My Cnc Conversion

As of right now, I have $2650 into the cnc conversion. I still need a scale for the Z and new handles, nother $500, I also still need to add some limit switches and a cabinet, and other electrical buttons and switches and a monitor stand of sorts. So I could in reality spend another 800 bucks to have it totally done. Plus the 950 I paid for the mill, not bad for cnc. I do realize you can buy used cnc machines for about that same cost, 3-10k. But the experience of building, nothing like it.
 
Your are correct it does add up and can be quite expensive to convert to CNC but as you said, " the experience of building, nothing like it".
I really enjoyed converting my lathe to CNC and now I'm trying to find time to finishing my mill. It was a thrill to see the machine make your first part on it's own. Bob
 
Here's one more, so I did a profile on the outside, not much to say it's not round, it's a few thou off because of the y screw. Then I ran a pocket with dimensions of 1.125 square. It mic'd out to 1.125x1.1233 again the y screw showing its shortcomings. Lame that I have to rebuild a brand new screw, but that will be a project for the next couple weeks. I'm not sure of any other reason it could be other than the screw has backlash, it has new AC bearings and the mounting is all solid.
20151021_021043.jpg
 
A thrill? Haha I couldn't stop grinning.
However, my ground issue caused both servos to run off, LUCKILY the drives faulted before it hit the travel limits, I wouldn't have been able to stop it in time. They ran right when I hit the switch to enable the drives, Mach was idle. Wow.
 
Congrats on you conversion! It's been cool keeping up with it, thanks for posting.
 
chevydyl said:
It mic'd out to 1.125x1.1233 again the y screw showing its shortcomings.
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Looking good! Assuming you have single nut screws, I would say that the dimensions came out pretty good for the first run. If you can put in double nuts, the backlash can be adjusted to zero by preloading the nuts.
 
chevydyl said:
As promised, I did a little lettering of a friend's business name, the guy helped out alot. I had some grounding issues causing interference but it's worked out now.View attachment 112811
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I've been watching your conversion since the beginning. It turned out nice! Can you share some info on your engraving set up? Did you use a small diameter end mill or an engraving bit? What speeds and feeds did you use? Depth of cut? I'm working towards making a control panel cover for my mill with text for each of the function knobs and buttons.

Thanks,

Tom S
 
Thanks for the kind replies.
The engraving was done with an accupro .250 60deg carbide blank, 4200rpm, 6.67ipm doc .010-.015 not enough spindle speed or too deep of cut, it was pretty burry, rubbed on some scotch Brite and took em down. Not sure if this bit was actually made for this or not but it's what a friend had for me to use to test some text.
Jim, the x axis screw has no backlash, setup an indicator touch the screw the table moves, y axis.....005 dial movement before the saddle flicks the needle. I feel like there is room for improvement, the screws are from different manufactures, one is from an Anilam controller (y) the other from an acu-rite (x) control. Both take out brand new, but the seller was calling them (old type) maybe anilam used to have their screws loose so they'd last longer idk. Do you have any suggestions on anything else it could be besides the bearings on the screw?
 
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