Hello,
I am looking into purchasing a 5400 series mill but somewhat on the fence between manual or CNC. I think manual is great for some types of one off parts and potentially more fun in some ways, but I also like the idea of being able to do complex or more decorative parts (lettering, geometric designs, etc.) which would be a bit of a pain to do manually. Likely mainly small aluminum parts, and sometimes wood or plastic. I have some limited mill/lathe experience on full size machines.
One thing I am wondering is just what the experience is like using the manual wheels on a CNC ready mill with stepper motors (powered off), for example the Sherline high torque ones. It seems nice to have the option to use it manually, but are the magnetic "detents" of the motor too strong or too limiting in available angular positions to use the mill well manually and get tactile feedback from the machine?
I am planning something along the following lines:
- Sherline 5410 (metric) with 15" column, C5 bearings (is 18" table worth it? or not stiff enough?)
- Sherline high torque stepper motors x3
- Stepperonline DM542T stepper driver x3
- LinuxCNC controller setup, e.g. mini PC / raspberry pi + Mesa card
- Eventually add linear DRO scales, e.g. iGaging magnetic scales, or possibly glass scales on some axis if there exist some that can fit. Ideally these linear DRO scales could be swapped between use as a conventional DRO (e.g. with TouchDRO or iGaging readouts) or used for closed loop control with LinuxCNC
- Probably wire up a MPG pendant as well for better manual control in CNC mode.
Open to general thoughts on the above as well. Thank you!
I am looking into purchasing a 5400 series mill but somewhat on the fence between manual or CNC. I think manual is great for some types of one off parts and potentially more fun in some ways, but I also like the idea of being able to do complex or more decorative parts (lettering, geometric designs, etc.) which would be a bit of a pain to do manually. Likely mainly small aluminum parts, and sometimes wood or plastic. I have some limited mill/lathe experience on full size machines.
One thing I am wondering is just what the experience is like using the manual wheels on a CNC ready mill with stepper motors (powered off), for example the Sherline high torque ones. It seems nice to have the option to use it manually, but are the magnetic "detents" of the motor too strong or too limiting in available angular positions to use the mill well manually and get tactile feedback from the machine?
I am planning something along the following lines:
- Sherline 5410 (metric) with 15" column, C5 bearings (is 18" table worth it? or not stiff enough?)
- Sherline high torque stepper motors x3
- Stepperonline DM542T stepper driver x3
- LinuxCNC controller setup, e.g. mini PC / raspberry pi + Mesa card
- Eventually add linear DRO scales, e.g. iGaging magnetic scales, or possibly glass scales on some axis if there exist some that can fit. Ideally these linear DRO scales could be swapped between use as a conventional DRO (e.g. with TouchDRO or iGaging readouts) or used for closed loop control with LinuxCNC
- Probably wire up a MPG pendant as well for better manual control in CNC mode.
Open to general thoughts on the above as well. Thank you!
