- Joined
- May 27, 2016
- Messages
- 3,477
More than once I have found myself in the situation of needing the machine to make bits for itself. That's normal! We all make nice add-ons and mods. Things get more awkward when the part is essential to the machine running at all, like needing one lathe to make a new drive countershaft for another, but so far, we are talking of used machines.
Things are different when when one is attracted by the YouTube videos of folk doing CNC upgrade projects, specifically about converting the small mill into a CNC machine. The machine is brand new, and has not yet cut a single chip. Some of the parts necessary to make a CNC conversion will need to be made on the very same mill which is to be to be converted. This is the machinist's equivalent of ending up somewhat snookered!
There seems no reasonable way other than to disassemble the machine, photograph everything, especially those bits that need to change, fully (and carefully) measure everything, and document it all. Then put the machine together again, and use it to make the various brackets, new ballscrew bearing mounts, etc. This stuff had better be exactly right first time, "one throw straight", so to speak! Get the slightest thing a bit wrong, or needing a bit of adjusting, and the whole thing has to come apart again. It goes without saying that the transformation is better done in such a way as to be "reversible".
I think I may have seek some backup from somebody - a pal maybe who has a mill.
Things are different when when one is attracted by the YouTube videos of folk doing CNC upgrade projects, specifically about converting the small mill into a CNC machine. The machine is brand new, and has not yet cut a single chip. Some of the parts necessary to make a CNC conversion will need to be made on the very same mill which is to be to be converted. This is the machinist's equivalent of ending up somewhat snookered!
There seems no reasonable way other than to disassemble the machine, photograph everything, especially those bits that need to change, fully (and carefully) measure everything, and document it all. Then put the machine together again, and use it to make the various brackets, new ballscrew bearing mounts, etc. This stuff had better be exactly right first time, "one throw straight", so to speak! Get the slightest thing a bit wrong, or needing a bit of adjusting, and the whole thing has to come apart again. It goes without saying that the transformation is better done in such a way as to be "reversible".
I think I may have seek some backup from somebody - a pal maybe who has a mill.