Hey all, A build thread was requested for my MPCNC Build so I’m throwing one together!
The MPCNC is the Mostly Printed CNC by V1 Engineering (https://www.v1engineering.com/) that you guessed it, most of the parts are 3d printed. In my journey to press my own decks, the one step that I’m still held up by is the lack of access to a big enough CNC machine to cut my molds out on (and possibly the decks from blanks). I started shopping around and couldn’t find an “off the shelf” one for less that $2k at the time. So I started thinking to myself, hey self, this is all about DIY right? Maybe there is a diy kit I can grab to build my own to the specs I need? After a few days/weeks/months of searching I came across and decided on the MPCNC.
It’s a pretty simple build, just a lot of time and thought that needs to go into it. I’m going to use this thread to document my build and hopefully answer anyone questions along the way.
Warning: I’m a slow builder….I work way too many hours during the day and sometimes night, have 2 dogs and a wife, and way too many other hobbies I’m in, so this isn’t going to be a week long build. It may take me a while to get through all of it but I will finish it up and track my progress here, as well as post a lot of pictures, show any and all of my screw ups, give up, question my life choices, burn everything to the ground, and then hopefully finally finish my CNC.
So buckle the F up and get ready for a slow ride to getting my CNC up and running.
3D Printing:
First off, you need to have a decent 3d printer. It’s gotta be able to lay down nice layers and run for a long time….and when I mean a long time……it’s a looooooonnnnngggggg time.
I’ve clocked almost 150 hours of print time so far. On the site, he claims its only 115 hours of print time but I haven’t found that to be super accurate. It all depends on the printer you have and how accurate and stable it is. All of my prints have been done on an Ender 3 (pretty much stock, a few small upgrades such as the metal extruder and a BL Touch).
My 150 hours of printing has been 1-2 parts at a time to make sure I didn’t have any failed prints….started off with a few! Most of the parts need to be printed at 55% infill to make sure they are strong. I printed most at 40-50 mms as well since I’m paranoid and don’t trust my printer to produce perfect results. Now that I have it dialed in just right, it’s been printing the parts pretty darn well. He recently upgraded the parts to a “Burly” version. It added more strength to some of the parts, which I like. Everything can be printed with PLA and also with no supports. I found this all to be true so far!!
You can find the parts to print here:
23.5mm OD: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:724999
25mm OD: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:790533
25.4mm OD: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1671517
Rails:
The other great thing about this CNC is that your x, y, and z axis can all be made out of steel conduit. I was able to find it at Home Depot right by my house and it was fairly cheap. You have to make sure you are getting the right OD with the part set you are printing. Here in the US the conduit is different than in the EU so make sure. He has designed the parts in 3 different measurements so you just need to make sure that you are printing the right stuff!
There is also a cut calculator to give you the exact measurements of your conduit depending on how big you want your work space.
I will be using this to cut my mold blocks so I’m going to have a build space of 12”X48” and a Z height of 4-6” (still haven’t decided that yet)
This CNC runs pretty much like a 3d printer so I hacked open my old one and will be using some of the parts from that! You need stepper motors (nema17), end stops, control board, etc. etc. I still haven’t decided exactly what control board to use but it’s recommended to use the Rambo 1.4. For my spindle I’m using a Makita trim router, there’s a separate file on thingiverse for the mount. (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1652878)
The other cool thing about this CNC is the other uses that have been designed for it. There is an adapter for a pen (so you can do some cool drawings) a laser, 3d printer set up and a drag knife (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2494258) for cutting vinyl. I’ve seen some crazy versions of this thing, one guy online is using a super high powered CO2 laser!! And since you make it whatever size you want, the sky is the limit (well the space in your workshop is really the true limit)
I’ll start going into detail on each of these sections when I get to them. Just wanted to give a brief overview of what’s going on and what’s going to happen! Hopefully I make some good progress on this soon to share with everyone. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know!
Me either! Now that I’ve started a build thread for it, everyone can constantly mock me and talk shit to get me back on track! I got one more post coming with the progress I’ve made so far.
Thanks dad, I’ll get on it right now! Editing my next post.
I actually started building this a while ago, and then my 3d printer ate shit and died. So I had to buy a new one which is working pretty damn well now!
I’m hoping to make alot of progress over the next few weeks!
I did a thing! I started out assembling some of the parts. TIP for everyone……make sure you get the exact bolts that the site calls for. I couldn’t find 1.25’ 5/16 bolts locally so I tried to use 1.5’, most of them worked except for 4 locations where the screw is way too long. (the bottom and top corners, there is supposed to be an extra bolt holding the XY pieces into the XYZ pieces. Since my bolts were too long I can’t get it in! but luckily I’ve met some bad ass and extremely generous people in this community and @mmaner has a box of the right bolts being sent to me right now! Thanks again Mike!)
I assembled the middle assembly, which is where the gantry/z axis/router will mount. This is one of the more complex pieces to put together. I ended up going through a bunch of different pliers, wrenches, and sockets to find the best way to put it together. I ended up using a socket on the outside and an open ended wrench for the tight spots, sometimes having to switch to a crescent wrench.
This was a total of 6 printed parts, 4 of them are the longest prints of the entire project. But this thing has been designed VERY well and the tolerance for the conduit is damn near perfect. Oh did I mention bearings…you need ALOT of bearings. 53 to be exact. They are your standard skate wheel bearing, I ordered a pack of 100 off of Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073ST742Z/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) The reviews are a bit spotty, but I’ve found that all the bearings Ive used so far are pretty solid. They took a bit of cleaning and lubing to get all that machine oil off of them but they are spinning true.
And you call yourself a DIYer
I don’t even bother getting the right length unless I need lots of pieces.
Just get the longer length available and cut down to size as required.
Yea man, me either. Its been in the back of my mind for some time now. But I’m pushing to get it done fast now. Its the last bi thing I need to start making my own custom decks…
Just ordered my belt and pulleys! I needed 4.6 meters of belt, found one on amazon thats 5 meters and comes with the pulleys too! There is a way to upgrade it to lead screws but those are pricey…maybe down the road.
