Over the past nine months I have been developing a simple way to make a mill/drill for under $75 US. I am talking just the machine minus motors, controller and software. The Brute is a great machine but some people started asking for a larger working area. Some people did not like having to drive around to different glass places asking for scrap pieces of aluminum channel. The aluminum store front channel is still the easiest to build and calibrate. I keep an open mind and started running tests.When you jump from aluminum channel to anything else several hurdles quickly appear. If you use linear bearings the cost jumps to over $300 even at Ebay prices. So I decided to go with some inexpensive drill rod. I bought some 7/16" drill rod and ran some tests. When I went back to the store for more I was told they were out and I would have to place an order. The guy there suggested going to 1/2" drill rod....so I did. They got tons of that size!
Mounting the drill rod is easy and hard. Thompson sells 1/2" endmounts for $29 or less each depending on how many you buy. So that would be $348 WOOOO! Scratch that idea! Looking at the Thompson mount you see there is nothing to it! So I cut out some plastic with my scrollsaw and drilled some holes with my trusty $49 drillpress. Bogus! I tried everything to get a simple hole within a thousands of where I wanted it! No dice!
Then it hit me to rob my Morph rod support system and add some magic to it in order to make it easy to adjust. One more design change and I had a $5 fix for a $348 problem. Next came the bearing. I tried cheap motor bushings and a simple mounting assemble. It looked like a dream, until I woke up! The motor bushings were not drilled straight. What a nightmare!
In the end I went with a new kind of Delrin Guide/Slide system I though of in the 9th inning! My new Guide/Slide is binding resistant. As long as you use Drill Rod and get the two rail parallel things will work great. This machine was designed for Hobbyists and Students. Materials like aluminum can be used to replace the MDF and PVC. Real Thompson linear bearing systems can be added to the design. This is up to you! As is the machine can cut PVC-Plexi-Wood-Wax and thin aluminum at slow speeds. Cutting area is 6" X 6" X 1-3/4" The booklet is over 30 pages of step by step drawing. I show how to produce several parts at once cut from one piece of material. There is no parts list, you have to make the parts. I made all the parts using a Drill Press-Scrollsaw-Belt Sander and hand tools. Several people have talked about producing a machine like this. While they talked, I built it! "Here is your dream and now how does it feel"
Send $40 US,Canada and $47 to the UK and Australia.Other countries see Order page for instructions. The 34 page booklet that includes a preview schematic of the Perf-X controller.