New PM25MV on the way!

Nice work, I did the same tear down to my machine as well. I am not doing a conversion like you, so I did not lap the tables, I did lap the gibs as they looked like a beaver had chewed on them. my table runs very smoothly now. It will be interesting to see if the saddle fits. Post a question to one of the guys that has a G0704 to see if they can give you some rough measurements. I may be purchasing a full size mill and a lathe from a customer of mine along with tooling for both machines. If the deal works out I may convert my PM25 to CNC. I am keeping my finger crossed. Thanks for all the great pictures, I am watching your progress with great interest!
 
Quick update. I attempted to order a Grizzly saddle today, and Grizzly canceled the order, they won't have any until December 8th at the earliest. Back to square one.
I did find a blog with a cnc conversion that has screw mounts exactly like the ones in my PM25MV. I may have to do what he did, I would hate that, because i already bought the cnc kit from Automation Technology, and I will only get to use about half of it, and I will have to buy a drill press to do that. (I'm really short on space in the shop, which is why i don't have a drill press already).

The blog is a Titan TM20V machine, but it's set up exactly the same as the current PM25MV.

http://www.homanndesigns.com/index....ersion-part-2&catid=34:cnc-projects&Itemid=55

So, my options at this point are:

1. Build new ball nut mounts myself, and not use the kit that i already have.
2. Slot the current saddle so it can use the G0704 nut mounts, then drill and tap for the screws to tighten them down, then make an adapter plate for the Z axis.
3. Buy the new saddle from Grizzly anyway, hope it fits, and wait until they get them in, in December.
4. Another option that is a little spendy, but would work the best with the kit components i already have: Buy a base, saddle, table, and column from Grizzly, and mount my head on it. The whole setup costs around $600.

I think i am going to try option 2. I know some machine shop guys through my work, and they might slot and tap the saddle for me, without breaking my piggy bank.

On a more positive note, I put power to the control box last night, and almost everything worked the way it is supposed to. The only thing that did not work was the rear cooling fan. It did not come on at all, and the 48v to 24v converter that i bought to run it got super hot. Not sure what is going on there, but i'll have to check it out some more, it was very late when i powered it up, so i didn't spend much time troubleshooting. It's just a basic 120mm fan anyway, I will probably just replace it with a cheap 120vac fan then wire it up to the 120v circuit and be done with it. The 48v to 24v converter was very inexpensive, so i'm not out much. A new fan will cost more than it did, and these fans are cheap.

I got all the wires tidied up on one side of the box, and tonight i will hopefully get the other side done. Depends on how i feel, i caught a cold over the weekend, so may not feel like doing any work on it later.
 
Do a search for Hobby Machinist groups in your town. I joined one here in Phoenix. There are about 40 guys and they all help each other out. We have monthly meeting and one guy will give a presentation on a particular specialty. Someone from a group like that may help you out for free especially given the fact that you have some skill in the CNC area. Keep up the great work!
 
Update for this weekend. No pictures today, sorry, but i do have information a plenty :think1:

I decided to go the route of buying the grizzly saddle, column, etc, so that my cnc kit will fit, as i have a considerable amount of money invested in the kit. (yeah, i probably should have made it myself, but i was trying to get this done in a hurry).

While grizzly does not have the saddle in stock, they did have the base and column, which i got in on Thursday. What i can tell you is that the saddle dovetails on the PM25MV are 5mm wider apart than the dovetails on the grizzly, so the grizzly saddle is not going to fit on the PM25MV base. The column dovetails are the same width however. How I am going to make this work is that I am going to build a hybrid machine. The column, saddle, base, and table will be from a G0704, and the head will be from the PM25MV. Once i have the cnc machine up and running, i will make new mounts to fit the PM25MV base, saddle, and table. I am basically now going to build two cnc machines, but for me at this point, will be the quickest way to get my machine up and running the way i want it. Down the road, i will be looking for a used mill head to mount on one of the two base assemblies.
Even though i have made some mistakes, i'm having fun with the build. :allgood:

Since the new saddle won't be shipped until around December 9th, this will give me the opportunity to make some modifications to the grizzly base and column that i would like to make, and i might even take a stab at scraping them to be flat and parallel, after i practice on some scraps.

I spent today putting the PM25MV back together, and i will use it as a manual machine until i get the other parts and can complete my build.

Notes from today on the new base:
The base was covered in the usual shipping goo, and i spent a good deal of time cleaning it off. the bottom had a large and thick amount of over sprayed paint on the bottom, so that had to go before it would even try to sit flat. The outer edges also had a sharp burr on them, which a stone made quick work of removal. Still doesn't seem to sit very flat, so when i get the PM25MV trammed in, I will mill the base down flat.
The new base dovetails and upper flat were cleaned and also have very sharp burrs on the edges, which were also stoned off. There were also marks that look like rust stains, that would not clean off. I am going to put some Evaporust on it, to make sure it does not rust any further. Rubbing my finger over these stains, i cannot feel them, but i can definitely see them. I could fit the PM25MV saddle to this base if i made a new extra thick gib strip, the angles are the same. The mounting area for the y-axis front plate and for the column mount in the back are also both covered in paint, which has to come off. The bolt hole threads for these are also covered in paint, so they will need tapped out to clean them as well.
I have the new column also, but i have not taken it out of the box yet, I am planning to do that next weekend.

Tonight I will be soldering up the wires on the motor connectors, and tomorrow night will be the first test of the completed control box to make sure everything works the way it is supposed to.

I will have some pics to post later this week, that's all for now :thumbsup2:
 
wow, after making my previous post about looking for a used mill head, i went to ebay and did a quick search, and found a brand new G0704 mill head complete except for motor control. They wanted a little more than i was willing to pay, so I made an offer, and it was accepted! so now i have two mills! :ups:the head should be here around Thursday. Now i can do mods to both machines and alternate which one is down while i mod it. This is going to be a lot of fun. Granted, all of the second is not here yet, but it will be. I will probably mount this one on a tool box, so i can store future tooling in it.
 
This weeks' update:

I was having problems with the cnc control box, and i want to say Arturo Duncan at Cnc4pc was a great help, and his taking the time to answer my emails was greatly appreciated, and helped me figure out the problem.

The problem in a nutshell is that i wired the drivers wrong which was shorting out everything else. So, over the last 2 days, i have been completely rewiring the box, and I installed some terminal strips to make troubleshooting and working on the box much easier. One major modification I did to the box while i had it all apart is to replace the 24vdc fan with a higher cfm 120vac fan. the fan is wired into the 120v circuit and comes on when the on/off switch is turned on. Some of these components put out quite a bit of heat.

009.JPG

This is the only picture i have to upload this week, as all i have been able to do is work on this box. The ebay mill head came in on Thursday, but I haven't taken it out of the box yet. The next thing I will do is get the mach3 configured, get the motors and connectors wired up. Then I will go back to installing the ball screws and mounts, lastly, will be a motor upgrade for the new mill head, since i need to replace the missing motor controls anyway. By the time i get all that done, the back ordered saddle and mill slide should be here, then the mods begin in earnest.

009.JPG
 
Hi
Great post, have you got any photos of the new head for the mill.

jeff
 
tmarks11 said:
Seems to be a common problem... to convert a mill to cnc, you have to have two mills to start with.
Click to expand...

Or regular access to another mill somewhere...

Someday down the road, I may get a 2nd mill... a CNC version of an RF45.
Wish someone made a Taiwanese quality version of a '45... :)

But that is a LONG ways away, and there will need to be a financial justification for it... :)
 
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