3/14/2026 10 AM - Created the Specifications

I started this project by laying out all of the things I wanted to get out of it.

This project started as I realized how much more productive I got when I was able to use a 3d printer in my own house. It allowed for a massive upgrade in my prototyping and project capabilities. This CNC is meant to be an upgrade to these abilities.

This project would be fairly different compared to the usual projects that I have been making, straying further away from the heavy electrical design work and more into CAD.

Heres the list of stuff I got:

I had also recently acquired a number of broken ender 3 printers, so I wanted to use their extrusions in this printer.

3/14/2026 11 AM - CADCADCAD

The only thing I knew about the CAD when I started was how I was going to use as many parts from the ender 3 printers as possible. I started out with the x and y rails. It does make the CNC have a bit weird dimensions but it should be bigger than 300x300mm which is totally fine with me.

I also found some linear rails online and added those where they need to go:

After I finished that I added in the motor, lead screw, and lead screw nut blocks:

(screenshot is from pre mirror)

3/14/2026 12:17 PM - More CADCAD

So clearly some random bits of floating aluminum extrusions wont work as a CNC. Luckily for me I have access to a sheet metal manufacturer, so thats what I will be using for the other structural components.

I started with the front corners to attach the front extrusion with the side, as well as the pillow bearing.

After that I grabbed a 775 motor from the internet, as it would be what I would use as my spindle motor.

I put the motor about where it would be then added the main side plates:

Now clearly this doesnt look great, so I wanted to improve it a bit.
There were a couple other parts I needed to get to first though.

I added in the back connecting plates, z gantry aluminum extrusions, and z gantry plates.

After these needed parts were done I went back and improved the side structure plates.

3/14/2026 12:33 PM - Fix CAD Assembly

Up to this point the entire cad has been happening inside a single Onshape part studio which is pretty cooked. I wanted to be able to move the model around using my mouse instead of more transforms, so I put all of my parts into an Assmebly.

The main challenge of doing this was getting good mate connectors to essentially rebuild the entire CNC.

The first part I fixed up was the 775 motor I had imported. I first removed any parts that were not visible from the CAD and was left with this:

And this is the motor with the fixed mate connectors:

I then put together the rest of the cad:

I also created a mount for the motors: (and fixed the colors)

3/14/2026 1 PM - Add limit switches

I found some limit switches online and imported them into my CAD. After this I just added some mounting holes for all of them and added an extrusion to the back motor mounts so that the CNC can zero itself correctly.

At this point the Onshape document is pretty cooked lol

I still have more cooking to do, so poor Onshape will need to manage.

3/15/2026 10:23 AM - Add side walls + Electronics

This CNC isnt looking very enclosed. Its time to fix that!

I am building the side walls out of 3d print supports, thin acrylic for aesthetics / diffusion, and sheet metal walls.

These will be mainly supported by the extra 40x40 extrusion I have from the 3d printers.

This is what those 3d printed supports were like ^^

(Yes I did change the color to something more pleasing)

I also added the main side walls as well as front doors. (Using the model for some extrusion hinges I found)
I continued my bad habit of cadding the entire thing in a single part studio, and so all of these parts also then needed to be separately added into the existing CNC assembly with correct mates.

After this I added the electronics box in the back corner, containing mounting points in order to attach to the back plate. The back plate also has the mounting holes for the main CNC controller as well as a cheap (but hopefully fine) motor controller.
I also put the Ender 3 PSU on the back.

The hardest part about this entire process was getting the left and right side plates all aligned correctly with the 3d prints and acrylic pieces, while also keeping the parts something I can print on my A1 Mini.

3/15/2026 10:48 AM - Blender Renders

A project cant be truely complete without some awesome looking renders right?

This process isnt too bad at this point, as I am actually at my house I can use my PC with an actual GPU and RAM.

I first downloaded 2 states of the CNC, with its doors open and doors closed. Next I added these step files into a program called CAD Assistant. This program allowed me to export the step files as blender friendly obj files (something that onshape cant export). This let me actually import these into blender.

Once imported into blender, I spent most of my time on creating and reassigning materials (to make metal actually look like metal etc).

After I finished all the materials I added an infinite background and some of that nice ol lighting.

Creating the materials took the longest part by far, as every single color in Onshape self assigned itself a different material...

This then gave me these awesome renders: