Box

After nearly five years, I've finally gotten around to making a box for the electronics for my (crappy) CNC. I spent the last week on and off designing and building it.

I used Fusion 360 for the CAD and CAM, and relearned the limitations of my CNC's rigidity.

CAD model.

During milling it took me a little while to figure out why the end mill kept descending during the cutting process; the coupler for the z-axis was loose and causing retractions to not pull back fully. After tightening it was fine.

A second pass created deeper grooves due to the z-axis slowly falling.

A better look at the bad grooves.
You can also see where the end mill dragged through the piece between drills.

However, the biggest problem was the lack of rigidity. I think it is mostly from the wood plate and clamp for the router, but I know the entire machine is kinda shady. All the hexagons in the back plate were round and all the holes and slots for the connectors and walls were all undersized. I had to go back into the CAD and oversize all the slots, and just manually drilled out/filed the rest of the holes bigger.

All undersized. :(

Soldering outside in a light drizzle.

Connectors for the motors.
Finally used them after buying them five years ago.

Electronics mounted.

The lid was just the original piece of wood I had the electronics temporarily attached to before.

Box! Much neater now.

I may plan to put a fan on the top lid to help with ventilation if it actually becomes too warm.