Engineer and Educator. Open-source contributor. Building cool stuff 🏴
Wales, United Kingdom
Joined August 2023
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Two years ago I open sourced my DIY CNC machine, which cost me £2,655.80 and 9 months of my spare time. The Fusion 360 project, the drawings, the bill of materials, the STLs, the wiring diagrams and the Mach3 profile, all for free.
People ask why I didn't sell the plans... the answer is simple. Selling the plans would have defeated the whole point of the project, shutting out the very people I built it for.
My goal was to build a capable, sturdy machine for as little money as possible. Industrial-grade larger footprint machines are well out of reach for most hobbyists and small woodworking businesses. With a few minor trade-offs, you can build my machine for a fraction of the price, with nothing more than basic workshop tools.
10,000+ downloads later, people all over the world send me photos of the machine I designed, now fully built and operational in their own workshops.
That's what I love about open source. It's for people. Nobody needs permission or a subscription to build their own tools. You can repair them, upgrade them, and write your own software, because you know them inside and out.
This fills me with joy like nothing else.
ALT This is the alt text for the photo of you with the CNC, the one Content wrote for the LinkedIn post: Gareth (thehardwareguy) stands in his wooden workshop next to the DIY CNC machine he designed and built, then open sourced. It has an aluminium gantry on linear rails, a water-cooled spindle in the middle and an open electrical cabinet full of wiring behind it. A large MDF spoilboard covers the bed, which sits on a sturdy timber frame.
The full gantry build, including drilling and tapping the bracket holes and what I call the most difficult hole of the project: youtube.com/watch?v=dQoVTa4h…
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CAD is the best skill I ever learned. That's why I teach it for free. Every part of my CNC was modelled in Fusion 360 before I reached for any workshop tools.
Frame plates, rails, ball screws, bearings, motors, the spindle and every bolt, simulated with joints so I could move each axis on screen and check nothing collided.
Sadly, you cannot always rely on datasheets for accurate dimensions. I've lost count of the times one has been wrong. So I measure the real part with callipers and update the model before I trust it. This makes building things easy.
I've never regretted modelling something first. Finding an error on screen costs an hour at most. Finding it during or after assembly costs you time and money.
Do you model everything first, or are you a measure-and-cut person?
Absolutely blown away by the support! I love this community. Let's turn this into a build thread. Drop a photo of your CNC below, home-built or not, and tell me what you cut with it!
Two years ago I open sourced my DIY CNC machine, which cost me £2,655.80 and 9 months of my spare time. The Fusion 360 project, the drawings, the bill of materials, the STLs, the wiring diagrams and the Mach3 profile, all for free.
People ask why I didn't sell the plans... the answer is simple. Selling the plans would have defeated the whole point of the project, shutting out the very people I built it for.
My goal was to build a capable, sturdy machine for as little money as possible. Industrial-grade larger footprint machines are well out of reach for most hobbyists and small woodworking businesses. With a few minor trade-offs, you can build my machine for a fraction of the price, with nothing more than basic workshop tools.
10,000+ downloads later, people all over the world send me photos of the machine I designed, now fully built and operational in their own workshops.
That's what I love about open source. It's for people. Nobody needs permission or a subscription to build their own tools. You can repair them, upgrade them, and write your own software, because you know them inside and out.
This fills me with joy like nothing else.
ALT This is the alt text for the photo of you with the CNC, the one Content wrote for the LinkedIn post: Gareth (thehardwareguy) stands in his wooden workshop next to the DIY CNC machine he designed and built, then open sourced. It has an aluminium gantry on linear rails, a water-cooled spindle in the middle and an open electrical cabinet full of wiring behind it. A large MDF spoilboard covers the bed, which sits on a sturdy timber frame.
The new brushless power unit design, the belt drive experiments and where I'm taking Raptor II next: youtube.com/watch?v=ItK_jsQB…
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Part 1 of FreeCAD for Beginners, from sketching and constraints to exporting an STL for 3D printing: youtube.com/watch?v=uh5aN_Di…
I asked them for this years ago, same with @autodesk
These companies could have led the way. They are only jumping ship now out of fear because of open source. Either way it's a win, but I'll still chose open source.
🐧🎨 Affinity has announced that they're developing a Linux version of its design suite, exciting the Linux creative community. This move will expand Affinity's platform reach, offering a free cross-platform Adobe alternative.
alternativeto.net/news/2026/…
ALT Linux logo beside the Affinity logo on contrasting backgrounds, symbolizing Affinity's upcoming Linux version announcement.
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Gareth retweeted
We're giving away a Hogwarts Legacy custom wrapped NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 to celebrate its official release with DLSS 5 🪄
To enter:
🟢 Share this post
🟢 Comment #RTXON
Terms and Conditions: nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/con…
Gareth retweeted
SpaceX will attempt to catch both the Super Heavy booster and Starship on the upcoming flight.
If both are successful, it will mark the first time that all parts of an orbital rocket return to Earth intact.
This is the critical breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary.
More than a dozen flight tests and years of development, with countless hours worked by SpaceX engineers and technicians, all come down to this: the first orbital Starship launch carrying advanced Starlink satellites bound for space.
Watch “Go For Orbit” and experience the moments behind flying the most ambitious Starship mission yet
My first ever 3D relief carving, on a budget 3018 CNC I'd upgraded.
Pocket clearing, then a parallel toolpath, both from Fusion 360.
I ran it at standard settings, and it came out better than I expected.
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How I set up the swan carving in Fusion 360, and the difference between adaptive and pocket clearing: youtube.com/watch?v=vMAZ9txg…
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I started real fires inside the xTool S1 and the Creality Falcon 2 Pro to test their safety systems.
Both detected the fire, stopped the job and sounded an alarm. The S1 also alerted me in its software.
Both also pause straight away when the lid opens.
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The full comparison covers setup, build quality, software, safety, maintenance and speed: youtube.com/watch?v=f7tipT7C…
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Gareth retweeted
Google says that if schools want to use Google Search, they need to use its AI too.
Here's a better solution: Don't use Google.
Brave Search is a privacy-first search engine that doesn't force you to use AI.
Google is now threatening America's schools, saying they will turn off their core search functions if schools choose to entirely block AI.
nytimes.com/2026/11/03/us/go…
With FDM, I print parts so the layers sit perpendicular to the forces on them.
For a gear, that means printing it flat. The load on each tooth is spread across several layers instead of one, so they're much stronger.
I learned this printing the gears for Raptor II.
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The full video covers spur, helical and herringbone gears, print orientation and which material I'd use: youtube.com/watch?v=JMgXu1rF…
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