How To CNC Cut Metal For Under $400 using the 1310 CNC Router

The dream is to be able to CNC cut metal parts in your garage for the least money possible. Well, I think I've got a solution for y'all: The 1310 CNC. It'a all metal construciton thick linear motion rods and Lead Screws on all 3 axis makes this the most robust inexpensive CNC machine coming out of China for under $300, but it's got an achilles heel: The spindle motor. So let's replace that and cut some 1/2" Aluminum.

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
3:41 - Assembly Timelapse
4:48 - Stock Built Walkthrough & Critique
11:31 - Electronics
12:50 - Universal G-code Sender (UGS)
15:41 - CNC Coordinates Explained
19:07 - Firmware Modification
20:09 - Software workflow
29:07 - First Cuts in Metal
31:03 - New Motor
32:35 - 3D Printed Upgrade
34:20 - Getting the RPM correct by ear
35:32 - Adjusting Stepper Motor Torque
38:00 - New Motor Fan
39:13 - First Successful Aluminum Metal Parts Cut
43:15 - The Chatter is Breaking Bits
44:47 - Issues with Bits and Bit Selection
48:48 - Air cooling the cut
49:39 - Relocating the electronics
50:34 - Conclusion/Lessons Learned

[ballzybaits]

What machine do you recommend to cut aluminum if the budget is $1000?

[andrewstambaugh]

It was cutting metal parts that were good enough to work but needed a couple changes to cut better (not more parts). I've been cutting metal on my machine for 10 years (it's a couple tiers up from that machine)
*Tips for anyone trying to cut ALU or Brass:*

1. *Suck the bit up* as far in the collet as you can (not on the flutes, but as close as you can). It makes a big difference.
2. *Deep cutter-width slots are a no-no!* Set your profile cuts at least to at least *1.5x cutter width* (also helps with clearing chips). It will take twice as many passes, but your bit will thank you and your surface finish will be much better.
3. profile cutting: if you can, precut/drill a hole in the middle and make sure your path starts from the hole. You will be able to take deeper cuts as it is *side-cutting instead of slotting*
(As soon as saw your deep narrow slot, I knew immediately it would break a bits and/or lose steps.)


4. If cutting dry/air only: *Use WD40* Frequent squirts cool the bit and give it a coating that resists chips sticking.
5. *Buy better/midrange cutters* $5-8 cutters make your machine cut so much better than $1-3 cheapies. (don't buy expensive cutters until you learn how not to break them)
6. *Cut chips not dust!* Dust = wearing out bits fast with almost no material removal. (small chips are ok, but grey dust isn't)
7. *Don't cut steel.* Just don't. Your machine will damage it's self even if you can't see the damage immediately.
e.g. My motor shaft coupler started slowly fatigue cracking and then later snapped and caused a nasty crash that actually bent my Z ballscrew... sniffle.

Purchasing tip:
8. Get a machine with the largest dia *ballscrews (not leadscrews)* and largest rails you can. The water cooled spindles are also much quieter.

Upgrade tip:
9. *Flood coolant* with water/cutting fluid: if you plan to cut metal a lot and are willing to set it up, this *will massively increase your machine's cutting capability.*
Seriously, I went from struggling to cut metal at all - to wondering how far I should push my cuts.

Not only does it blast chips away and cool the bit, but it also reduces vibrations and noise! (straight water will rust everything including your cutter's crisp edge needed to cut well)
I use a cheap fountain pump and water soluble cutting fluid. My machine sits on a tilted table with angle alu edges to keep the water in, then it all runs into a rubbermade tote with the pump in it.
Linelock makes directing the flow much easier and isn't too expensive for a foot or so of it, but I started with a coat hanger wire ziptied to a piece of hose!

PS. I'm not saying you should go back and try that machine again. It is just going to be on the painful side. But it was doing it until the too deep narrow slot started chattering too much. So for anyone else, who already has a machine and can't afford to just go buy another machine, I hope these tips help.

[kurtbilinski]

Videos like this - where things Don't work out - are way more truthful and helpful than polished and edited videos where everything works perfect the first time. Thank you, sir!

[MiniLuv-]

This video will save countless viewers from failure for aluminium routing projects - thanks for the time, effort and expense you went through to produce this video.

[davidlisle]

In the world of machine shops either the work is held still or the tool is held still and sometimes both. If it is rigidity you want switch all motion functions to the bed to which you fix your work, so the bed moves X and Y and Z and the tool is rigid and solid. Just like the big boys.

[marcovoetberg]

I think the frame of this little machine is probably stiff enough to handle alu. Upgrading the motor is a good step, but now other factors come into play and they are all compouding factors. The mill bit really wants much higher RPMs. The mill bit is probably not of the best quality. The lead screw has too much backlash and the anti-backlash nut solution does not take away the backlash with the forces involved. The linear bearings are probably cheap ones with too much play. And after all those issues are fixed you might even find that the steppers do not have enough torque.

[hippocks]

Thank you comments. You saved me 50 minutes. I now know that this doesn't actually show me HOW to cut metal on CNC.

[alanhardman]

Your upper left and liwer right quadrants are swapped from industry standard. IOW :"X" is always called first in a geometric expression, "Y" is always called second, "Z" is therefore third, etc..
And a good reason to set your work station coordinates in the middle of a part is when you are working on a part that is round and you're doing work in the center of the round feature, as in cutting a tapered pipe thread (inside or ourside) into the feature. Another good reason would be that your blueprint establishes the origin at a feature well onto the part. Say, in a program meant to cut a block plate for the bellhousing mounting surface of an engine. Those are almost always given an origin at the center of the engine's crankshaft.

[dprinting_noob]

3 years later this video is fantastic. Thank you for documenting the effort and failure. Tired of seeing videos where in 20mins everything works and the hard work is skipped.

[joshuaknestaut]

38:21 They usually oversize the fan so that it is more effective at cooling the motor with the air flowing over the top and cascading down the sides. When you make the fan the same size as the motor it causes the fan to dead end right into the top of the motor and won't have the same air flow down the sides.

[cyrex]

Actual machinist here: It may seem odd, but you can often remove chatter by increasing feed, or decreasing rpm.

Keeping a high load on the cutter makes it unable to jump around.

Adjusting feed/RPM while making a cut is a good way to find the right numbers. What the read in online calculators is just a starting number, you find the ones you need by adjusting and listening.

[anandawijesinghe]

You needed linear rails supported every 50mm instead of round shafts supported say 300mm apart at the guide ends, ball screws to drive the slides, and a stiff spindle shaft supported nearer to the Z slide base. But that, as you concluded, is a whole new more expensive CNC router !
I recently bought an all metal, linear rail, ball screw, Anolex 3030 EVO Pro ($660) built like a tank, emphasizing increased rigidity and low backlash, for these same reasons. It cuts Aluminum well, at moderately high spindle speeds and feed rates.
I have just upgraded to the Anolex 1.2kw VFD spindle to replace the stock spindle; man it is hefty !

[bencapobianco]

Hi I know this video is a year old or so but I just wanted to drop some suggestions from a CNC programmer. as far as your bits collecting aluminum in the pores of the carbide soak the bits in hydrochloric acid overnight and that should takeoff any aluminum that’s residually on them it works better than lie. also instead of air they sell cheap mist cooling systems that use air and a water soluble coolant to cool the tool and clear the chips away they don’t make much of a mess and give you a tremendously better finish, cut speed and tool life. Also consider some three Flute mills I’ve noticed they cut down on chatter due to the fact that there is always a flute in contact with the work and the pressure never really comes off of the bit in a cut as it does with even number flute end mills.
Anyway I hope someone get some thing out of my comments great video and very informative thank you!

[BigJohnno]

To avoid aluminium sticking to the bit you need to take larger chips. The heat caused by the cut will be ejected with the chip, limiting heat buildup in the stock. Ideally you need a faster feedrate, but you may have to try a slower spindle RPM if faster moves are out of the question. Also compressed air to blow away the chips will be helpful.

[spearview]

Your videos are so underrated! Love your videos and honest opinion!

[ianide]

Feeds and speeds also assume a rigid machine with a motor that will not stall at the proper RPM. You've discovered most of this already though. I've seen a guy make successful cuts on a cheap machine, BUT it was a heavily modified machine. Adding extra rigidity to the spindle, using coolant, changing to a high power motor with a VFD, and changing to ballscrews. All of that in a machine a bit larger than what you are using there. Also being able to hold 0.0005" tolerances. But we are talking about a complete redesign of the machine. You might have gotten a tad farther with this machine and got slightly better results but I think it would have taken more money.

[ArcAiN]

Few points of interest here:
1) The terms most often used is Backlash, or play, in 22 years, I've never heard anyone simply abbreviate it to "lash"

2) judging from what's shown at @00:07:00 that anti-backlash nut is installed completely incorrectly. The spring is NOT supposed to be compressed that hard, nor is it supposed to be compressed against the frame, the way you "fixed" it completely negates it's use.
The way these devices work, is they put tension between the nut, the follower, this ensures the nut is always engaged with the threads of the lead screw

This image displays the proper installation of a spring loaded anti-backlash nut:

3) At the scale you're talking about, rigidity issues on the "cheap" versions has very little to do with the frame, and more to do with the hardened guide rods, and the fact that on the machine you're reviewing, they are offset, and the machines you pointed out, they are in line. This will lead to "nod" and tram errors int he cheaper machines as they plunge into work, and chatter as they move through the work. However, again, with the scale of these machines, you shouldn't be putting sufficient cutting forces with any of them to bend rods, you're not working with VMC's, so trying to rooster tail 4041 with this isn't going to happen anyway. Feeds and speeds are where most of your issues are going to come into play.
(yes, 12mm hardened rods will be stiffer)

4) Moment of inertia calculations: Wow.. talk about going a long way for literally no reason... Yes, the MoI for 8mm rods is 201, and 1017 for 12mm rods.. However, these numbers actually don't tell us anything practical about the rods, their material, their hardness, bending forces required, or how they relate to the application they are used here. That's like telling someone the tensile strength of nylon when talking about a wire brush..
If you're supplying enough force into the work with your cutter, that you're bending, or displacing the rods (2 hardened rods, and the lead screw) then you're obviously over-loading the machine, and operating it unsafely.
again.. you're going out of spec for these machines to try to prove a point, that literally, doesn't need to be proven. yes.. 12mm rods, and a thicker gantry cross member will be more rigid, 100% accurate.. literally all you had to say... once..

5) False equivalencies abound. You point out that the connections between two parts are not equally rigid.. um.. ok.. of coarse they aren't going to be equal, they are 1) different connection planes, 2) different connection points, 3) different components, 4) different profiles... To assume they would be the same is illogical at best... Anyone, can simply take a look, and see they are different in every aspect except for perhaps, the fasteners used.. .on one machine, you have a piece of extrusion, supported with two right-angle blocks, that are clamped onto the extrusion, and the frame (total of 4 connection points, on 4 faces) and on the other, you have 6 connection points, all on the same face... Of coarse they are different, they are different designs..

Also, comparing 10mm thick solid aluminum plate to extruded really... The plate will be less likely to tilt as you've described than the extruded aluminum, mainly due to the way they are clamped, and the fact that solid aluminum vs a hollow extrusion.. that 10mm of extra wideness on the extrusion probably isn't going to compensate as well as you might think. However, that being said, if you're putting enough lateral forces on either machine, you're not operating your machine safely, or properly.

6) It's not an "axel" it's a spindle. An axel is for wheels, regardless if it spins or not.. a spindle is any rod which spins within a mechanism.

yea.. i'm not going to go any further into this review.. sorry my guy, but it appears you're trying to look like you know what doing, but there are a myriad of technical issues here, everything from terminology, to mechanical assembly, to the way you describe things shows this isn't something you're very knowledgeable about.

[transientaardvark]

This is a fantastic video. I've been playing with a dirt cheap 3018 for over a year which has taught me a lot but I learned loads more from this vid. I will just note that the title should have been "Proving That It Is Impossible To CNC Cut Metal For Under $400".

[maverick]

You had me at "parts for your pew pew"

[ColinJWiens]

A channel named "Awesome CNC Freak" recently made a vid on how to upgrade this machine. He decreased the backlash, the chatter, and even milled steel.
They look like low cost improvements; he used the original motor but added pulleys and a better spindle. I'm super tempted to try.