I recently borrowed a SainSmart Genmitsu 3018-Pro CNC Router from a friend (checkout his site and YouTube channel!) to play around. After trying some general CNC, I wanted to try out using it as a 2D drawing bot. Yes, you can use a regular printer to print, but where is the fun in that?!
I was pleasantly surprised to see that someone already tried doing this and was nice enough to share their work. Here is what I had to do.
- Disconnect the default spindle so I don’t accidentally move it while experimenting.
- 3D print this Sharpie holder and install it instead of the default spindle.
- Followed this tutorial to create the gcode with Carbide Create.
- Connected the CNC to the computer using USB connection.
- Used SainSmart’s GRBLControl/Candle to send the gcode to the CNC.
The result? Let’s see!
Yes, it’s a bit slow and can be sped up quite a bit, but I didn’t bother doing that. This was a good weekend project and I enjoyed learning about Carbide Create, Candle and the CNC in general.