Anyone had a look at the Platform CNC kit

Rob Keeble

Member
Messages
12,633
Location
GTA Ontario Canada
I realize there are a load of these kits around but the other evening i watched a bunch of this guys build videos. He is quiet the guy having designed this whole cnc and now offers it as a kit.

It has all the makings of assembling one of the old style rivet bridges with the amount of nuts and bolts one has to use to put it together. But this is a kit that uses worm screw drive (i think that's the correct term :huh:) instead of belt drive.

Its a kit costing 4 times the Shapeoko or OX type but i guess that's due to things like the dual drive and using the Gecko drive controller and way more steel and parts. I think its also twice the surface area in being 48" long cannot remember width iirc its around 30"

http://www.grunblau.com/PlatformCNC.htm he says on his site that its around US $ 4K to complete the kit.

http://www.grunblau.com/Brian/Downloads/Bill of Materials Platform CNC.pdf Bill of Material shows full list of required bits. So i guess when all said and done and another say US $1k for software is added (Mach 3 and Vcarve Pro) for 5K one has a machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3iWqHYoskI


What i am intrigued by is this is the first person outside people on our forum, that has upfont come out with a machine where the approach is of creating a "PLATFORM" for all sorts of CNC tool heads. What i mean by that is this guy has purchased a kit for 3D printing which he has a video attaching it to the same z Axis and then has a series of videos where he has made a drag knife kit for the same cnc head.

So thus far its doing 3D plastic, Wood routing Using Bosch router, aluminum routing and drag knife cutting.

What I thought was a clever approach albeit more costly is how he wired the whole thing. Its all using off the shelf cables making use of D sub 9 connectors and hooking up to motors and gecko drive.

Kit is around US $2K and then i think there is another at least US $1.5K of hardware and bits to be purchased.

I like the way he has finished the appearance of the design by powder coating the parts.

Then interestingly he has a video which some of you may want to look into with regard to spindle run-out and your collets. I have not seen any of you using routers like the colt or Bosch EVS but he has and obtains a special collet from Precise Bits.com which has an amazing effect on run-out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLWxyy5XKJw

This is an interesting competitor to the type of machines Rockler etc sell close to this price range.

So far he has sold 180 machine kits he claims. Produces them in batches of 12 and has just closed the spots for batch 15 now onto taking bookings for batch 16.

I would be interested in hearing opinions from those of you with machines. There sure is a ton of adjustment on this unit given how the rails are all made up and bolted together. I think you need a good mechanical flare to put this unit together such that you get smooth run of the x y and z axis. But its a fresh approach and no belts.

The bolt together with a ton of bolts is certainly one way to get rigidity without the cost of heavy steel. It worked for riveted bridges and ship builders in the past so i see no reason why it should not work for this design. Pretty clever legs too.

BY the way if you interesting in casting this guy has an interesting series of videos making a casting foundry from an Anheuser Busch beer keg. (lol about the only thing Anheuser Busch beer is useful for) .
 
Last edited:
Rob - looks good.

It is hard for me to say it sounds great. I am the wrong person to jump onto that.

I am buying a machine - errr - I "bought" a machine that is 1300x1300x245 with a 200mm rotary axis and all NEMA 34 with Linear guides and so on..... for $4750 or so dollars.

Granted - I need to add shipping costs, but I also had my machine heavily customized at the factory, which drove the price way up - to the $4750 number. Had I gone for the standard machine and not added the rotary and not had then customize the "X" - "Y" AND "Z" axis and also not add in the 4hp water cooled spindle and a smaller "Y" axis - I think it would still be afar better value.

There is a lot to be said about wanting to buy locally, but, for me - better value direct from China.


i don't WANT to be a negative poster - but this is just the way I see it. - sorry

Just to get a comparison - ask Annie - I gave you the contact info
 
Oh Leo i certainly am not in the market for one or this one. Just posted it because i came across this guy through a you tube video of a keg foundry he made. One of those one thing led to another posts. I thought some of you all would be interested in seeing another version of a diy machine with a different approach to the belts drives and naturally a higher cost of acquisition.
 
Certainly a very robust design. Heavy duty, and good sized. Seems like it would be way more indsutrial than some of our hobby machines.
 
Yeah Brent that's what I thought but I saw loads of need for adjustment due to build process. Very well done videos of the whole process. Looks pretty easy to put together. Bit like a mechano set.

As Leo says though for the money I would go with welded table setup from China. But again space might be a premium its probably also dependent to a large extent on what u want to do with it.

Still think highly of the guy to come up with the design.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
 
Looks like a nice beefy machine, but I've not had a lot of experience with their rail design and those v bearings. I'd also rather see ball screws than acme screws for the price.
 
Top