An open source Arduino-based CNC machine from Brazil. Jeferson, the Protoptimus founder, writes:
It’s time for Brazil to show its strength in the maker movement”
My name is Jeferson, the Protoptimus founder. I’m on a Catarse.me campaing, the largest Brazilian crowdfunding website, and I need your help.
We yearn to be the first big manufacturer of low cost and ease-to-use CNC milling machine with Arduino, in our country.
Unfortunately, our campaign it’s mainly for residents in Brazil and is only in Portuguese.
Via Open Electronics.
Laudable initiative (and I’m sure it’s perfectly fine for vacuum forming molds and other non-critical stuff) but it doesn’t seem to be particularly precise (as required for say SMT PCB milling). The use of a belt to drive a CNC axis is rather unusual, and lateral rigidity seems a tad precarious – seems to be in the “slide drawer CNC” category, which has already seen some pretty cheap commercial attempts (granted, still better than no CNC at all).
Great initiative, but R$ 4.500,00 is not low cost, if you purchase a good one from China, paying freigth and taxes, at the end you will pay only 3.600,00… R$ 900 more expensive…
We can see projects around the world less expensive than that.