I have made the decision to CNC it!

There's another $34 of your money gone Hawkeye!:whistle:

Seriously though, it's an easy and inexpensive way to retain full manual control of your machine after it's CNC'd and lost its handles.


M
 
You guys are a bad influence. Today, I ordered a 4-axis set of 34s in the 878 size, c/w driver board, power supply, cable and a Mach3 disk. I followed the eBay link in Steve's lathe CNC build.

Then I got back to work on my old desktop computer. The hard drive had failed a few years ago. I have another one, loaded with XP, but the peripheral drivers went with the old drive. I stuck the usable drive in an external carrier and downloaded the drivers from my laptop, then installed it in the desktop and ran the setups. Now, the old computer will connect to my network and even access the internet. I think I'll need a small flat-screen monitor. Do you know how much of my shop would be lost to a 19" CRT?

That's a few items checked off the list. It sure helps to have a few people working on the same project at the same time.

mike
what is a c/w driver board?
steve
 
Well I dragged out the other computer, the desktop is indeed a Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OS! So I will have to indeed get my daughter to get me the disc with the Windows 7 Pro so that I can take advantage of the Virtual XP mode.

I spent last night reading the pdf's on Mach3, the more I read it, the more I like it! Found a couple of vids Steve that you will like, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2w8cYXt5_o , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-cAnQqpXs0

After seeing what Hoss did with his Freak mill with the lathe attachment and watching this vid, though I had already had this in mind. For what I am wanting to do, I am thinking that I may not need to get a lathe in the future, just do it all on the mill. Might have to get another mill further down the line, but as long as I can do my 7/8-14 threading on the part on the mill either in 4th axis or on the spindle.. than for me, I will not need a lathe.

Doc

PS: Steve, I didn't ask that in order to see if I could get you in trouble, but after reading the pdf on Mach3, I don't think that I will need the limit switches, but I may want the home switches to ramp up a part, if I set everything to that home switch.
 
i was just kidding around
but i did do the wiring and buy the parts
i also wired in coolant and spindle on and off control and didnt use it either.
steve
 
Well I downloaded eMachineShop and got it on the other computer. If I had a printer, I could drawup some templates. Your asking why would I want to do that, metric screws and .0625 dials. Also the worm gear for the fine feed is not all that fine! One .015 cut could be .011 and the next one could be .017. The accurate movement is not there.. and there is so much backlash in it that it is just aweful. It is so bad, I wonder if DRO would help it. But the Z axis is square to the bed and that is important.

But the reference I made about the diamentions for the mounts on the CNCFusion kit are like for the Z axis mount, also the extention mount on the right side of the mill table. Anything else, well I am going to call CNC Fusion to see if I can get the other stuff from them. This should help reduce cost. If anyone has the kit already for a X2 machine, your measurements would be greatly appreciated.

Doc
 
dont forget the $32 pendant
this thing works well and if you break it who cares it wasnt $300 lol
steve
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251170158689?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2648


Don't want to hijack OakRidgeGuy's thread, but I don't know how to move this quote to another thread.

Jumps4 I'd like a little info on this pendant, how much trouble was it to set up I run mach 3 on my cnc plasma table and that would be right handy Thanks and sorry for intruding.

dannyboy
 
Don't want to hijack OakRidgeGuy's thread, but I don't know how to move this quote to another thread.

Jumps4 I'd like a little info on this pendant, how much trouble was it to set up I run mach 3 on my cnc plasma table and that would be right handy Thanks and sorry for intruding.

dannyboy


Don't worry about it, nobody really owns a thread. :))

That pendant is designed specifically to work with Mach3, you just plug it into a USB port. I not sure if it's automatically recognized or you have to select it but it would soon be clear.

Enlarge the pic and look at the lables on the membrane keypad and all should become clear as to it's function, and it beats walking around holding a full size keyboard. ;)


M
 
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