Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

2016 Is the Year of Buying CNC Tools Instead of Building Them (hackaday.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the do-it-yourself dept.

szczys writes: We have reached a turning point in personal CNC Tools like mills and laser cutters. Up until now, your options were to drop some serious cash (businesses) or spend time to build them yourself (individuals) at moderate expense. But over the last year the number of companies making CNC tools and the software available for them has matured. Anyone looking for an entry level machine in the coming year will find that purchasing equipment has a better time/price value than building yourself. The best part is, these entry level tools have the precision you need if you still want to build your own high-end or extreme-spec machines.

1 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Time Warp by jtara · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Where have you been for the past 40 years or so?

    OK, let me actually read the article, and see WTF they are talking about vs. the almost certainly misleading post title... I suppose they mean, like "personal CNC"...

    Oh, I see. We're talking about "desktop CNC printers" and "hobbyist CNC Mills".

    Is it really that hard to come up with a title that expresses that, or at least include it in the body of the post? No? Too much to ask?

    The reason I ask is that you've been able to buy CNC tools easily for the past 30-40 years or so, if my memory isn't failing yet. Because I remotely remember writing Z-80 code for the first microprocessor-based CNC controller a long, long time ago! (They were all minicomputer-based before that, and mainframe going even further back. BTW, Allen-Bradley bought the company that I wrote that code for...)

    So, yea, the only people buying CNC machines back then were GM, Ford, Chrysler, Boeing, their suppliers, etc. etc. etc.

    The truth is, this could have happened in the 80s, if only there had been Harbor Freight! Z-80's were certainly affordable to hobbyists. What didn't exist - I don't think - was decent, affordable, small mills. No reason it couldn't have happened were there a demand.

    So, the excitement over 3D printing is past, and now people are realizing that there are CNC mills too?

    Did we have to wait for affordable, powerful processors? Funny, that 4mHz Z-80 could run a 5-axis mill, with the position loop(s) running in the Z-80 (not in the specialized hardware used today.)

    I wrote the code for those position loops. And counted every machine cycle by hand!

    So, yawn. Big breakthrough.