Building A Three-Axis Rotary CNC Machine

This year’s World Maker Fair in New York yielded a very creative DIY “Rotomill”, a simple three-axis CNC machine, with a rotary axis, that just about anyone can build. This is pretty cool.

https://adam.zeloof.xyz/2018/07/04/three-axis-rotary-cnc/

A three-axis rotary CNC built for the Mechanical Engineering senior design capstone course at Carnegie Mellon University by a team of engineering students. The CNC uses NEMA24 motors for each of the axes, with the X and Z axes actuated by lead screws,

https://adam.zeloof.xyz/2018/07/04/three-axis-rotary-cnc/

and the A (rotary) axis actuated by a worm gear. The spindle is an off-the-shelf Makita hand router, which allows for any router bit

to be used.

Each motor is controlled by a stepper motor driver, which are all coordinated by an Arduino Uno running a customized version of the GRBL firmware. This is in turn controlled by a laptop running open-source GCode sending software.

https://adam.zeloof.xyz/2018/07/04/three-axis-rotary-cnc/

To generate the GCode, we would create a 3D model of the part that we wanted to machine. We then “unwrapped” about the A axis. This basically takes the part and converts it from Cartesian coordinates to Cylindrical coordinates. At this point, we could take the unwrapped part and load it into Autodesk HSM, a popular industrial CAM package. This allowed us to generate a toolpath for machining the part. We basically “fooled” the CNC into thinking that it was a normal, three-axis Cartesian CNC. The trick, however, is that the Y axis is wrapped around and becomes the A axis (see the image to the right to clarify this).

The CNC can easily cut softer materials such as plastic, wood, and foam. It was designed to be able to cut Aluminum as well, however we haven’t tested that feature yet. It’s on the list!

https://adam.zeloof.xyz/2018/07/04/three-axis-rotary-cnc/

https://adam.zeloof.xyz/2018/07/04/three-axis-rotary-cnc/

https://adam.zeloof.xyz/2018/07/04/three-axis-rotary-cnc/

The design of the Rotomill uses a standard, off-the-shelf Makita rotary tool for the spindle, and uses leadscrews to move the X and Z axes around with NEMA 24 stepper motors. The A axis — the rotary bit — is driven through a worm gear, also powered by a NEMA 24. Right now this provides more than enough power to cut foam, plastic, and wood, and should be enough to cut aluminum. That last feat is as yet untested, but the design is open enough that a much more powerful spindle could be attached.

The software for this machine is a bit weird. For most CNC machines with a rotary axis, the A axis is treated as such — a rotary axis. For the Rotomill, [Adam] and [Matt] are generating G Code like it’s a normal Cartesian machine, only with one axis ‘wrapped’ around itself. This is all done through Autodesk HSM, and a properly configured Arduino running GRBL makes sense of all this arcane geometry.

It’s a great looking machine, and the guys behind it say it’s significantly less expensive than any other machine with a rotary axis. That’s to be expected, as it’s basically a five-axis mill with two axes removed. Still, this entire project was built for about $2000, and some enterprising salvage and hacking could bring that price down a bit.