CNC machinery used to be a wonderful work in the workshop, and now it has become a major project in our field, so that it has become relatively inconspicuous​​. A decent 3D printer can be owned by a small country without mortgage, and the CNC router manufacturer's honor roll is long and prominent. But CNC still has a lot of surprises for us, and [Fabien Chouteau]'s project shows us this with amazing simplicity. He avoided routers or extruders and instead installed a ready-made CNC machine tool kit with a sandblaster.

If you are used to using a sandblasting machine to remove rust on car parts, you can say that this is not a similar product. Instead, it is used in the manner of an engraver, sandblasting patterns or text onto the surface. This is what he showed us in the video below the lounge area. There is a piece of metal and a piece of glass. The sandblaster itself has a 1.5-liter soda bottle, which is driven by the airline.

In terms of electronics, he replaced the controller that came with the kit with the STM32F469 discovery board and the Arduino CNC expansion board. He has a G code controller from the previous project, and he added a board with a touch screen to create a simple control interface.

This is by no means the only sandblasting machine we recommend. If you are interested in this direction, we can show you everything from simple to extreme.

Great, I have never thought of integrating a sandblasting machine into a CNC system before (I think it is more tool/plasma/laser/water jet cutting or 3D printing operations). Through some fine-tuning of the flow control to refine the point size according to the movement, I believe that the system has the potential to produce some higher-detailed works. I guess the system also has a minimum dot size limit based on the blasting medium. Although it is on the investment list and to-do list, I have not sandblasted before. Any ideas on size limitations, maybe there is also an attenuator/solenoid valve to control the airflow?

A great way to ruin your CNC machine. I also put the solenoid valve on the air line.

Yes, that or media feeder. Blasting while raising and lowering the Z axis will kill it.

Do you care to inspire me? I am by no means the owner of a home machine shop, and I have never used CNC machine tools. But collecting knowledge is fun. Then why would the machine be destroyed? Due to the high resistance of the blasting stream, will it destroy it? Or something else?

This is equivalent to a CNC controller that puts sand into the oil tank... The fine abrasive particles cannot mix well with the linear bearing and the feed screw.

Ah okay. I see. It is more about the wear of the machine itself due to flying particles. But generally speaking-if you properly isolate the machine from the abrasive, there shouldn't be any negative effects, right? So basically, it doesn’t matter if I use a water cutter, sandblasting machine, plasma cutter, laser cutter or tool head on the front end, as long as my machine itself can properly shield anything in front of it.

I want to know how long these mechanisms can last...

This seems to be ideal for side placement. You can have a larger format in a smaller space, and the waste will disappear.

Try using a painter's tape mask to sharpen the edges and reduce the starting spots. At the correct speed, it should cut through the tape in the center of the flow, and the edges of the flow will not have the speed to cut through and etch

I think it would be much better to just use masking tape, make a template with it and sandblast the transparent area. You know, as many glass manufacturers have already done. I did this to make a special-shaped diffuser for rgb LEDs using acrylic rods. It looks great and has a lot of details. You can make the vinyl cutter work directly on the glass, which will be much better.

It seems that using CNC to automate the process will not have much advantage at that time.

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