The trip so far:
I'm taking a low-budget journey from being shop-less to having light CNC capability with hopes for some automation as well
thus far I have built about 6 sanguinos, the McWire Repstrap, and a bunch of shop related stuff - the McWire got bogged down in a sanguino related problem and has been idled for a couple months ;-(
everything appears to work - and replicatorG control Software will move the motors as commanded, (albiet too slowly) but at the end of the G-Code it reports that the firmware version is 0.1 and refuses to run until restarted... attempts to re-load the bootloader or firmware have failed thus far....

it has been a low priority as there are several other projects on-going:

1) Water Condenser.
Since this is south central Texas its intolerably hot most of the time and quite humid as well, so: An experiment in extracting atmospheric water. A 50 dollar used de-humidifier, a few buckets and some tubing...

This week I extracted 20 gallons more water than was needed to water the herb garden...

The water is slightly cloudy, so, next: get it tested and determine what RO (Reverse Osmosis) filter kit will render it clean enough for storage, and if, post filtration, it will require sterilization via ozone or UV. Once the water is clean enough to store, then testing for contaminants and either a solar still or a post storage RO filter array to attempt to get it to a potable status, then add solar panels to make it stand alone. Rearrange the internal airflow to pre-cool the condensate air, (30% potential efficiency boost)and add a hot/cold appliance to the potable water branch of usage.... Celebrate with Coco! or Iced tea...

2) 1 Meter Cube, CNC Cell

something like this:


This thing is all built out of 80/20 aluminum Extrusion,

The goals are:

Modularity:
you should be able to connect several of these together and "assemble" all the steps to a manufacturing process

Replicatability:
i.e. a basic group of units should be able to make any part that is used in its construction - (Note: this is an obviously complex goal as in: drawing copper wire to wind motors etc) so in the shorter term making the aluminum connecting plates and such will serve as an analogue to a complete solution.

The working envelope is expected to be between 50% and 70% of the cubes volume.

Standardization: get the most function with the lowest part count.

I'll be adapting the Pilot Pro motion components to add CNC to this Cube

Other cubes under research...
PCB mill
Pick and Place
Vacuum forming
Electric Arc Furnace



More Later: