Downing's CNC Control Box Mod

[Downing]

Hey guys! How have things been? Sorry to be such a stranger lately but things have been super busy over here for the past few months and posting/forum time has been quite limited. For the past 6 or 7 months now I've been working on a decent sized project and am probably about a month away from a working prototype that I can share with you all.

With that said though, today I decided that it was time to take a break from that for a couple days and work on a new project that I've wanted to do for awhile now that involves enhancing my CNC setup. In the interest of saving space in my shop, I decided to work on a way to combine my CNC's PC and control box into a more compact and better laid out unit.

The idea was to take out a lot of the dead space and bring everything together. So, I ripped apart both my CNC PC and the control box to the bare components. Did a bit of rearranging and mounted the primary pieces to a cut sheet of MDF. Never used MDF in a project before until recently and I have to say that I love the way it actually mills on my machine. Much more consistent than pine and I'll most likely be using this for my case molds from now on. Anyway, back to it.

Here is a pic of the PC and the CNC control box in the nude.


Here are the components a bit more organized, fastened down and stacked.


Same but with the power supply fastened in.


The sides and top cut and mounted as well as the hard drive.


And now for the fun part...


I'll be adding a graphics card that supports dual monitors and also have a VGA to Composite converter on the way which will allow me to run both my 15" flat panel and a 5" PS1 screen I had laying around built right into the dash of the unit. This will be useful to have with Mach3 running and just make the whole setup a bit more versatile. I'm also going to mount a USB numeric key pad to the right of the screen so I can make adjustments quickly as well as add a bit of convenience to the whole thing.

So far I've got about 3 hours into this and unfortunately until I get the basics sorted my CNC is down for a bit. But, it won't take long to get it running the way it was without the add-ons if the need arises. So hopefully Monday or Tuesday I'll have all the parts in to make this update work. More to follow shortly!

[Drakon]

I hope it'll be easy to open for fixing / swapping stuff.

[theclaw]

Heh. The general kind of thing my 2 slot Neo Geo board needs, if I end up keeping it. Few people are willing to go near stuff that monstrous size.

[Downing]

I hope it'll be easy to open for fixing / swapping stuff.

I'm just going to have one big panel for the back covering that is going to house a fan and the out ports for the PC/CNC. Shouldn't be too much of an issue.

[Downing]

Got a bit more work done today, mostly with the face plate. Would have had more work done but the first 2 hours of my day was spent digging out of nearly 30 inches of snow! We got nailed by that storm last night and man was it a time trying to dig out of it!

Anyway, I got all the cuts and holes completed in the faceplate as well as got the key pad, screen and speakers mounted in place. Right now everything is being held in place with Goop, but once I find out how much room I have to work with on the back, I'll be making some more permanent mounting brackets for them and the buttons.







I gotta say though, it seemed both odd and enjoyable making these cuts with a Dremel again. Though I like filing and using the Dremel, I spent close to two hours cutting out simple face cuts with decent but not perfect quality cuts that could have been done in 10 mins with perfect results via CNC. But alas, it is what it is at this point and hopefully by Tuesday I'll have this working well.

[Downing]

Made quite a bit of progress on this over the past couple of days. Had one hell of a time trying to figure out why my PC wouldn't turn on after I got everything mounted into place. Turns out the color coding on the main on/off switch was wrong and I was plugging the main LED into that spot. It was fortunate that the original CPU case shell had a diagram telling me where everything was supposed to plug in. After that was fixed (2.5hrs later) progress started to flow.


Yay! It finally turned on! That is a 120mm fan so it will more than cover the circulation once I get a backing in place. Still kind of a mess.


The power and reset hooked up properly.


Regulator for the PS1 Screen


Nicely sealed up now.


Dual Screen test.


PC now hooked up to the PS1 Screen. Worked on the first try!


The rough face mounting


So the next phase will be getting the control box for the router tested. Will have to be careful here as I thought I took more pictures of how it was assembled than I really did so there are just a couple question spots I have, though I don't think anything bad will come of it if I'm wrong. Once I get that tested and working, I'll be putting a backing on it as well as painting the rest to match the face plate. Shouldn't be much longer now! Hopefully tomorrow!

[fastbilly1]

That looks awesome. Great work Downing.

How big is your CNC? Ive debated on building one several times.

[samsonlonghair]

So this leads to the inevitable question:
What are you engineering with this?

[Downing]

Thanks guys. My router is only 20 x 30cm usable table size. Works for the small things like I do but I will be needing a bigger one in the future.

As far as what I'm engineering this for, its just an all in one CNC controller. Instead of having a full pc tower and control box, I've consolidated them into one box. Plus a screen and speakers and numeric key pad. Just a nicer way to run my machine.