Where to start? Thinking of converting my mills and lathes to CNC.

I was planing to return those steel gears for the X2 to LMS since they aren't going to be used with the belt drive conversion. But now that I think about it I may just hold onto them for a while and see if I can thin up the larger end of the double gear on the spindle shaft and use it as a window plate for the Mach Tach pickup. I'll have to look it over when I get home from school and see if it's going to be feasible to do this or not. If it works it will be a clean setup since I should be able to hide the sensor wire by running it through a hole between the head and the tach enclosure. Then the only tach wire exposed would be the small power wire.
 
Anyone seen this USB CNC mk2/4 connector before? It's supposed to be able to run via regular USB on a 32 or 64bit Windows XP, Vista or 7 OS, and not need Mach 3 to operate.
http://www.planet-cnc.com/index.php?page=shop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqZBo_aufes

I'm going to try to find out more about it, but most of the info I've found elsewhere on the web has been in various European languages.

EDIT: The mk2/4 is listed for 99 Euros which is equal to $131.79 US dollars (about $2 more than just the UC100 cable)
 
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Just got an email that the CNC Fusion kit shipped out today. It should be here next Wednesday according to the tracking info.


Is it too early to use this icon? :ups:
 
Not much to update yet since the CNC Fusion kit isn't supposed to be here till This coming Wednesday. But I did receive a couple of the other small parts I had also ordered for this project. The 5 aluminum shaft couplers (only need 3 though), 4 pr. of the 4 pin connectors, DB25 BOB, 30' of shielded 4 conductor hook up wire and the hand held Mach 3 pendant controller thingy.
 
GoMopar440 said:
Anyone seen this USB CNC mk2/4 connector before? It's supposed to be able to run via regular USB on a 32 or 64bit Windows XP, Vista or 7 OS, and not need Mach 3 to operate.
http://www.planet-cnc.com/index.php?page=shop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqZBo_aufes

I'm going to try to find out more about it, but most of the info I've found elsewhere on the web has been in various European languages.

EDIT: The mk2/4 is listed for 99 Euros which is equal to $131.79 US dollars (about $2 more than just the UC100 cable)
Click to expand...


The guys over at Phlatboyz are US distributors.

It comes as a bundle with the software. From what I have seen, the software looks pretty nice. I don't know that it supports 4th axis or lathes.
 
I doubt I'll try it on this mill conversion since I didn't find out about it till after I had already ordered everything under the assumption that I'd be using Mach 3. Maybe I'll give it a shot with the mini lathe when I get ready to swap that one over to CNC. Maybe not if I have to relearn another set of software. I guess it really depends on how comfortable I can get with Mach 3 and SheetCAM and whether the other card and software works with lathes or not..

I was messing around with those old P3 PCs today and got one of them up and running. The IT guys forgot to wipe a HDD and it had Windows XP on it already. While I was getting it running, I hopped on the internet and looked up the PC hardware specs for Mach 3. Unfortunately, even with the updated OS, the hardware in the P3 machines won't cut the mustard. The fastest CPU in the bunch is 800 MHz and Mach 3 requires a minimum of 1 GHz.

I was able to pick up couple more free PCs from the school last Friday that were Pentium 4 machines however. Two of the P4 PCs I picked up that are fairly complete already have a 1.6 GHz processor. Unfortunately none of any of the PCs have a DVD reader, so I'm out of luck getting Windows to load until I can get one installed. My home PC only has a DVD burner and all I have are DVD blanks to put the Windows XP Pro ISO files onto.

Just out of curiosity I looked into which P4 PC had the best specs (FWIW: it was a Dell Optiplex GX280 mini desktop) and then looked at what kind of headroom it had for upgradability. After looking around a couple of PC hardware forums I had my answers. When I headed over to Pricewatch.com to check out prices for the various items, I was a bit shocked to say the least. The 3.4 GHz P4 CPU with Hyper Threading was $8. The 1 GB, 533 MHz DDR2 memory modules were $38 for four (4 GB total). A basic DVD/CD ROM reader drive was $19.95. and an ATI Radeon HD4550, 512 Mb low profile video card was $22.98. Both vendors that I found these parts at had free shipping on all the parts I was looking at. :whiteflag: I gave in and ordered all of it for just a hair under $89.

I also have a spare 250 GB IDE Hdd I bought a long time ago that never got used, so it's still brand new. The computer that it was supposed to go into got replaced with one that used SATA Hdd connections instead of the older IDE/E-IDE connections. That 250 GB HDD will fit rather nicely in the GX280 (especially since I can't use it anywhere else anyway).
 
just to add a little about controllers i have been fighting a uc100 in threading mode (spindle sync mode in config ports and pins ) for mach3turn and it dont work.
i have been in contact with the manufacture in hungry for a few days to sore it out but untill fixed dont buy it for a lathe if you plan on threading
it works fine on the mill
that other usb controller and software looks interesting i'll have to read up on it
steve
 
Got the CNC Fusion kit was waiting for me on the porch when I got home from school today. Everything looks pretty good with the kit so this weekend I'll be starting the mechanical portion of the conversion process. The aluminum spiral cut connectors will have to be drilled out on one end to fit the ball screw shafts, but I was expecting that so no surprises there.

Before I tackle the Z axis part of the job I'll be making a slot wheel out of one of the spindle gears inside the head that are no longer being used due to the belt drive conversion. The slot sensor is going to a Mach Tach kit I built that will be mounted on the right side of the head towards the front for easy viewing. I still need to cut the openings in the aluminum enclosure I got for the tach, but that shouldn't take long since I have that Bridgeport just sitting around begging for some work to come it's way.

After the tach job is finished and the head is finally buttoned up and reinstalled I'll be able to mount the top Z bracket to column and get a measurement for how big of a shim I'll need to make for the lower Z bracket. I'll try to make it in one piece if possible to keep it simple and solid.

Once the Z axis is mounted I'll finally be able to tackle the head hydro assist kit. I'm thinking the head mount part will need to me moved further away from the column to clear the upper Z axis bracket. I may have to use some kind of spacer (about the same length as the front mount is offset) to keep the lower end of the hydraulic lift parallel with the column to prevent it from binding during travel.
 
The flu bug hit me pretty hard last weekend so I never got around to installing the kit onto the mill last weekend. I'm shooting for this coming weekend to get the mechanical parts installed as long as I'm feeling up to it. Still not quite feeling 100% yet.

This past week I've been trying to get one of those P4 PC's up and running. Unfortunately the one I picked looks like it has either a bad motherboard or power supply. When I tried to power it up I didn't even get a POST beep before the power button light and error LED on the motherboard both lit up orange. Of course I didn't find that out until AFTER I put all the new parts in it. DOH! Luckily the motherboard and power supply were about on par with the other parts (ie: cheap) so I have one of each of those parts in route already. The PC will pretty much be almost all new except for the case and the floppy drive (that I'll never use).
 
I'm still working on this project as school and my health allow. :phew:

The P4 PC is now completed after I replaced the motherboard and the power supply and is up and running well. I loaded XP Pro (32-bit) on it then had to find the original drivers for the hardware on Dell's website. Since I installed a DVD drive in it as well, I was able to burn the drivers onto a blank DVD with my home PC to get them onto the new (rebuilt anyway) PC. After getting the Ethernet drivers loaded I was then finally able to connect it to the internet and get the current updates for XP loaded. I also loaded both the free versions of Avast for an anti-virus program, and Spybot Search and Destroy for malware and spyware protection. I will probably just turn them off after I disconnect this PC from the internet and bring it to my shop for CNC duty. That way I can just turn the protection programs back on before hooking it up if I ever have to bring it back inside the house to reconnect to the internet for any program updates.

I spent this past weekend tearing the mill all the way down in order to be able to start fitting the CNC kit parts from the bottom up. I noticed a few dings on the base along top edge of the Y axis dovetails so I cleaned them up with a couple of light passes with a fine file and a stone. I also flattened out the area around the serial numbers where the metal had been puckered up around the stampings. It's not the surfaces that the saddle rides on, but it was just bugging me to know it was there.

The first thing I noticed when test fitting the parts was that the Y axis ballscrew was hitting the base casting at the back end of the screw and keeping the new front mounting block from being able to sit flush against the front face of the casting. I measured the interference to be a little under 1/8" so I scribed a line across the back edge where it was to be cut. I took the base over to the bridgeport for a couple of quick passes with a 1/2" hogging endmill bit. It's all going to be hidden under the table so I don't need to use a finishing endmill to try to get a pretty finish. Now there is right about 1/16" clearance between the back of the base casting and the end of the ballscrew.

The spiral cut shaft connectors need to be drilled out on the side with the smaller hole to fit the end of the ball screw shaft. On my 7x14 lathe the length of the chuck jaws was barely able to grip the coupler. I had to press it into the chuck and then hold it there while I used my other hand to tighten the chuck key. Next time I'll do a little more research and just try to find some couplers that have the correct size openings for the shafts I'll be using. I didn't have a boring bar small enough to bore the hole so I used the closest undersized drill bit to my target size. I finished it to size by wrapping some emory cloth wrapped around a smaller drill bit and then used that to sand the bore to size (checking the shaft for fit periodically). FYI for any machining newbies reading this: Don't forget to remove the set screws before putting the coupler in the chuck or you'll give yourself a headache trying to keep the bore straight when sanding. These particular couplers I got are aluminum and the set screws are steel. If you hit the steel you'll hold up the sand paper and leave ridges in the alumnum.

My back was telling me to call it a day so that is as far as I got out in the shop for now. I didn't have my camera or cell phone out there with me, so I have to add the pics at a later time.
 
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