Just starting

[Ian HartParticipant @ianhart94481]

Hello all

 

I have just posted some photos of my machines, lathe and mill, that I am using for and modifying for CNC.

 

I shall be interested to see how many people are at the early stages as I am.

 

Ian Hart

[Ian HartParticipant @ianhart94481]

[Ian Lee 4Participant @ianlee4]

Hio

I’m  just considering converting my milling machine to CNC but I’m finding it difficult to know where to start, I have a Viceroy Vertical miller its about 25 years old but had little use.

 

I’m trying to find suitable ball screws for the X & Y axis themn I need to find powerfull enough stepper motors

 

Ian

[Jim McPParticipant @jimmcp]

I’m converting a Warco VMC mill -4 axes mostly running now.

Ballscrew on Z. Original leadscrews with nuts fairly tight give about 0.1mm backlash, which is livable with. I’ve bought suitable ballscrews, but not yet fitted.

Z drive (‘low’ cost rolled thread screw) shows no measurable backlash on 1/10 thou DTI.

6N-m stepper motors via 2:1 reduction tooth belt drive and *8 microstep on X & Y,  A bit smaller on Z and rotary table (vertex 6″).  

Suppliers (UK)  I’ve found OK-

Rapid Electronics -bit like RS but usually cheaper

Active Robots – stepper motors

Arc-Euro- motors ballscrews drive electronics bearings-last year they were selling 3A steper drivers for <£30.

Marchant Dice – ballscrews -often good deals on ebay.

Simply Bearings- what they say.

ArmyRadio.co.uk – ex-army 28V 10A power supply.

CNCZone.com – infinite mine of knowledge

http://www.linuxcnc.org/    Home of EMC2  CNC control software.  Free, good, free, easy to use, free, lots of help available on t’internet, and of course, free.

Be warned- CNC is a fascinating hobby in it’s own right- I’m in danger of never making anything else than more CNC machines.  I’ve got the ML7 in my sights.

Good luck with your conversion 

Jim 

 

[StephParticipant @steph]

Hi all, I too am in the process of converting a Warco Turret Mill, with variable belt drive to 4 axis CNC, I managed to purchase an ex-education machine which had been dismantled for about 15 years after it had been supplied New, it never assembled or used, so an excelent machine to convert to CNC. With no wear on anything except paint chipped from the base due to where it was being mothballed…

 

I am looking for advise from anyone who has either converted one of these large knee mills to CNC or anything similar as to what to watch out for, and what needs either replacing or carefull attention, during assembly or re-assembly.

 

eg. leadscrews, quill, variable speed pulley system. variable frequency Drive 1ph to 3 ph. etc.

 

Is it better to power the Quill or the Knee for the Z axis movement?

 

If powering the Quill is this best via the existing handle attachment or via the Quill direct?

 

I have DC servo’s with Quad encoders, via DC drivers.

 

Software is going to be Mach3 Mill runing on MS XP.

 

 I would appreciate any help or advise.

 

Regards

Steph

 

 

[john mcpheeParticipant @johnmcphee10091]

Hiya all

i’ve just signed up to the sight and am just looking about.

My main interest is CNC machines, used to work in the industry many years ago on the control systems, now as a hobby am going to have a go doing a few machine retrofits for fun, not sure what i’m going to use the machines for just like machines.

Have just converted a Warco Mini Mill to three axis just to try out mach 3, it seems to work ok but i’m running it off a laptop and missing a few pulses to the steppers, next stage is get a desktop as recomended and once the positioning is ok will move onto something bigger, I have a Warco Major mill and a Warco VM250 lathe i am thinking about converting.

If anyone has any convertions in hand would be interested to hear about their experiences.

Well off to browse the sight

cheers

John

 

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I am adding CNC to a Super-7, generally following Tony Jeffree’s approach.  However it isn’t so easy to convert the S7 cross-slide (at least the pxf version) as the bracket bearing design is very different, and the feed screw expensive to replace if I mess up!  So I have made a new feed screw and nut, as well as bracketry, so I can fully restore the machine if necessary.  Also on the leadscrew, I’ve simplified the addition of roller thrust races.  Just adding the mounting plate for the leadscrew stepper motor, when that’s done I’ll post some photos to the site.  Actually installing the PC and wiring up is going to take a major workshop reorganisation!

 

John.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

I normally have a few conversions going off at any given time, just fetched a Denford mill in on Friday night for a transplant.

I also run the support side for Sieg on the KX series mills as featured in MEW plus being on the development team for MACH so if I can help, drop me an email or I will be at the Midlands show on the ARC stand for the duration of the show

 

John Stevenson

 

john [at] stevenson-engineers.co.uk

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Can I ask a question?  The most convenient place for the PC in my workshop is the opposite side from the lathe, and running a ribbon cable across to the motor drivers on the side of the lathe will not be very neat.  It would be easier to run a USB cable, but as I’m not aware of any USB “breakout boards” I would need a USB – Centronics adapter.  Has anyone any experience of using one of these with Mach3 please?  Are they fully compatible of do they only do what’s needed for a printer?

 

Thanks,

 

John.

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

There is a USB option for Mach it’s called the Smooth stepper.

The info on this board is at http://www.warp9td.com

 

It basically acts as a real time option for Mach,.

Mach does the instruction bit and the smooth stepper does the timing.

 

The cable adaptor option will not work with Mach.

 

HTH.

 

John S.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

John, many thanks for this information.

 

John Haine.

 

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Well, just to say that at last after many months of intermittent work, this evening my Super 7 and my computer made their first unaided successful cuts!  Only a 16 mm dia spigot 5 mm long on a piece of 20 mm bar, but it was something!  Once I’d done the mechanical bits I had to exhume my electronics skills to make the driver (using the OptoPort breakout board and Arc drivers), and every time I thought I was nearly there I discovered another set of tasks to do!  Anyway it seems to be working now so all I need to do is bend up some belt covers and work out how to reorganise my workshop!

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

A further update –

 

Have now got all reasonably neatly installed, and have been through a couple of issues with Mach3.  One, working with ShuttleExpress, was solved by upgrading to the latest Mach3 and re-installing.  I then added an opto sensor to the mandrel to sense for screwcutting, this gave a couple of problems with not displaying the correct spindle speed, but solved by downloading a “patched” version of the software.  Now all set to try screwcutting, once I have received the licence key!

 

I must say that the folks on the Mach support forum are extremely helpful and very willing to help this raw beginner.

 

John.

[radial junkieParticipant @radialjunkie]

Hi iam new to this site and new to cnc but i never do things by halfs hehehhe. bought a denford orac last yr, the plan was to update with a modern controller BUT ended up just keeping the lathe body and the top and bottom of the console cutting the bottom in half welding it onto the top to extend the tray.Then a fibergalss case was moulded with door to cover the spindle head and house the transformer, drivers,relay boards, etc tray is now 1220mm in lengththe splash back was also extended in hight and length the motor was moved from where it originally sat ontop of the tray to underneath the tray control panal was built to fit the moulded appiture in the case sliding door was also moulded and a small tail stock end case part was also moulded in grp then a controller was built usung an intel atom board and mesa 520i to keep the controller case compact i will try and post some pics of the whole project most ofthe work is done just needs fitting together.

also an arm was added from the back over the case to take a 22" in touch screen monitor running emc2 with the green screen addons . now thinking about warco vmc as my mill of conversion, has anyone got any thoughts on the warco vmc?

I would go for a bridgeport but my workshop is wooden floor and although its 7"x3" joists with 20mm sterling board over the top still think the bridgeport would be on the heavy side.

[radial junkieParticipant @radialjunkie]

Hi again

just a quick message to let you know ive uploaded some pictures of the ongoing project

ruffed out the skirt that will go between the suds tray and the stand just got to cut out now for the hand wheel panel oh i also did one of the today too

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

You are quite correct, a Bridgeport at 1.25 Tons is no lightweight!

[radial junkieParticipant @radialjunkie]

The workshop iam setting up is for building model radial aero engines iam sick of seeing "so called scale" that are miles off what i call scale and some of the scale aero composite kits classed as the best on the market ive seen less ripples in the wing mouldings standing on the beach in a force 7.

first model will be the A1 skyraider

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