CNC Conversion Kits ?

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papermaker

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I just ordered a Little Machine Shop Mini Mill yesterday! I will be adding a CNC kit to it in the near future and I'm curious what other people have used for a kit. It looks like you can spend any amount of money on one and just want to get the best value for money!
 
I am in the process of fitting a Grizzly Mini (X2) with a LMS Large Table and CNC.

So far, I am quite pleased with the items I have from the following:

CNC Fusion - Ball Screw conversion kits and accessories
AutomationTechnologies - Steppers, G540, Power Supply, etc
Mesa 6i25 Anything I/O Interface [Parallel Port Replacement]

Seem to be very good quality and have been a pleasure to work with.

I am focusing on the Large Table first and have the Ball Screw kits and steppers all in place. I originally put this together with a [quite] old PC that had a Parallel port, and both axes were working fine with it but it was a little TOO old - HUGE jitter and other things - so I decided to go the other extreme and build a new system:

- ASUS F2A85-V PRO FM2 AMD A85X Motherboard
- AMD A10-5800K Trinity 3.8GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU (Radeon 7000 GPU)
- G.SKILL Sniper Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM
- WD Velociraptor 300G 10KRPM Drive
- Mesa 6i25 Anything I/O

I decided to give LinuxCNC a wholehearted chance, and am currently in the process of trying to get the X and Y working with the new system. Things are very different going from the Parallel Port to the Anything I/O so judgement is still out on the new system configuration - but I am sure the mechanics and driving electronics are assembled correctly and work fine so I can focus on the software.

Spring has sprung, so this project now may have to take a back seat to the outside world - but I will still give it attention whenever I can!
 
I used a Centroid CNC conversion with all of the hard parts from Elrod Machine (http://www.elrodmachine.com) on my Kent knee about 8 years ago. It was fairly easy to do and has worked out well. Elrod has some nice upgrades too like rigid tapping using a spindle indexer. Ice used it for production rubs without issue thus far. Now it's hobby only.
 
papermaker said:
I just ordered a Little Machine Shop Mini Mill yesterday! I will be adding a CNC kit to it in the near future and I'm curious what other people have used for a kit. It looks like you can spend any amount of money on one and just want to get the best value for money!
Click to expand...

Best value will probably be to purchase the CNC Conversion plans from Little Machine Shop themselves, then spend some time sourcing the necessary parts on the internet and eBay.
http://www.littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=2353&category=879658189
　
M
 
papermaker said:
I just ordered a Little Machine Shop Mini Mill yesterday! I will be adding a CNC kit to it in the near future and I'm curious what other people have used for a kit. It looks like you can spend any amount of money on one and just want to get the best value for money!
Click to expand...
Pagemaker,
I have the LMS mill that I have converted to CNC. I used a CNCFusion kit with ballscrews and nuts. For the CNC driver I am using the HobbyCNC 4axis setup with the largest steppers that they offer. If you are not interested in assembling the board (which isn't all that hard) then take a look at the Gecko G540 4axis drive board. I am using Mach 3 as my machine driver software and highly recommend it. I have been using a combination of AlibreCAM and Alibre CAD for 3d design and TurboCAD and DolphinCAM for 2D.
FYI, I know that a lot of people really swear by the G540 board. I am actually building up a setup to drive my 7x14 lathe at the moment so I can compare them. I have had no issues with the HobbyCNC board in either my router or my mill.
Please let me know if there is anything that I can help you with. I am no expert and learning myself but am willing to provide any insight that I can.
Regards,
Bob
 
The only conversion I've done was a little bitty Sherline 5000 mill. I found a seller on ebay and emailed hundreds of questions over several months before committing. This guy was responsive, helpful and courteous all the while not knowing if he had a customer or not. Here's a link to the conversion with all the info included. I haven't had time to post the build here yet. And I'm still learning the ins and outs of Mach 3, but I feel I've got a good little machine now, "little" being the operative word.

Build: http://www.weaponsguild.com/forum/index.php?topic=37770.0

Store:http://stores.ebay.com/HUBBARD-CNC-INC

Email:brenthub@comcast.net

Hope this helps.
 
Bhouin said:
Pagemaker,
I have the LMS mill that I have converted to CNC. I used a CNCFusion kit with ballscrews and nuts. For the CNC driver I am using the HobbyCNC 4axis setup with the largest steppers that they offer. If you are not interested in assembling the board (which isn't all that hard) then take a look at the Gecko G540 4axis drive board. I am using Mach 3 as my machine driver software and highly recommend it. I have been using a combination of AlibreCAM and Alibre CAD for 3d design and TurboCAD and DolphinCAM for 2D.
FYI, I know that a lot of people really swear by the G540 board. I am actually building up a setup to drive my 7x14 lathe at the moment so I can compare them. I have had no issues with the HobbyCNC board in either my router or my mill.
Please let me know if there is anything that I can help you with. I am no expert and learning myself but am willing to provide any insight that I can.
Regards,
Bob
Click to expand...
Thanks Bob ! I 'm sure there will be plenty of questions once I get started. The mill arrive to the freight terminal and can be picked up tomorrow and electronics should be here tomorrow as well. I still need to order the ball screw conversion which I plan on using CNCFusion's kit.
I still need to build a bench fo the machine so there will be plenty to do prior to digging into the machine conversion. I cant wait to get started.
 
i got my mill on Monday and the electronics arrived yesterday. I guess I should go ahead and order the ballscrew conversion now. As far as assembling the electronics it looks pretty straight forward. I got my kit from Probotix and they have a real good manual on their website that shows the wiring diagram very cleary.
They recommend that a heat sink be added to the drivers for chip protection. but it doesn't show how it is attached. Anyone have any thoughts. I plan on housing all of the electronics inside a metal tool box and having a computer fan attached to the box to circulate air around the components.

I'm sure that I'll have more questions along the way !
 
papermaker said:
i got my mill on Monday and the electronics arrived yesterday. I guess I should go ahead and order the ballscrew conversion now. As far as assembling the electronics it looks pretty straight forward. I got my kit from Probotix and they have a real good manual on their website that shows the wiring diagram very cleary.
They recommend that a heat sink be added to the drivers for chip protection. but it doesn't show how it is attached. Anyone have any thoughts. I plan on housing all of the electronics inside a metal tool box and having a computer fan attached to the box to circulate air around the components.

I'm sure that I'll have more questions along the way !
Click to expand...

Advice on attaching the heatsinks to the drivers would be easier to give if you could provide a pic of the drivers.
Also, cooling will be more efficient if rather than just circulating air inside the cabinet, you provide ventilation holes at the bottom to allow cool air to enter, and mount your fan at the top to draw the cool air up and over the drivers and power supply, then out of the cabinet. ....................M
 
I looked the motor drivers over and figured out the issue of attaching the heat sink. Things were moving along pretty good until I figured out that I don't have a parallel port on my laptop. I had to send the breakout board back to exchange it for one with a USB port. I'm planning on mounting the fan on one end of the box and cutting a hole of equal size in the other end covered with a vinyl coated steel mesh to keep the critters out.
The ballscrews from CNCFusion have been ordered and waiting for delivery.
 
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