12z Update And Status After A Year.

Yea, it's definitely not a stock 12z anymore. I'm running out of things to do to it.
 
You're welcome to mod mine....
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When I get it finished with the new controls on it you'll have to stop by when you're in the neighborhood and give it a test drive. :)

Hmmm, I'm seeing servos and a computer in your future! :devil:

You know, I've been thinking along those lines. I've got so much blood (literally), sweat, and tears in this thing I'll probably have to just take it with me to AZ and finish the conversion. BUT....I'm not writing the control code! Did that on that old DARPA project and almost killed myself. I'm too old to tackle something like that again.

It should, practically the only thing still stock on there is the cast iron. lol

Yea, and even that has been 'tuned up' a bit from stock. Oh, and Chris Bettis has a shop near him that will do a Blanchard grind on the table, claiming .0005 across 40", for not very much money. I may have to do that next year some time just to get all the nicks and stuff I've put in it over the last year. :rolleyes:
 
Paul contacted me yesterday and asked if I was using my 12z with the ball screw kit as a manual machine only, and don't intend to convert to CNC in the future. Apparently, the ball screw conversion has become popular with some of the manual machine crowd, and there are some modifications that they can do to the bearing blocks to make using hand wheels much more easy. Once the mods are done though, you can't go CNC. So they are going to go ahead and make the mods and get the stuff in the mail to me next week.

It would be cool to talk to some of the other 12z owners that have done this and other mods, but don't hang out here. Is there a forum somewhere else for CO owners? Yahoo maybe?
So what part of this prevents cnc use? Or is it cnc with their kit that wont work? Im curious.

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Paul has the guys shorten the fixed bearing blocks, which is normally were the couplers and servos attach, to make it easier to put hand wheels on a manual machine. Since I've already gone through all the effort to locate, drill/thread, and align the mounting of these blocks all I would have to do is just get a couple of the un-modified blocks from Paul.

That and the Z-axis screw and mounts as I'm not doing that part. Not yet anyway. :)
 
Yea, it's definitely not a stock 12z anymore. I'm running out of things to do to it.

Don't worry your friends here on the forum will help you spend more money, power draw bar for example, power feed on Z, pallet changer oh its only just begun! Merry Christmas!
 
I don't have a big enough air compressor for a power drawbar, but I've been talking to Paul about modifying a Mach-1 to work with the belt-drive system. :)

And a Merry Christmas to you as well.
 
I don't have a big enough air compressor for a power drawbar, but I've been talking to Paul about modifying a Mach-1 to work with the belt-drive system. :)

And a Merry Christmas to you as well.

You can operate a power draw bar with a tiny pancake compressor from Home Depot, which is what I used during my compressor fiasco.
 
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