Thread: CNC Research for School

What do you plan to cut?
how old are kids?
how big does it need to be?


the stuff we generally talk about here are hobby machines, lightweight and not particularly robust to a school environment nor have the requires support you might need in the school environment. Ie we diagnose and fix our own stuff, the school might not retain the skills or have the time to do this.

It would come down to what you hope the students will learn from using the system (yes system). You need computers (probably at least a half class set if not a full set unless you are planning on a one student at a time usage pattern, your 3D CAD software, one set per computer to do your initial prep and drawings, cam software to translate the drawings to code, and then a machine to output on. The machine could be large or small, a router, lathe, mill, laser cutter/engraver, plasma cutter or 3D printer depending on where you wish to go. The machine could be something that you assemble from off the shelf parts or a kit if it's a router or 3D printer, or it could be a rather expensive turnkey unit that arrives, is unpacked, configured, and up and running the same day.

Every different machine has different requirements and tooling needs, and every tool needs to be properly configured somewhere along the way. If you were to go router, lathe or mill, and hope to have more than one student obtain some output in a class session, an auto tool changer with a tool configuration library is a very useful if expensive option as you can set a project based around a known configured and mounted tool set and the machine can run the job without interruption. Without a tool changer and tool library, you end up stopping to change tools and reset the zero for them throughout the cut, meaning that the machine is a lot slower, and really should be attended virtually all of the time. There is not really a lot that you can do with a lightweight manual tool loading machine within the duration of a class session, being limited to a single tool mounting either produces some fairly bland or takes a lot of time if you are using conical bits with very light cuts to interpolate more sophisticated features.

All the above advice is spot on.
I’m just a retired hobbyist but I spend most days learning software, designing and using the CNC
Having built my own CNC from scratch and having used a wide variety of software to find ones I am happy with, if I had $20k to spend, I would consider the following.;
CNC - prebuilt with ball screws, with Automatic Tool Changer (ATC) and with a Rotary 4th axis - probably around $15k
Software - for technical drawings - FreeCad. It’s free, it’s powerful, to me it’s easier to learn than Fusion 360 but that would be another good option as they do educational licensing.
- for non technical - modelling (2.5D), 3D, inlays etc. Vectric Aspire. They do a 40 computer ( single room) educational license ( pricing is the same as a single license which is about $3k.)
- Depending on what you buy, other software may be needed to have the computers talk to the CNC. Some such as UGS, gSender is free, Mach4 is not. Look at between $200 to $400 if you have to pay.
Tooling - good bits are not cheap. One could easily spend $2000 on bits such as Amana.
Compressor for air supply for ATC

etc.

I, for one, have found there is a lot more involved than “Just buying a CNC”

Costs could be reduced by not buying a ATC or a 4th rotary axis.

HTH

First, welcome to the Forum. And what a question!!!!

If I can just add a couple of comments to the excellent advise from Malbs.

Quality: The chosen machine must be absolutely bullet proof - machines in schools do have a hard life! To my mind, this would rule out all hobbyist models and all self-assembly kits. This leaves heavy duty commercial models, which may be very large to quite small, such as SMC and Felder - read $$$$'s.

Software: Most schools are well endowed with computers and I assume their graphics capability is adequate for CAD. You wil need a modern CAD package such as Fusion 360, Solid Edge, Rhino, etc, - there is not a lot of difference between them - but I do not think that Sketchup is adequate for CAM. Autocad was the first package available - in DOS days - and a lot of machines still use it. You may need a conversion package also. That all adds up to a lot of software licenses.

Staffing: You will need several staff members with expertise on the software and the hardware. The alternative is an extremely fragile system.

Noise Abatement: CNC's are extremely noisy machines. You will need noise measurement equipment as acceptable by your Workshop Safety, and you will probably need a sound proof room for the machine.

future Research: Other educationists have already gone down this path, or are living with the consequences of predecessors decisions. They may be in local universities, TAFEs or schools. May I suggest you make contact with those colleagues. As always, an important question is "​Who else should I talk to?"

Plenty of ex education CNCs without much real past use appear for sale. I.e consider hard whether a CNC is a viable tool / activity.
Good comments above.

By "cnc" are you thinking specifically of a ww router, to cut typically ply/chipboard, and/or carve /engraving?

Or is the cnc bit more significant than the medium. Perhaps a commercial laser cutter would suit. Less noise, dust etc. Same software requirements for design. Commercial systems range from 5-6k up.

Is this for a "trade school" environment, or at least a specific tech class, or more like a maker space? My girls really love the maker space at their school, with desktop diode laser and 3d printers, but keeping them running seems to be a perpetual battle. So commercial grade support would be very desirable.

Hope this helps

Russ