What do i need

so im looking to get into cnc hobby and some extra money
i dont have a 3d printer but i like the machine here
do i ned a 3d printer for one or ?

You don’t need one. Ryan sells the printed parts, or if you have a local makerspace or library that will let you use their printer, you can go that route.

Your choice, Ryan sells printed parts or you can print your own.

i also want to add i have a hypertherm 30 xp plasma cutter…
i seen some photos in the gallery page of someone using a plasma cutter with one of the cnc machines from here ?

That’s a little further off the reservation. There’s a few folks around who play with plasma, I know @forcerouge did a lot of early work with it, basically finding out that he had to shield everything… And from what I’ve read (and what little I could understand), THC is always a bit of an issue. You either have to do some tricky/spendy stuff, or suck it up and hope your material doesn’t flex too badly while you’re cutting.

is there free cad software to use i cant afford fusion and others etc?

fusion is actually “free” for a hobbyist. I’ll leave it to you to determine the level of money making involved with being a hobby

Also here is an article with a few

well id like to use it to make money lol if i could

i think this might be something i am interested in…
i can work with wood but as i stated earlier i have a plasma cutter…
i work with 16 guage steel punisher skulls etc will this cnc fair well with 16 guage with the Dewalt Tool? im guessing the mpcnc

It could do it, but it would take some time and effort to really dial it all in just right, and it might still take multiple passes. Cutting steel on the MPCNC isn’t for the faint of heart, regardless of how you’re cutting it. I say this not to discourage you, but to make sure expectations are set.

There are plenty of people here who will be more than happy to help you along, and share what they know, but steel is rarified air around here. Aluminum is getting more common, and it looks like the Primo may add to that. We’ll have to see if it also gets more steel cut…

well cutting Aluminum wouldnt be bad can make some neat things out of that…
i figure this cnc even using wood and me doing some of my welding might make some money dunno though im guesing you can burn or laser things into wood as also??

Yep. Lasers are common. There’s even a guy who makes shot glasses out of ice for events (he does ice carving, but uses his MPCNC to do the repetitive grunt work).

Actually it’s not everything, it’s mostly to connect the motors casings to the ground. Most of the other things I did were unnecessary, I just didn’t know it at the time :wink:
Plus my plasma torch was a cheap and particularly noisy one, other people had more success with the hypertherm.

Yeah, THC is an issue especially with thin sheets. But I think it can be made less necessary using a water table.
I’ll give the plama torch an other try in the next few months, this time I’ll try to come with a better, dedicated setup. Hopefully the THC won’t be necessary.

does the size of the sheet matter with the flex i wont be cutting large sheets
at most 2ft by 3ft or so

I’m no expert so what I’m saying here might need to be reviewed by someone more experienced, but from my measly attempts at plasma cutting it did seem to me that warping occurs even on small sheets. It’s likely that it’s even worse with larger sheets though.

Don’t worry too much about that, some people who don’t have torch height control still manage to get decent cuts, It’s better to have one but probably not mandatory.

Start your build, think later! :wink:

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