3020 CNC Engraver/Router

/ JC

3020small-e1416424522964 2013-09-30 10.14.44

This is a bit of a boring post as its more of a review of a product at the start. But not to fear, just skip down to the bottom to see what this CNC does and the type of things I’ve made with it.

I’ve wanted a CNC machine for a long time before i got this machine but they were way, way, WAY too expensive for me to buy or even make. Probably because i was wanting it to much. So I eventually figured what i realistically wanted to use it for and for the price range i wanted to spend on it. Basically i only came up with 2 major uses:

  • Making circuit board; engraving, drilling and light milling
  • Light milling; plastics, non-ferrous and thin ferrous metals

And after some research the 3020 CNC seemed like it would be adequate for for what i wanted to do and only cost about $1100 NZD inc shipping from China.

  • Working area of 300mm Y axis, 200mm X axis and 50mm Z axis
  • 48v DC, 200W spindle with ER11 collet chuck
  • fairly solid aluminum construction
  • NEMA 23 stepper motors on all axes

So I ordered one. It arrived 1 week later (pretty speedy really). Out of the box I was actually quite impressed with its build. It felt pretty solid for a small, aluminum machine.  Everything needed was there and it was ready to go, just needed a computer to run it. But as im sure everyone knows, with cheap Chinese copied products they tend to have a couple of issues.

The issues and upgrades i had and did to it:

  • Sometimes missing steps, i believe it was to its stepper motor controller board being average design.
  • Z axis lead screw shaft had vertical movement
  • I had ball screws made for all three axes and modified the Z axis so the lead screw had no more vertical movement
  • The original spindle design was shit! The lower bearing was in a rubber sleeve (probably to account for poor machining and or large tolerances) which just let the spindle flop around while cutting and chatter. I brought and additional spindle and modified front bearing housing to increase the rigidity. So i had one strong, slower spindle and one high speed spindle i could swap out for different projects.
  • The controllers power/Spindle controller board blew some components and wasn’t setup so the computer could control the spindle. So i made a new Board and configured it so the spindle was software controllable.
  • The table wasn’t level
  • Added homing switches for each axis

Overall Review:

If your after a ready made solution for very light milling, engraving and making PCBs, its a pretty good base machine. I would recommend replacing the spindle motor. It’s poor quality and induces a lot of chatter. Secondly replace the ACME lead screws with Ball screws for all axes so you don’t need to word about backlash. If your going to be doing more than just engraving, say 3D contouring i would also recommend getting a machine without the standard controller and or sourcing a better one yourself. Just to make it more reliable and accurate.

Now for some fun stuff, here are some examples of some things i made with it:

PCB’s:

I design the PCB’s in Eagle CAD and processed in PCB-GCODE. lots of PCB’s! its suck a good tool to have if your prototyping up a lot of electronics.

pendant render rev 2

Engraving work:

These were some pendants i made with my girlfriend. We had some hand written text we scanned into the computer, edited it then engraved it onto the back of a pendant. On the front we engraved an image of an Owl.

The pendant was made from a thin sheet of brass glued between two pieces of Remu wood. To get the pendants out of the stock it was secured down to the table of the CNC, the wood layer of the upward
side milled down to the correct thickness. Then the images engraved through the wood and onto the brass sheet beneath. This actually worked really well and made the engraving really stand out and shine. Especially after a coat or two of varnish.

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