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CNC Needle Cutter

by jhitesman on December 27, 2016

Table of Contents

CNC Needle Cutter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Intro: CNC Needle Cutter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Step 1: Build a CNC Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Step 2: Building the cutter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Step 3: Testing the cutter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Step 4: Improving the cutter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Step 5: Improve the cutter...again. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Step 6: Make some cuts! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Step 7: Needle Cutter Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Step 8: Tips for Building your own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Step 9: Future Improvements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Related Instructables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

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Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
 Author:jhitesman Never Mind the Sand
I enjoy all kinds of DIY, Craft, Technology, and construction projects. From building my own darkroom in middle school (including framing and drywalling the
room as well as doing all of the plumbing and wiring as well as building some of my own furniture and equipment for it) to building my first multirotor flight
controller out of parts scavanged from my Wii controller and an arduino. I'm always looking for a new project and am never happy unless I have several in
progress at any given time :D

Intro: CNC Needle Cutter

"Cutting foam sheets... with a needle!" I'd been wanting to build a CNC machine for cutting 20"x30" sheets of foam board for a few years - basically since I got hooked on
building and flying cheap RC planes. I'd actually wanted a CNC machine for much longer, well before I got hooked on RC planes. I had looked into it a few times but
always decided it was too expensive to justify. But that click bait sounding title worked on me and I gave it a click.

I had just build my first 3D printer less than a week before, and had seen the MPCNC on thingiverse but the idea of a 3D printed CNC machine just sounded like a bad
idea to me so I skipped over it. But reading the needle cutter thread I saw that the guy who developed it had built several CNC machines over the years and was now
hooked on the MPCNC. Still, my printer was new and that's a LOT of printing to build that machine. So I didn't dig right in but just watched for awhile.

What I saw continued to impress me. And finally I decided I had to give it a try. So I dug in on building a MPCNC.

Image Notes
1. First full sheet cut on the fullsize machine. I had my placement a bit off so the
cut went off the workpiece...but most success than fail!
2. I had my starting z position too low so the needle dragged between cuts.

Step 1: Build a CNC Machine

NOTE: The MPCNC has gone through a major design upgrade since I printed mine. The new parts make for a stiffer machine but I haven't had time to reprint mine and
upgrade yet. The version in my photos is the old version which is no longer posted.

Printing the MPCNC took me a long time. I don't have any reason to distrust my printer, but I do. Even with a fire alarm right over it I don't like letting it print unattended or
overnight. I started printing on Feb 18th with the 4 corner locks that clamp the conduit to the corner blocks. Estimated print time was 4 hours...but the actual print took me
almost 8. I knew my printing time estimates were off from doing smaller prints but didn't realize how much worse the estimates would get as the print times went up! It
took me close to a month to print the parts with my first test assembly happening on March 13th.

Unfortunately I had to do it all over again. I ran out of the "purple" (honestly, it's far more pink than purple) Hatchbox filament I started with and ordered a roll of Black to
finish with thinking it would provide a nice contrast. But Amazon delivered me eSun filament instead of Hatchbox. No big deal I figured...I'd heard the eSun was pretty
good so why not try it instead of hassling with a return. Well...the roll I got was utter junk. It printed well enough - though had serious bed adhesion issues I haven't
experience before or since with any other filament. But every time I'd finish printing the filament would snap just above my extruder and the next 6-10 inches would be
brittle. I'd cut out the brittle part and keep going. That turned out to be a bad call. The finished parts all started failing. Some would break in half just sitting on my desk!

But I also realized just how big this machine was going to be! The design of the MPCNC means you loose a good bit of working area. To fit 20"x30" sheets of foam board
I had to build the machine 3' x 4', Once I test assembled it it was obvious that this was way bigger than I had mentally envisioned and I had to face the dilemma of where
to store it and use it! My plan of building on the dining room table wasn't going to work. I was going to have to clean out my old home office and finally convert it into a
shop - lots of work...but well worth it!

The downside is I live in southern AZ where summer temps regularly hit 110F (44C) and higher. My shop is air conditioned...but I don't run the AC out there full time to
save money. A machine printed in PLA did not have a good chance of surviving. So...I chose to reprint all the parts in PETG. I also decided to first build the machine on a
2'x2' footprint (giving about 13"x13" work area) to test and debug before rebuilding it a third time to it's full size.

Building the MPCNC really deserves it's own instructable, one of these days maybe I'll find time to make that happen.

This kind of breaks the timeline a bit, but once I had the smaller version up and working I dug right in on getting a needle cutter working.

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
 Image Notes
1. First attempt at full assembly. Quickly decided that it would make sense to
build it smaller first!

Image Notes
1. Nooo!

Image Notes Image Notes

1. The big upgrade...good bye PLA parts (pink and black) hello PETG (blue 1. All upgraded with PETG parts!
and grey)

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
 Image Notes Image Notes
1. Wired up with a RAMPS 1.4 and an old PC power supply. 1. My daughter likes penguins...I've used this penguin drawing as the first test on
a couple of projects, so of course had to use it here as well! That's her playing
with the pen mount ;)

Image Notes
1. After two weekends of cleaning I had my old office cleaned out and
converted into a new "shop".
2. I built a nice sturdy table out of 2x4's and MDF to support the fullsize
machine.
3. back together...but not yet wired or squared up.
4. I did keep one PLA part from the initial printing. It was one of the first parts I
printed so I couldn't bear to part with it :D

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
Step 2: Building the cutter
I chose to 3D print my cutter. This isn't the only way. The original cutters David made were wooden. Others have built them from aluminum. Basically all you need is a
way to hold a motor and create reciprocating action on the needle.

David shared his designs on thingiverse starting with his first 3D printed cutter using a standard brushed motor: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1138627

He followed that up with an improved version using a brushless motor http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1211039 I happened to have the exact same motor on hand and
not being used so that was the version I chose to start with.

While I was printing my machine David continued to improve his cutter design. The original design used a 3D printed flywheel which had to be carefully balanced to run
smooth. He also used a 3D printed mount for the needle guide but had issues with the guide heating from friction and melting the mount.

The new design replaced the flywheel with a lightweight crank made from a clothespin spring, and replaced the printed guide mount with a simple piece of 1/4" wood
(David cut his from a dollar store mousetrap, I used some scrap oak I had on hand.)

Experiments were also ongoing about the best choice of needle guide. In the photo I'm using a welding tip which seemed like the way to go at the time. But they seem to
generate more friction and don't dissipate the heat fast enough. David went back to his original air inflation needle and I followed.

The needle itself is fashioned from 0.28mm piano wire I got at a local hobby store. There aren't any exact dimensions for it but you want it to stick out of the guide as little
as possible. I cut mine a little long initially, then wrap them around an old drill bit to create the coil that goes over the crank. It's important to pay attention to which way the
motor/crank turns and which way your coil sits so that it can't get caught on the crank as it turns. Once it's mounted on the crank I cut it off so that with the crank at it's
lowest position (deepest cut) I have enough needle sticking out to go completely through my foam board and just one or two mm's into my waste board (I use pink
insulating foam from the hardware store as waste board - but more on that later.) . The shorter you can keep the needle the more accurate the cutting will be.

The end of the needle is then sharpened by twirling it in my fingers while gently touching it to a cutting disc on a Dremel to create a nice sharp conical tip. It will cut with a
dull tip, but will tend to drift a little and leave a very ragged bottom of the cut.

With the cutter finished mechanically it was time to wire it up and test it out!

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
 Image Notes Image Notes
1. Hard to see in the photo...but there are a few layers that had some 1. The original flywheel I never used.
issues...which would later come back to bite me. 2. Original needle guide mount I also didn't end up using.

Image Notes
1. Universal mount for the MPCNC designed by HicWic:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1234989 The new MPCNC design has a nicer
tool mount than the version that was availble when I printed mine, but the quick
change mount is still handy.

Step 3: Testing the cutter.

The suggested setup for the cutter was a 12v power supply or 2s Lipo, a servo tester to control the ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) and an optical tachometer to set
the speed.

My good 12v supply is burned out and I didn't feel like rigging up another computer supply...so I just used a 3s lipo pack which is 12.6v fully charged but nominally 11.4v -
close enough for testing. A 2s lipo is only 8.4v fully charged and 7.6v nominal. (Lipo cells are 4.2 volts fully charged / 3.8v nominal - the Xs notation indicates how may
cells are in a pack. Cell voltage * Xs = pack voltage.)

The speed controller came with the motor in a power pack setup from Flitetest.com which I bought when I visited their flitefest event last summer in Ohio and was used
for a few rounds of aerial combat before being stripped out since I didn't have room to bring a plane back to AZ with me. The components here aren't critical. The cutter
works best with a motor RPM of around 6,000RPM and the optical tach is a great way to make sure you're at that sweet spot.

This motor is an EMAX CF2822 1200KV which is commonly available and low cost, but any similarly sized brushless outrunner RC motor can work. 1200KV means that
this motor will give 1200RPM for every 1V of power it's supplied at full throttle. So at 12v full throttle you'll get 14,400 RPM out of this motor...the cutter puts very little load
on the motor so this is way more than adequate.

I didn't have a servo tester on hand, but I had quite a few arduino's so I grabbed the closest one at hand (which happened to be a mega) and loaded up one of the
example servo sketches which uses a potentiometer to control the speed. This is a standard example sketch that ships with arduino and basically works the same as a
servo tester...just a bit more cumbersome.

I fired it up...and it scared me...but holding it in my hand I was able to make some not very straight cuts my moving it across a piece of foam board! I connected it to my
MPCNC, generated some gcode...and was able to cut a few small shapes! This thing had potential! I even got brave and tried to cut the RotorRiot logo with fairly good
success. My first attempts were a little jagged, but shortening the needle and sharpening it quickly improved that. The biggest problem I had was due my own sloppiness
in creating the gcode as I had to trace a bitmap to get the vector art to pass to my CAM software and rushed the job out of excitement leaving a few minor errors.

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
After some experimenting my cuts continued to improve...but fairly quickly my needle broke right where the coil was that mounts it to the crankshaft. This was likely due to
a combination of the needle being too long and being run way too fast. At this point I didn't have a tach yet and was just trying to guestimate motor speed based on
percentage of throttle sent to the ESC. The problem is I forgot that ESC's aren't very linear, and I missed that David had suggested using a 2s pack instead of 3s...I also
made a few silly arithmetic errors. As a result while I thought I was running around 6k RPM I was actually doing more like 15k-20k! Which led to a number of weeks of
frustration and continued revisions trying to figure out why I was having problems with my needles flying off. (Since the very first test I've always worn eye protection and
a full face shield while testing and would strongly suggest doing the same!)

My frustrations with flying needles led to continued refinement of the needle cutter.

Image Notes Image Notes

1. Arduino Mega 2560, any arduino would work I just had a Mega handy. 1. Still using the welding tip as a guide at this point. Note that my needle is also
2. 10k potentiometer. WAY too long at this point - the crank is at the top of it's stroke and I have a ton
3. 0.030" welding tip as a needle guide. of needle still sticking out. At this point the needle should be fully up into it's
4. Crankshaft made from a clothespin spring. guide.
5. Needle made from 0.24" piano wire. 2. First CNC cut! Not much, just a small square. And I didn't even use gcode to
6. Battery and ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) for the brushless motor. do it - just manually sent positions to the machine while the needle was running.
7. EMAX CF2822 1200KV brushless motor. But it worked and that was what mattered!

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
 Image Notes Image Notes
1. First cut before I took it off the machine. 1. First "real" test cut. My needle was still too long and dull, and my gcode on the
right and top wedges of the design was messed up due to a sloppy job tracing
the original bitmap. But for a first try I was over the top excited at the potential!

Image Notes Image Notes

1. After shortening and sharpening my needle my cuts were already looking 1. A good sign that your needle isn't sharp enough is a clean cut on top but
MUCH better! But there was still room for improvement due to my motor RPM somewhat ragged on the bottom. But the improvement continues!
being too high at this point.

Image Notes
1. I was on the right track with my comments in this video. But the big problems
were the needle was too long (the needle guide should be almost touching the
work while cutting) and my motor RPM was way too high at this point.

Step 4: Improving the cutter

So my initial needle broke fairly quickly. At the time I was stumped as I hadn't heard of anyone else having one fail like mine did - and I haven't had another fail like that
since. But in hind sight I now know that I was running too high of a speed and too long of a needle which was putting too much force on it.

I also swapped from the welding tip to an air inflation needle - the air inflation needle resulted in a much cooler running needle. Our current theory is that the higher mass
of the welding tip held in more of the heat generated from the friction of the needle while the low mass inflation needle an dissipate the heat much quicker.

However My replacement needles refused to stay on the cutter. They kept flying off on me. I tried adding various things to the end of the crank to help retain them, but
spent over a month fighting with the cutter and the problem of it throwing needles. However there were signs of what was wrong - I just continuously misinterpreted them.

The first obvious sign was that the needle was visibly bowing out while cutting, bad enough that it wore a groove into the base of the cutter bracket where the needle
guide attached. What finally convinced me that it wasn't the design of my crankshaft (I had gone through half a dozen revisions at this point) was a video of a needle
getting tossed. When a friend watched it he played it back in slow motion and commented "wow, that crank is really expanding"

Which was the key thing I had been missing. Looking at the video again now it's obvious even at regular speed that the crank was deforming from the high RPM's. I
considered making a tach myself and even tried a few sound based tach apps on my phone. But finally gave in and spent the $13 on an optical tach. As soon as I tried
the optical tach the problem was obvious. I set it back up the way I had been going and pointed the tach...only to see 16k RPM read back at me! Woah, that's a bit more
than the 6k I was aiming for!

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
On the servo tester I was at about a 7 - I ended up having to dial back to 2.5 to get it down to 6k, no wonder I was having so many issues! At the proper speed it's a lot
less scary sounding and I've yet to have a single needle go flying since taming it down.

However - while I was fighting with flying needles David and others continued to experiment and improve the basic cutter design. And I suffered a cutter failure that forced
me to jump in on the new improvements.

Image Notes
1. First needle failure - not sure why it failed here and I've yet to have another
fail at this point. But it was a sign that I still needed to make improvements!
2. This was my very first cut - with the overly long and dull needle. If your cuts
look like this then your needle is probably too long, too dull and likely also too
fast.

Image Notes
1. Switching from the welding tip to an inflation needle as a guide was one of the
first upgrades I did. The inflation needle runs much cooler which helps prolong
the life of the needle and keeps it from melting the foam it's cutting.
2. The needle guide is mounted with a small scrap of wood. I used some oak I
had laying around because it was the perfect size, but any wood will work. The
wooden base of a mouse trap from the dollar store is very close to the perfect
size and the spring from the mousetrap may also be useful as a crankshaft.

Image Notes Image Notes

1. At this point I was using a "prop saver" on the motor shaft to help retain the 1. I was on the wrong track in this video. It wasn't my cranks, or my needle coils,
http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
 crankshaft. YOu can't see it but the other end of the spring is wrapped around or the guides causing my problems. It was just that I was running way too high
the opposing screw on the prop saver. I had to grind a nub on the prop saver off of an RPM and didn't realize it.
so that the spring from this particular clothespin would fit on the motor shaft.

Image Notes Image Notes

1. This setup could have and should have worked...but I was still running my 1. The melting of the PLA mount is more obvious here. This was due to running
motor way too fast causing a number of problems. the needle at more than double the RPM it's designed to work at.
2. The overly high RPM's caused the needle to flex and bow during it's stroke.
Between that and the heat it generates from friction as it bends into and rubs
against the guide caused it to start to melt the 3D printed mount!

Image Notes
1. It's kind of hard to see, but if you look closely you can make out how the
needle is flexing and bowing from running at too high of an RPM.

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
 Image Notes
1. Finally, I broke down and spent the $13 for an optical tach and realized what I
was doing wrong for over a month!
2. Setup correctly the power draw is very minimal. Note I'm only using 0.5a at
just under 8v for just under 4w of power. I was seeing considerably higher power
draws when running at higher RPMS.
3. Pretty close to perfect! I find around 6199-6200 works best for me...but this
worked WAY better than the crazy high speeds I was running before!

Step 5: Improve the cutter...again.

My cutter fell apart! When I first printed it I noticed that a few layers had some issues. I used MakerGeeks PLA for these parts and I've had ongoing issues with their PLA
not always feeding well and suddenly jamming up like the nozzle was clogged even when it isn't. (I have since solved this issue by adding a small bit of paper towel with
some cooking oil on it over the filament just before it feeds into my extruder - since adding that I haven't had any further issues and the MG PLA has been printing like a
dream.) .

I was able to glue the cutter back together and keep going. But as I mentioned David had made some improvements to the basic cutter design. Nothing major, but
enough that I wanted to try the new version. The big difference is he simply made it taller.

I took this basic change and redrew the cutter mount in openSCAD attempting to make the design more parametric so it could be customized. The result came out pretty
close to how I had hoped: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1723915 The defaults give a nice standard cutter, but almost everything about it can be customized to fit the
users needs. The motor mounting screws can be changed to match different motors, the height can be adjusted to experiment with longer/shorter needles, and the
needle guide mounts can be changed to match what the user has on hand.

The one thing I'm not entirely happy with is the mount selection. Currently the only options are no mount or the hicwic mount. I do plan on implementing the new default
MPCNC mount, but since I haven't had time to upgrade my MPCNC to use that mount it's been on the back burner. I did make a non parameterized version with the
default mount: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1976501 but it's not wonderful. Printing it requires support due to the design of the mount. When I finally add this style of
mount to the customizable version I'm going to convert that from two pieces to one so it can print without support.

At this point my cutter finally became reliable so I dug in on enlarging my machine to finally fit full 20"x30" sheets of foam board!

Image Notes
1. The layer was weak due to an issue with the filament. But all those weeks of
running the motor at too high fo an RPM sure didn't help it!

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
 Image Notes
1. New and improved taller cutter with a parametric design to allow easy
customization.

Image Notes
1. Newer simpler crank. Got rid of the prop saver and just use the tight fitting
spring by itself. Since the rotation of the motor causes the spring to self tighten
it's been working great.
2. Still note the direction of the coils, and at the proper RPM's the bit of wire
insulation is plenty sufficient to keep the needle from coming off the shaft.

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
 Image Notes
1. Of course I had to include the hicwic quick change mount.

Step 6: Make some cuts!

Enlarging the MPCNC was fairly straight forward. Mostly a matter of cutting new longer pieces of conduit and then reassembling it with them. I did run into a few issues
due to my choice to use CAT5 network connectors on the stepper wiring to make it easier to connect/disconnect. On my initial 2'x2' setup this made sense since I moved
the machine around quite a bit. But on this setup it's not going anywhere so there really was no need to have the wires easy to detach, and eliminating the RJ-45's also
eliminated some wiring confusion and intermittent connections.

My First full sheet cut wasn't perfect. I didn't have the sheet in quite the right position so my cut ended up going off the edge, and I had my starting Z too low and my raise
between moves too short so the needle dragged between cuts. There was also some bowing to the foam board which made the problem worse and just taping the board
down wasn't sufficient to eliminate that. I'm working on a vac table to solve the issue...but haven't had time to fully finalize it.

So my machine finally works and works rather well. I get nice clean cuts, I can control it to give full cuts or partial depth cuts, and I haven't had one thrown needle or
failure since finally dialing in the speed correctly!

Next let's go over some tips to help you avoid my mistakes if you decide to build your own.

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
 Image Notes Image Notes
1. Make it bigger! 1. The cuts between moves were due to two issues. First I goofed and set my
initial Z too low and the Z raise between moves too low as well. Also contributing
is that the foam board sheet wasn't totally flat and bowed up in some places
making the dragging needle cut even deeper.

Image Notes
1. Cuts came out nice and clean...and with Z control I was even able to do half
depth "score" cuts!

Step 7: Needle Cutter Resources

First some resources:

David's thread on Flight Test is very active and where I learned about the needle cutter. It's not only about the needle cutter at this point though. We've had quite a few
discussions about other uses for the machines as well and lately have been experimenting with drag knifes for cutting vinyl decals and lasers for engraving and cutting
wood and other materials. It's a long thread but a good read with tons of great information including all of my own successes and failures:

http://forum.flitetest.com/showthread.php?24251-Cu...

David initially shared his creation and it's evolution on a different forum, RC Powers, and the discussion there continues as well. This thread also includes his walkthrough
of building an MPCNC and several other user builds and foam cutting information:

http://www.rcpowers.com/community/threads/mostly-p...

David also has a thread on Open Builds discussing the cutter and featuring more user builds:

http://openbuilds.com/threads/brushl...eet-foam.58...

RC Groups also features a thread David started which includes another method of monitoring the needle speed using an inline tach instead of an optical tach:

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?256...

Oddly enough the thread David started on the official MPCNC forums about his needle cutter is the least used...but here it is for reference as well:

http://www.vicious1.com/forum/topic/mpcnc-based-fo...

Bottom line is there are tons of people building and enjoying these simple needle cutters so if you have any issues getting one up and running there are a number of
sources you can turn to for assistance! And if you're just planning a build there's piles of information and personal experiences you can draw on to base your plans off of.

So...with all that and my experiences in mind let's review how to build one without going through the months of trial and error I did :D

Step 8: Tips for Building your own

First you'll need to collect your parts:

Motor - just needs to be able to maintain 6k RPM under light load. Brushed motors can work, but brushless seems to give the best results and the EMAX CF2822
1200kv has proven to be a popular choice. It's affordable and easy to find and has a suitable RPM range. It also has a shaft that happens to fit most clothespin
springs quite well.
ESC - Your motor will determine your speed controller, but it doesn't need to be much. I've used a small 10a controller just fine as there's almost no load on the
motor. One thing I've been wanting to look into is using a controller with blheli firmware to try it's governor mode and see if I can just program the ESC to hold a
steady 6200 RPM instead of using the tach to dial it in with throttle. I would love to hear how this goes if anyone tries it before I get a chance.
Servo tester - or some other way of getting a signal to the speed controller. Servo testers are common and cheap, you can get them delivered from China for <$3
on ebay and sites like banggood.com But an arduino can work as well. On an MPCNC you can also just use the servo outputs on the RAMPS board - though it's
not as user friendly since you don't have a nice easy knob to adjust the speeds with. I have a version of Marlin I modified the LCD menus in to have an extra
menu just for the MPCNC including three menu options for sending set values to the servo outputs: https://github.com/jhitesma/Marlin-Folger/tree/mp... the
default settings on there are still probably too high, but it's an interesting starting point. Once you find the proper speed you could even add commands to your
gcode to start/stop the cutter automatically.
Power Source - I generally just use a 12v bench supply now, but a battery can work as well. The cutter is low draw enough that you don't really have to worry
about a battery going dead even during a 30 minute cut.

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
 Crankshaft - Don't bother with the old flywheel style setup, the crankshaft is simpler and works just fine. You may luck out and find a clothespin laying around that
has a proper sized spring. I ended up buying bags of pins from three different stores before finding some that I liked the size of the spring on best.
Needle - This is just a piece of 0.28mm piano wire commonly available from hobby and craft stores. It is a consumable item but comes in a bundle of 3 - 3'
sections for a few dollars which is enough for quite a few needles!
Needle guide - The air inflation needle seems to be the best bet here, but a MIG tip can work as well. The air inflation needle you'll have to trim the tip off and try
to remove any burrs but that's a quick and easy job with a small cutoff wheel.
Mount - The 3D printed mount is very popular. But mounts have been made from wood and aluminum as well as other materials. Basically anything that can hold
the motor and needle guide and mount to your CNC machine can work.
Tachometer - Optional but HIGHLY recommended. If I had bought one I wouldn't have spent over a month fighting with flying needles! There are in-line tachs that
read the speed from the signals sent by the ESC, or the optical tachs like I used. I like the optical one since it can be used on all kinds of things. Alternatively if
you can come up with some other way to make sure your motor is running at the correct RPM (like a governed ESC or a motor that turns at 6k at an easy to
provide voltage) go for it.

Then, put them together! It's fairly straight forward. Just pay attention to the direction of the coils on the needle and the crankshaft so that the crankshaft will self tighten
and the needle will bounce off the crank instead of getting caught on it if it rides up. There are tons of builds in the threads I posted on the last step including a few
detailed descriptions of how people have built theirs.

Things to watch for are the crank deforming and the needle bowing - both of those are symptoms of running too high of an RPM on the motor.

Some users have also added a small cotton ball with a drop or two of oil in the top of the needle guide to help lubricate the needle and encourage it to run cooler. I
haven't tried this yet but as long as you don't add too much oil I can't see any harm to trying it

The needle cutter works best with a feed rate of about 600-1000 mm/min, David suggests and RPM of 8k-10k to go with those speeds...but I've found 6k works best on
my cutter. You want to match your motor RPM and feed rate to get about 10-15 "pokes" per mm for a clean cut. But the cutter really gives best results at slower speeds.
A few people have tried running them much faster but it quickly becomes more difficult to maintain due to the forces on the needle and the issues I experienced with the
needle flying off the crank. The flywheel style setup is probably better if you want to try higher speeds...but is a lot more work to get setup and has to be balanced VERY
carefully at those speeds.

I hope you give it a go and this helps some people avoid the issues I ran into with mine. Now that it's working it's a wonderful tool to have for easily and accurately cutting
large sheets of foam. The only thing keeping me from using it more often are not having finished a vacuum table and being too lazy to convert PDF based designs into
gcode very often ;)

Step 9: Future Improvements

A vacuum table! I already started on this but it's been on hold mostly because I want to finish a vacuum shoe for my spindle first due to the mess it makes cutting pink
insulation foam. My initial attempt mostly came out, but I had a belt slip on my X axis throwing off the cuts a bit. I also didn't want to drill a hole in my table for the vacuum
hose so I modified an existing design on Thingiverse to allow me to make an offset nozzle for my vacuum to make it easier to hook up.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1776239 The basic plan for the vac table is to route the set of grooves into a sheet of pink insulation foam that's been glued down to a
piece of thin plywood to keep it flat. Then mill a pocket into the top that will allow a sheet of foam board with a grid of holes drilled/milled into it to sit over the grooves
leaving an opening on one side where the nozzle can attach. When I eventually finish the vac table I'll hopefully remember to make a new instructable for it.

LCD Customizations. I already did a few basic ones in my fork of Marlin: https://github.com/jhitesma/Marlin-Folger/tree/mpc... . Basically I added options that let me
reset the zero position on the machine, turn the needle on and off at a set speed and a few other common commands. Now that I also have a laser on my machine and
more experience using the machine I want to rethink the menus entirely and make settings I use commonly easier to access.

ESC Feedback. I really want to experiment with the governed modes in blheli to see if I can get the motor to run a constant speed without using a tach to dial it in. It's
possible to just create a customized firmware for an ESC that would do it but that's a bit beyond my coding skills. It looks like the governor stuff in blheli will do what I
want, I just need to find time to play with it.

Image Notes Image Notes

1. Oops, you can see the result of my X axis skipping. 1. Modification of an existing parametric design on Thingiverse. I added the ability
2. The vac table doubles as a waste board. to offset the nozzle from the center of the hose.

http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/
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http://www.instructables.com/id/CNC-Needle-Cutter/