As a Europe, you can buy this product on partial payment or invoice via Klarna.The purchase limit is about 2500Eur, so if the Klarna option does not appear, choose less accessories
ATTENTION! Delivery time is longer than usual due to many orders. Delivery time right now about 3-4 weeks
A CNC machine for professionals and hobbyists
We have been building aluminum machines since 2009 and were among the first on the market to produce CNC machines that you build yourself. Our previous model Raw 1.5 has been very popular and has been sold in hundreds of copies worldwide. We have redesigned the entire machine to make it even better, stronger and adaptable.
The machine is mostly ready-made, but you need to assemble all the major components, which takes a couple of hours. It is not difficult with the help of our instructions. You can visit the homepage made for this machine: http://creative.rawcnc.com (opens in a new window)
15mm Guide rails
Differentiating from other DIY kits, Raw Creative comes with guide rails. Guide rails give the machine the stability and strength that a real CNC machine requires. Other machines in the same price range have plastic wheels that are more suitable for 3D printers and toys. Guide rails are expensive but we have pushed the prices down as far as we can go as we think it is the only sensible solution for a good machine.
There are 12 guide bearing blocks on the rails that can be lubricated individually. We have chosen these blocks with “preloading” to prevent play. The blocks are quite tight, but release as soon as they get some weight. Preloading blocks must be run with strong electronics, like the one we chose for this machine.
Wasteboard
You can choose to have rails or a “hole slot” tables. We do not send the MDF boards themselves as they are too heavy to ship, but the rails are included so that you can make a table yourself with ordinary MDF. We include cutting files so you can cut out your table after the machine is finished. You also need clamps, which are available as a product on our website.
Rails make it easier to attach your cutting material. The table gives the machine a good look and practical consumption table with two layers, a wear surface and a base table. The consumption table between the rails is easier to replace than the holeslot. A holeslot table must be replaced completely as it wears, while a table with rails can replace the material between the rails where it wears.
The picture above shows a consumable table in black moisture-resistant MDF.
Stepper motors
We have chosen to use 3 Amps nema 23 motors instead of the weaker Nema 17 that many other machines have. The machine is made of aluminum and composite and has a low weight and professional rail control, so the strength of the motors is sufficient. The motors are so strong that a full-grown person could stand on the X-axis while the machine cuts.
The speed of Raw Creative is an incredible 40000mm/min, (see our video on Youtube) compare it to 4000-6000 as other hobby/semi-professional machines
The electronics are Arduino but we use real drivers instead of weak components that only handle 2A motors. You can easily change this if you want to try something else later.
The machine in the video is a small Raw Creative 2.5 Extended and a prototype..
Spindle/mill
We have adapted the machine for different mounts so that you can choose which cutting head you want. Raw Creative has such a strong Z-axis construction that you can also have a more powerful 2.2kw spindle. The machine can handle the weight without any problems.
No spindle or mill is included when ordering. You can have a regular edge cutter from, for example, Makita or Dewalt. A spindle with VFD is more complicated and needs to be wired. We have guides for this that you can take a look at after purchase.
The Z axis has both ball screw and rail guidance for maximum precision.
Calibration, Switches
Raw Creative comes with 6 limit switches. Limit switches can drive the machine back to its “home” position and act as safety switches, so that the machine cannot damage itself if it goes too far.
If you choose professional electronics, the switches can also calibrate the machine 90 degrees at start. With Arduino electronics, this is done manually.
The machine has limit switches in all directions so that it stops in the event of an error
Precision
Precision is a balance between user and machine. It’s about how good your drawings are, spindle, rpm and how fast you cut. At a normal speed of approx. 2-4000mm/min, the machine has the same accuracy as expensive industrial machines.
Repeatability: +/- 0.01 mm – 0.005 mm, Backlash: +/- 0.01 mm
The machine is built to mainly cut wood, plastic and similar materials. You can cut aluminum but it requires the right settings regardless of the machine you use.
What is the machine made of? The frame is made of aluminum profiles and reinforced with steel tubes over the X-axis. The linear rails on all axes also serve as reinforcement for the profiles. The plates are made of strong HPL, which is a composite material with approximately the same density as aluminum. We also have steel plates that can be purchased instead of HPL. The steel plates are not needed to cut with good results, but they are there for those of you who hesitate. Try the machine first before changing anything, you will see immediately how well the machine cuts.
What can I cut with a Raw 2.5 Creative
Soft wood, hard wood, chipboard, Mdf, plastic, aluminum, Sign manufacturing, 3D cutting and engraving, etc. Note that aluminum are difficult to learn no matter what machine you have. We ourselves have cut 1000s of meters of aluminum with the machines, but it takes a couple of tries to learn.
Electronics
We deliver the machine with only industrial electronics as a choice, Arduino unfortunately works worse for this type of machine. You can instead switch to Arduino with our guides if you really want the machine with Arduino (GRBL) operation. The change takes approximately 20 minutes and costs around 30EUR. You only need to replace the driver board, everything else is ready. This type of machine is more complicated than Arduino machines (GRBL) and therefore we recommend that you stay with this type of setup so that you can calibrate the machine, use tool changer, Plasma etc…
The electric box comes with strong drive modules and 24v power supply so the machine can run on 3A, Nema 23 motors. In normal cases, you usually have Nema 17 or 2A motors for this type of machine. The design of the electrical box means that you can easily change to other electronics and control software by changing the driver board. The machine is compatible with most control software such as Mach3, 4, UCCNC, Arduino, Linux or others. All you have to do is replace the circuit board, everything else is done.
Raw Creative fully compatible with all electronics that control Nema 23 motors.
How we think about CNC electronics and mechanics
We want our machines to be able to run on 220 volts and not 3 phase. Therefore, we build machines with 2.2kw spindle and nema23 or 24 motors. Machines that run on Nema 34 motors and a 2.2kw spindle often go up to 3-phase to cope with the load. Low-weight machines like the ones we build can do without problems with Nema 23 or 24 motors and Nema 32 motors are redundant
We prefer to build our machines with direct drive to rack and pinion, which means we have no transmission between motor and rack. The reason for this is to remove as much “Backlash” as possible and the way we do it has almost eliminated backlash completely, see our video on this. With the correct ratio on the gear wheel to the rack and settings on the electronics, this is no problem at all.
Many claim that direct drive should be avoided, which is completely wrong. Those who claim this usually have ball screw drive on their machines and ball screw drive usually have direct drive too, the ball screw is mounted directly against the motor. Very rarely do you see a ball screw drive with a belt in between and the reason is backlash. Those with a belt between often have a ratio of 1:1, which is also direct drive. Many also have a gear to increase the speed of the ball screw, which is a direct opposite, so that argument does not hold. This of course applies to low-weight machines and not steel machines. Our machines very rarely break down, we have hardly changed parts at all on the 100s of machines we have built since 2009.
There are of course solutions with ratios of 3:1, 5:1 or 50:1. If you want this on your machine, contact us. But you will have a machine with worse precision. Try our version first, the gearbox can be put there afterwards and if you are not satisfied, there are solutions for that.
Software
Cutting with a CNC machine requires 2-3 different software such as drawing, CAM (set up the files you drew) and Control software (to run the file). With Arduino, you can find free software or use Estlcam, which we can highly recommend. With Estlcam you can cut both 2D and 3D. Estlcam acts both as CAM program and control software. If you later switch to industrial electronics, you can still use Estlcam as a CAM software instead of the more expensive alternatives.
With other electronics, you can run more professional industrial software such as Mach3,4, Estlcam or Linux CNC. You need to read up a little on the subject yourself via our guides or, for example, YouTube. Once you know what to choose, the rest is easy. The hard part with a CNC machine is learning the drawing software, the rest is pretty easy. If you choose the more industrial electronics you will need an older computer with LPT port (printer) or a UC100 module that translates the signal from LPT to USB
This is included
Complete built machine that is slightly disassembled.
Electronics box pre-installed with your chosen option
Cords, energy chains, motors, LED and everything else needed to run the machine.
