. thats their aim ___ if every patent expires tomorrow, everybody will surely get a 3dprinter and make EVERYTHING ! ____ there is a "DIY-DTG" t shirt printing forum, you can mod an EPSON printer to PRINT like a pro. ___ CNCzone? overly commercialized it seems ___ my country? they will be taxing you for every cm of road you use and track you to your grave using GPS and its government authorized, now they will fire all the traffic wardens instead.___ EEVBLOG? there is only 1 way to do things --> take it apart like a pro

redreprap Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> viktor is evil, do not listen to him ... he prints
> stuff at subnanometer range .... no im joking, im
> blown away by his subnanometer printing in his
> basement.

... It's not exactly 'subnanometer-printing' what I'm doing in my basement - positioning with this accuracies, yes (common with PZT-actuators) -- but my 'printing' accuracies are only in the micron to submicron range ... nano- or sub-nano is planned for the next decade

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

I "converted" a MAX NC 15 milling machine to a 3d rep-strap. I used a Sanguino board (with Marlin firmware) to drive a Chinese stepper driver (TB6560 kind) which in turn drives the stepper motors on the milling machine.

The extruder and the heated bed temperature are controlled by some temperature PID controllers bought from Ebay. Both bed and extruder use 120v for the resistors.

[plus.google.com].

The Max NC accuracy is about 0.005" or 0.127mm so it might not be as accurate as what you want, but I found the extruder consistency could ruin the finish and look of the printed part.

Assuming your stepper driver board also connects to PC running MACH3 or EMC via printer port, you just need to build a Sanguino board and bring out the Step/Dir/Enable signals for all 4 axis and hook them to your DB25 pin like you would connect the stepper to your PC. That way you can reuse all the software available for reprap community.

I used that machine to print printrbot parts and use printrBot instead.

[www.rcgroups.com]


-Thanh

Been Googling for this topic.
A friend has a beautiful, 2’x4’ gantry style, router type, cnc 3 axis mill, really stout.
Runs with servos/Gecko drivers, VERY accurate; we’ve done some amazing things with it.
Can his mill be converted to a Dual Use mill/3d printer w/o reinventing the wheel?
I’ma noobee reg anything to do with Arduino, microprocessors etc.
Wouldn’t mind learning due to possible spinoff projects (time lapse camera tracking, solar tracking; the insanity is unlimited, UNLIMITED!)
Your previous posts indicate sophistication in this field. Hoping for your enlightenment.
Dorian in Sandy Eggo

... with some CAD/CAM's it's as simple as mounting an RepRap-extruder to the Z-axis and adjusting the post-processor.

E.g. my Isel-mill is controlled by "Remote", what can import common G-code ... with slightly modifying the file and redefining the I/O's it can process the standard RepRap-filetypes ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Victor
Thank you for your rapid response and sorry for my slow reply; didn’t have my notification set up right.

So this is what I was kinda hoping for, i.e., g-code is g-code.
My only concern is talking to the “fouth” axis which is the filament feeder.
Not sure how that is done but you seem to have it all figured out.

So just to confirm, sounds like we can use his 3-axis machine “as-is” and that the g-code needs minor tweaking for the filament feeder.
I am assuming that the hot end of the feeder is just a temperature setting as is the table heating.

Thanks again,
Dorian

Hi Dorian,

with the Isel-CAM's I'm sometimes adjusting the postprocessors with settings for the relevant outputs ... should be possible with other CAM's too.

But the most simple solution is replacing the controller by a RepRap-type ... I'm using an Arduino RAMPS and an adapter-BOB, that wires the I/O's from the CNC-controller-backbone to the Arduino.

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Victor
Can you suggest a Arduino RAMPS model?
Sorry, don't know what an adapter-BOB is.
Google gave me nutt'in.
Dorian

... I was using an Arduino 1280 with the first prototypes of RAMPS 1.2, what's pretty outdated nowadays ... but more modern types are similar, so simply look out for an affordable set ...

BOB is short for BreakOut-Board - here it's an Arduino-proto-shield similar to this one - [www.watterott.com]

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Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Thanks Victor
Been in bed sick for 3 days.
Will start working on getting what we need to convert the cnc to a dual use system.
Now the question is do I want to do this mod
OR
Buy one the the 1200 USD FlashForge 3D printer, dual extruder w/2 ABS spools on Amazon
Like the idea of getting into Arduino though.
Thank you for your time Victor.
Dorian

I just finished writing up such a conversion: [www.shapeoko.com]

Let me know if I missed anything.

If I have a 4 or 5 axis cnc stepper motor driver controller board...what would be the interface to use an Azteeg X5 mini or PCduino3 32 bit microcontroller to run Smoothieware or LinuxCnc to run the mill as a 3d printer? Thanks...

... I'm using Editasc with 5-axis controllers (32STMF4-boards) for 2- or 3-axis laser-engarving.

AFAIK a fully functional controller replacement with USB, real-time OS controlling up to 8 axes, will cost below 200€ ... the second price-factor is the software with optional upgrades from 3-axis to 4/5/6/8-axis mode -- I'm not sure, could add around 200-400€ depending on activated axes ...

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Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Interesting.....thanks for the link Viktor. I'm not sure how applicable this may be but I will check it out. Thanks again.