The Shop > Tools
Going to convert my X2 and Mini Lathe
Brass_Machine:
I will be converting my existing mill and lathe to CNC before I buy a bigger mill and lathe. I figure I will need them anyway. Does anyone have any experience converting their mill/lathe?
I am thinking about several different options on doing this.
First, there are a couple of plans I have been looking at:
I may go with fignoggle's plans. I used his DRO plans for my mill and was very pleased. Or I could go with Sterling Steele plan sets. I have his belt drive kit and it works well.
To save money, I may go that route and build the motor mounts myself. But what do I want to use for motors? for the mill and the lathe? What do I use for drivers? Buy them or use one of the plans on-line and build em myself.
Opinions??
OR,
I could buy a kit and do it that way. LMS has some CNC conversion kits. What to do?
Eric
Bernd:
I have a question Eric. Are you going to use the original lead screws or go with ball screws. I would believe that the lead screws these machines come with won't work with CNC, to sloppy.
Just wondering. :-\
Bernd
Brass_Machine:
Eventually ballscrews. Fignoggle talks about using modified brass nuts to reduce backlash.
Quote the fignoggle site:
Stock leadscrews with brass nuts modified to reduce backlash. Results are after 5 minutes of adjusting mill. Average accuracy is 0.001
It may work for me for a little while anyway.
Eric
Brass_Machine:
Well I ordered the CNC plans yesterday and received them today via email.
The plans are pretty good. The thing that sold me over them than rather Steele's plans or HossMachines free plans was the fact that the installation was more compact. The X and Y doesn't hang out as much as other conversions I have seen. After I finish these last kickstands I am going to start it.
Eric
Alphawolf45:
I dont know what an X2 is..Little one huh?..Steppers then..I would buy Geckos for stepper drivers , the price is cheap enough and the warrenty and the technical support is exemplary.....I know that because I made the monumental mistake to have bought Rutex drives and had lot of trouble sorting them out so I learned the value of technical support.....
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I upgraded an old cnc mill is what I did, took a long time and cost a pile of money..
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I have a dead cnc lathe- weighs 5600 pound- that I will eventually change the servo drives etc... Will cost me at least a couple thousand dollars to get it going...But I dont have much need for a cnc lathe........
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