Wooden Game Boy Is A Challenging Intro CNC Project

[Sebastian] describes himself as “a total noob” when it comes to CNC, so in an attempt to get to know his new CNC router, he chose about the most complex possible project — replic…

What The Artisan 3-in-1 CNC Offers (If One Has The Table Space)

I never feel like I have enough space in my workshop. The promise of consolidating tools to make the most of limited space drew me to the Snapmaker Artisan, a plus-sized 3-in-1 tool combining 3D pr…

Simple Add-On Makes Cheap Plasma Cutter Suitable For CNC Use

Plasma cutters are ridiculously cheap these days, just cruise by the usual online sources or your local Harbor Freight if you’ve got any doubt about that. But “cheap” and “g…

String Art Build Uses CNC To Make Stringy Art

String art is as old as, well, string and something to hang it from. But, like most things, it gets more enjoyable when you involve a CNC. [Paul MH] went the whole hog with this build, creating a C…

Making An Injection Mold For Yourself

Injection molding is the obvious onward step from 3D printing when the making of a few plastic parts becomes their series manufacture. The problem with injection molding is though, that making a mo…

Impulse Buying A 3040 CNC Machine, What Could Go Wrong?

[joekutz] made an impulse purchase of a CNC machine. It was a 3040 CNC that looked reasonably complete and had an attractive price, what could possibly go wrong? As it happens, [joekutz] really did…

Pen Plotter Uses Polar Coordinates

To keep track of a location in a two-dimensional space, two measurements are needed. Most of the time, we would naturally think to do this by the Cartesian method, measuring position along one axis…

Hackaday Prize 2023: Circuit Scout Lends A Hand (Or Two) For Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting a circuit is easy, right? All you need is a couple of hands to hold the probes, another hand to twiddle the knobs, a pair of eyes to look at the schematic, another pair to look at t…

GrblHAL CNC Controller Based On RP2040 Pico

[Phil Barrett] designed a new CNC controller breakout board called the PicoCNC which uses the Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040 module and grblHAL. It packs a bunch of features typical of these controllers,…

Laser Engraver Uses All Of The DVD Drive

For the last ten to fifteen years, optical drives have been fading out of existence. There’s little reason to have them around anymore unless you are serious about archiving data or unconvinc…

Adding Two Axes Makes CNC Router More Than The Sum Of Its Parts

The problem with building automated systems is that it’s hard to look at any problem and not see it in terms of possible automation solutions. Come to think of it, that’s probably less …

DIY Laser For Ablating Metal

For those who wish to go beyond through-hole construction on perfboard for their circuit boards, a printed circuit board is usually the next step up. Allowing for things like surface-mount componen…

Spindle Upgrade Makes PocketNC Faster And Smoother

Conventional wisdom says that rigidity is the name of the game when it comes to machine tool performance. After all, there’s got to be a reason for CNC machines that need specialized rigging …

Automate Away The Drudgery Of CNC Manufacturing

One of the keys to making money with manufacturing is to find something that you can make a lot of. Most small manufacturers have one or two “bread and butter” items that can be cranked…

Learning 3D Printing Best Practices From A Pro

It might seem like 3D printing is a thoroughly modern technology, but the fact is, it’s been used in the industry for decades. The only thing that’s really new is that the printers have…

CNC Feeds And Speeds, Explained As A First-Timer

If you’ve ever looked into CNC cutting tools, you’ve probably heard the term “feeds and speeds”. It refers to choosing the speed at which to spin the cutting tool, and how f…

Retired Welding Robot Picks Up Side Hustle As CNC Router

Who says you can’t teach an old robot new tricks? Nobody, actually. That saying is about dogs. But it applies to robots too, at least judging by the way this late-90s industrial beast was put…

Laser And Webcam Team Up For Micron-Resolution Flatness Measurements

When you want to measure the length, breadth, or depth of an object, there are plenty of instruments for the job. You can start with a tape measure, move up to calipers if you need more precision, …

Powercore Aims To Bring The Power Of EDM To Any 3D Printer

The desktop manufacturing revolution has been incredible, unleashing powerful technologies that once were strictly confined to industrial and institutional users. If you doubt that, just look at 3D…