If you're looking to experiment with CNC the 3018
is a great place to star. It's like the ender three of CNC.
We'll take a look at a new one that's been released by sain smart
right here on CNC Sunday.
This video is sponsored by PCB way PCB prototype
the easy way with a full featured custom printed circuit board prototype service
from pcbway. This video is also brought to you by my patreon supporters.
When I first launched my channel many years ago I had three different
segments of the channel; it was Filament Friday for
3D printing i had CNC Sunday for CNC and then i had Technical Tuesdays which
occasionally pop up where I'd talk electronics or things like that.
Well I just ran out of time to do all that and Filament Friday clearly was the
most popular. So that's what I did but I didn't stop
doing CNC. I did, I don't know, about 20 CNC Sunday videos
and I focused on the x-carve which is my big CNC which is off-camera over here
to the side that I still do projects on from time to time.
But my main interest in CNC was cutting circuit boards.
And that's where this guy comes in. Now I've since gotten a bantam tools
PCB cutter/PCB mill. It's fantastic. There's no competing with it. But it's like a
$2500 machine. And I got a closeout unit, so it was
cheaper than that. But this is what I wanted my 3018
for. So this particular unit I actually got from
banggood. It was a kit. It's about 180 dollars I put it together
and it wasn't perfect. This is actually like
a composite material on the sides in the front and when i tighten everything up
it just wouldn't move exactly right. And then I had to mount the motor on the
side because the holes for mounting everything in the recessions, it
was wrong. It was supposed to be on this side but it would only fit when I
assembled this way. So it took me extra time to put this together.
And the electronics that came with it were horrible.
So I got better electronics, which actually sain smart sells these. The same
one. But it's electronic so I can control
everything right from an SD card in this little controller. So I don't even have
to hook up to a computer. I can do everything from an
SD card which i like to do. So I did cut some circuit boards on this.
I've had some pretty good luck once I put a piece of wood and milled it
perfectly flat, which is what you want for,
you know, cutting circuit boards. And I've played with it but I never really got
perfect results. So I didn't do a lot with it for a while
and then sain smart offered me this guy. Which is their
latest. Now what I built here with all the
pieces is essentially what sain smart sells as their 3018 pro.
So this is the upgrade to that. This is the 3018
PROver. What that "V E R" stands for, they just said that's
the name they gave it. But it's got a lot more features. A lot of things that I
wanted on this. Such as a bigger display
so I can ease, it's easier to see. Touch buttons which are easier to use than these
little buttons. But it still accepts an SD card right
here at the top. So I can still run off that. It's got
stop switches at every point. This one I would run
sometimes too far, jam into the motor, and it would ERRRR..
you know. Could cause damage. This one, it stops. So that's a
nice feature. This has also got better electronics than
this. It's got opto isolated drivers so it can't kick back and
destroy the electronics, which is benefit. It also has
a zero probe so you clip this onto the bit and then put this down on the
bed like this. And then lower down. And when
it touches it knows its zero point. So little things like that have been
very very handy. But the biggest thing to me
is that it's an all metal construction. All the sides are a solid aluminum
and it comes almost fully assembled. The bottom half
is all assembled, the top half is all fully assembled.
So you just gotta put those two pieces together and then install the
electronics, which really didn't take that long. So about an hour.
I put about an hour into this thing and it was assembled and ready to go. T
This one, I swear I had 20 hours in this thing.
taking it apart, putting it together, trying to get everything to work right.
This is definitely more expensive. This one I think is around $250 if you
buy the sain smart version of what i have.
And this one's like around $350. For about a $100 more
you're getting just a little better quality. It's kind of like a, you know,
an Ender 3 versus Ender 3 pro or Ender 3 versus Ender 3 v2.
Something like that. But I've been really happy with this.
And the base is a lot more level than what I was getting on here. I still put a
piece of wood down to mill it for circuit boards, but
I didn't have to mill as much as this one, to get a nice smooth surface. And I'm
getting actually really good results. I'm still working on
some design flaws that. I need to make my pads bigger.
And because I'm drilling through some of the pads. So I haven't got the
drilling totally sorted out yet, but i'm real
close. But overall I think it's a pretty good
machine. Now they do give you some sample files on the SD card for cutting out of
wood. So if you just want to do some
decorative cutting, it does a fine job of that.
You can get a laser adapter to this, for I think it's about a hundred dollars
more. So you can do laser etching with it. But to me, this is
really a great place to start and still have a quality machine if you
want to try and do CNC. And also cut some circuit boards. And
because you can run it standalone you don't really have to hook up a
computer. Although there are advantages. And they do have software, free software
you can download and use with it. There's not a
lot of choices if you're a MAC user like me.
It's mostly for PCs and I just I don't really like having a computer
tied up running this thing, because if the computer goes to sleep
stops sending g-code it could, you know, mess up the whole cut.
And you kind of got to stay around this thing because when it's cutting.
Unlike a 3D printer. I can walk away because it's just adding material most I'll get
is extra plastic floating around. This thing
you can actually drill into things if something goes
wrong in the g code. So I like to keep an eye on it.
And because of that I really don't want a computer next to it.
I like just doing it all standalone with an SD card. One other feature this has,
that this one doesn't, is a stop switch. Emergency stop switch.
I hit that red button and it shuts power off so everything
stops. That is very handy. I've had times where
this is starting to cut. And because I did something wrong in the setup,
I had to quickly like reach back here and find the off switch. This thing
"boom" slap that button everything stops. Once I get my prototype
cutout and proven then I'm ready to go to production. And
for that I go to PCBway. All my circuit boards that I've done in
the past. All my kickstarters that had electronics.
I used pcb way to fulfill the orders. I get
great quality out of them. And you can go with other color
solder masks. You don't have to go with green. But you get the full silkscreen.
You can go two, three, four-layer boards and
they also offer ten boards for five bucks.
So check that out. So PCBway, I highly recommend them. I use them
all the time. To check out that five dollar offer, just go to pcbway.com.
The 3018 CNC platform is so common and the fact that it runs open source
GRBL firmware opens a lot of possibilities. There's
various software that you can buy. Both buy
and get for free, to run it. There's software for cutting circuit boards that
I can show you in a future video. There's also all kinds of 3D prints to
upgrade it. Including mounts to put a stronger motor on it. So you can
cut thicker material. So there's a lot that you can do if you
want to tinker with this machine. So if you're
interested in that, let me know in the comments below. I'm pretty happy
with this thing. For about, like I said $350
for this machine. Mostly assembled. It's not too bad. So if you're think about
getting a CNC, it might be something to check out. I'll
put a link to this exact unit from SainSmart in the description below. If you
like this maybe check out some of the other CNC Sunday videos that are popping
up. And if nothing else click on that CHEP logo
and subscribe. I'll see you next time.