Machine
Hardware
As mentioned the machine is mainly built out of wood, however the linear bearing and spindle are made out of precision material. All hardware is part of the the workshop and well prepared.
Even as the machine can be used once the workshop is done, there are few modifications which should be done in any case:
tidy up the cable mess
build a box hosting power supply and motor driver
emergency shutdown
slave power plugs for milling spindel, vacuum cleaner,..
modfications for light
mounting option on the work place
alternatively tool length sensor for easier z-adjustment
....
Dust shoe and other designed add-ons can be found in Thingiverse
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4672841
dust show mounted on spindle
holder with adapter for vaccum cleaner
detachable brush shoe
complete dust show after printing and mounting brushes
and some more smaller tools which are veeeery helpful
Software
Once using a vector based drawing program (Inkscape, CorelDraw,..) the data need to be converted into GCode - in my case via EstlCAM. Finaly the code will be sent via Candle to a Arduino board with accoring firmware and run the motor drivers.
tool length sensor
the sensor in action
as the conventional sensor consists out of a pcb with a large copper (gold-finished) contact plate, it's required to establish an electrical connection to the milling tool. Dangerous in case a cable is broken...
This design consists out of a mini switch (reused from an old computer mouse), some springs and an SMD LED mounted within the center. By this construction, the LED will be turned on once electrical connected (= sensor ready). Running the adjustment instruction in Candle will move the miller down until the switch has been turned ( = LED off!).
Created in Fusion360, STL files are available here. For better mounting, I highly recommend using some in-melted brass nuts.