My round column RF30 mill to CNC conversion, the cheap way

TomS said:
You are killing me! I've moved and my machines have been shut down for the better part of three months. My tools are stuffed in my future shop while I get the house in order. The picture is after I reorganized my stuff. LOL Anyway, nice compound clamp. My first lathe was a G4000. Sold it for a larger one. Wish I kept it.
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Nice shop Tom, congrats! Take your time setting it up. I love the tall ceilings and the RV height doors, how big is the garage and what lathe do you have now? I can see myself putting a 2 post lift, a gantry and setting it up like ZMotorsports (Mike). Someday I'll have a shop like that in my retirement home (once I can get off the hamster wheel) and have bigger/better machine tools like you :eagerness: I'm a newbie to both CNC and machining so the RF30 and G4000s are giving me plenty of opportunity to learn...and suck me into the whole tooling whirlpool too but I tell myself that many of the tooling is universal (v blocks, collet chucks, measurement tools etc) so hopefully it will last me my lifetime.
 
stioc said:
Nice shop Tom, congrats! Take your time setting it up. I love the tall ceilings and the RV height doors, how big is the garage and what lathe do you have now? I can see myself putting a 2 post lift, a gantry and setting it up like ZMotorsports (Mike). Someday I'll have a shop like that in my retirement home (once I can get off the hamster wheel) and have bigger/better machine tools like you :eagerness: I'm a newbie to both CNC and machining so the RF30 and G4000s are giving me plenty of opportunity to learn...and suck me into the whole tooling whirlpool too but I tell myself that many of the tooling is universal (v blocks, collet chucks, measurement tools etc) so hopefully it will last me my lifetime.
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Thanks for your comments. My shop is 32 x 45. Plenty big if I didn't have an RV taking up half of the space. My previous shop was 2000 sq. ft. and no RV taking up real estate. I'm having to do some serious downsizing but not complaining.

My current lathe is a 12 x 36 gear head Enco. It's 1989 vintage and made in Taiwan; it's a nice machine. The previous owner bought it new and rarely used it. When I bought it most of the cosmoline was still there. I also have a RF30, a PM-932 converted to CNC, and a few other shops tools. I'm relatively new to CNC but enjoying every minute of the learning curve.

Keep posting. I like your enthusiasm.
 
stioc said:
Engraving toolpath did require that I classify it as a chamfer bit (i used 60deg so it doesn't try to plunge into the valleys) or else it wouldn't generate the toolpath. I really need to find single line text fonts for these simple engraving needs.
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One of the recent updates to F360 added single line fonts specifically for that purpose, they just didn't label them super intuitively. Any of the fonts with the suffix of .shx are the single line fonts for engraving. Use the "trace" routine in the 2D toolpaths and set an "axial offset" in the passes tab to control your tool depth. It lets you use a wider variety of tools as well, doesn't force a chamfer bit on you.
 
Stioc, how do you find moving the table around manually with the steppers engaged, particularly with the 2.5:1 gear ratio?
Are the handwheels much harder to turn, and do you feel any cogging? Is it still practical to use the mill manually for jobs you don't want to CNC?

Thanks
 
Good question jester966 as that was one of my concerns in the beginning. I didn't find the turning of the handwheels difficult per-se but the resistance is higher than before. I do feel the cogging because as you turn the handwheels the motors generate electromagnetic field and thus put up the said resistance so every half a turn or so I feel that clicking/cogging as the motors try to brake. So while a standard manual operation is doable it doesn't feel smooth like a manual machine.

Having said that I do use the machine in manual mode but I use the motors for the movements instead of the hand wheels, I find it easier, it's kind of like playing a video game using the arrow keys on the keyboard (I now have a pendant so I use that but keyboard worked just fine). What's great about this method is that you can use the stepper to make those .0005" moves very easily. So like most things in life you win some, you lose some but I have not regretted the CNC decision one bit. The cool thing about Paul's kit is that if you really want to use the hand-wheels (say your cnc system blows up and you have a big project to work on) just like a manual mill it takes less than 10 mins to remove the motors. Hope that helps!
 
While I'm here, I wasn't satisfied with the 4 bolt compound mount so I made some modifications. This was also a good opportunity for me to learn how to do operations on the other side of the part in F360.
I like the compound mount much better now, easier to get to the bolts as well as read the angle.

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stioc said:
Having said that I do use the machine in manual mode but I use the motors for the movements instead of the hand wheels, I find it easier, it's kind of like playing a video game using the arrow keys on the keyboard (I now have a pendant so I use that but keyboard worked just fine). What's great about this method is that you can use the stepper to make those .0005" moves very easily. So like most things in life you win some, you lose some but I have not regretted the CNC decision one bit.
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I had a Logitech Rumblepad that I had gotten for a different purpose sitting around (control a telescope mount), and found that it was a really simple thing to get Mach3 to recognize that. Mach3 comes with a program called Keygrabber that you run first, and then once you start Mach, you can control the mill with that. There's a bunch of buttons available to program and I use one so that if I hold it down, the mill's steppers move .001" at a time. Makes it very easy to find edges, for instance.

Like you say, I've machined a few things using the Rumblepad in place of hand wheels.

I prefer the game controller over the keyboard because if I've got my head stuck in the mill enclosure, trying to find an edge or something, I can bring it with me.
 
I'm using the Contour ShuttleXpress, same thing that Tormach sells (still?) with their CNC. I do wish it was cordless though!
 
Could you use your mill during the build. Or would you suggest having another mill if work needs to be done and keep it off to the side as a project?
 
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