Ganzweitz Blog

This is the personal blog of a technical student. My aim is to share my experiences with other so that we all can learn something. I will post articles about my projects or ideas to this blog. If there are any question please contact me. I am open to many new things an ideas or improvements. We only learn by failing.

Categories of articles

Computer Projects

Creative Projects

Social Projects

Other Projects

My Journey Building a DIY CNC Milling Machine

As a high school student fascinated by CNC milling technology, I embarked on an ambitious project to build my own DIY CNC milling machine from scratch. This allowed me to get hands-on experience with digital fabrication, while spending only a fraction of the cost of an off-the-shelf machine. It was a journey filled with research, planning, 3D printing, troubleshooting electronics, tuning software, and finally making my first cuts. I learned so many lessons about mechanical design, electronics, and machining along the way.

In this article, I’ll take you through my process of discovering the world of DIY CNC, selecting the perfect design plans, sourcing components, assembling the machine, configuring the controls, and what I would do differently next time. I’ll share how I overcame challenges like wiring issues, controller failures, and alignment problems. And I’ll reflect on the invaluable skills I gained. Whether you’re looking to build your own machine, or just fascinated by digital fabrication, I hope my story of perseverance, problem-solving, and ultimate success will inspire you. So let’s get started!

First I had to choose between many different DIY CNC options and select the ideal plans for my skill level and budget...

Why is a 3D Printer the Best Start to Engineering?

Additive manufacturing, and with it, 3D printing, is on the rise not only in prototyping but also in production. But it is still, in my opinion, the best way to start. I bought a used Dremel 3d40 many years ago for 500 euros. It was not cheap, but 3D printers were much less common at this time, and reliable ones were usually much more expensive. In any case, a printer is more than 500 euros worth if I think about all the things I learned with it and what I built with it. This printer started or re-started my fascination for building stuff. But why? The answer was I could download a model from the internet, and 5 or 10 hours later, I had a great-looking model in my hand. With nearly no experience, I was able to produce something great. But that was the start for me.

Systems around as - a book to understand all systems

What if we were able to describe everything we see in a way that we can predict some outcome? Maybe your prediction is unclear, but we can add instinctive ideas together to one model. That is the idea behind describing any system and categorizing them. Gravity is a system, but so is voting, and also the way humans interact with each other is a system. All these systems rely on the same architecture: inputs, outputs, factors, and a function which translates input to output. Some functions we know, like physics formulas, some are unclear or unknown. Some we know some relationships. I am currently working on a method of combining systems in a way to describe everything and learn how to design systems in a way that we create safe systems, which default to a safe value back. Similar to a ball in a bowl always rolls to the deepest point.

Contacts

LinkedIn: Steffen Ganzweitz

E-mail: steffen@ganzweitz.com

Instagram: coming soon