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

[GoMopar440]

While I'm waiting for the stepper kit auction to end I went ahead and got a usb pendant I spotted on eBay. I figure I wouldn't lose much if it's junk, as it was only $25 and had free shipping. http://www.ebay.com/itm/271126015400?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

I've heard some mixed reviews about the Lovejoy couplers like the ones supplied with the CNC Fusion kit. So as a precaution I've been checking out some aluminum shaft couplers like these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/261072881826?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 They're so cheap ($15.88/5 pcs) I thinking I may just go ahead and get them as a precaution. The shaft mounting holes are a little smaller than I need, but that can be easily remedied in a few minutes on the lathe.

EDIT: I went ahead and got the couplers anyway. I figured if I needed them they'll already be on the boat heading my way.

 

[GoMopar440]

Got the stepper kit for the opening bid on eBay.:drink2: No tracking number yet but it says expected delivery is date between Jan 18th to the 25th.

The CNC Fusion kit is supposed to take 2 weeks to ship according the the email I got from them. Not too sure how long the LMS order will take to get here, but they said it would ship out within a day of receiving payment (paid on Jan 14). And now comes the wait...

I suppose I could track down a couple more of the little bits I still need in the mean time like some shielded cable, BOB, UC100, etc. I may be able to get a couple of older computers for free when the college I'm going to upgrades a few PC in a couple of weeks. That sure would be nice if I can snag one or two of those. I have access to a couple legal copies of Windows XP so I could just make it a dedicated CAD/CAM station(s).

 

[AirChunk]

Can't ait to hear how the kit works out!

 

[GoMopar440]

The LMS order showed up on my porch today. I'll be removing the X2 head and disassembling it for the steel gear install. The plan is to just leave the head off the column until the CNC Fusion kit shows up, and then reassemble it all in one go. There's no point in doing the same work twice if I don't have to.

 

[GoMopar440]

Picked up a few more bits on eBay tonight. I was reviewing Steve's (Jumps) 9x20 CNC conversion thread and picked up the simplified non-opto BOB and DB25 gender changer he mentioned in post #54. Here's the links to the parts I got:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/300775143431?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
http://www.ebay.com/itm/190685170549?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

That's probably all I'll be able to do for parts gathering until I get paid again at the beginning of next month. Unless it's something else really cheap like these last two little bits were.

 

[GoMopar440]

I went out to the shop today to get some of the prerequisite upgrades done to the X2 before the CNC parts arrive. I started off by pulling the entire head off the column and completely disassembling it (except for the spindle). I pulled the center hi-lo gear and lever out of the head since this function will now be handled by the LMS belt drive kit. While I had the head apart I drilled and tapped the left side of the mount so I could move the gib adjusters and lock arm away from where the new ball screw will be. After all the holes were drilled and tapped (6mm x 1.0mm) I countersunk the outside with a center drill bit and hit the inside with a small stone to remove the burrs. While I had the stone out I also cleaned up the raised divots from the gib where the tips of the adjuster screws had mashed it up.


After I reassembled the head and test fit it to the column, I noticed the rivets holding the vertical scale to the long black piece on the column were hitting the gib adjuster nuts. I unscrewed the black piece holding the scale to give the adjuster nuts the needed clearance. With that gone I'll go ahead and remove the pointer since the scale that it points to isn't there anymore.


I'm going to wait till the CNC Fusion kit gets here before I mount the hydraulic lift kit since it looks like there may be some clearance issues to work out with the upper Z axis mount. The LMS kit came with a longer gear rack for the column, but since the ball screw will be handling the chore of moving the head up and down, I just removed the rack from the column.

After moving the gib to the opposite side, the entire head shifted over about 1/4" to the left. I will most likely need to shim the ball nut bracket that mounts to the head in order to compensate for that.


On the right side of the head there is a lot more room freed up where the fine feed dial was previously mounted. I'm planning to use that space to mount an aluminum box that will house a Mach Tach half-size kit. The box is cast aluminum (Hammond Mfg# 1550D) and has enough room to house the half size kit.


After I got in today I checked on some other parts for the CNC conversion and picked up a couple more parts. 30' of 4 wire shielded cable and 4 pin connectors to hook it up. I bought 4 of the connectors since I'll be using one of them for the Mach Tach sensor wires as well as three more for the X, Y and Z axis steppers.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/160632659191?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
http://www.ebay.com/itm/280929733116?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

I still need to pick up a UC100 cable, but that will have to wait till after I get paid. They're pretty spendy ($129) for a fancy piece of wire, but it's seems to be the best way to hook the system up from what I've read so far.

 

[GoMopar440]

The stepper kit was waiting on my porch today when I checked so I opened it up to make sure everything survived in transit. One of the controllers had a couple of tiny cosmetic dings (very minor) on the outer edge of the top row of the heat sink, but other than that, I can see no apparent external damage to any of the parts. This kit shipped from a warehouse in the US, but I don't know if they did a QC check when the parts originally arrived stateside. I would guess they get at least a cursory glance at minimum when the parts get repacked from the bulk shipment into the individual box for shipping out to the customer.

Here's the pics of the components:
Got everything they said they would send. That's always a plus.


The big form fitted styrofoam case for the steppers had some broken walls between the steppers but nothing got damaged and the wires were all intact thankfully. The styrofoam shipping case was made for a 5 stepper kit so there was an empty bay between each stepper.


Here's the BOB that came with the kit. I already ordered the one Steve suggested so I'll just save it as a spare unless someone else wants it. Shoot me a PM if you do and it's yours for the cost of shipping.

 

[angelfj1]

Hello! I have been following this topic with much interest and hope to convert a mini mill in the near future. I would appreciate if someone could explain something that I find confusing, not just on this forum but also on others. Both X2 and SX2 are referenced and sometimes the terms interchanged. I understand that the X2 is the milling machine manufactured by Shanghai SIEG Machinery Co., Ltd, and sold under many names, but what is SX2? How does it differ from the X2 and are conversions to CNC identical?

Many thanks,

Frank

 

[GoMopar440]

You can think of the SX2 as a "Super" X2. The table is larger (X & Y axis) and the motor is stronger AFAIK. I'm not sure if there is more travel in the Z axis. You could ask OakRidgeGuy, as I believe he is building his CNC conversion on a SX2 from LMS. Mine is the standard X2 sold by Harbor Freight (part #44991) with the R8 spindle.

While I was out in town running some errands today I got a text from one of my classmates. The IT guys put a bunch of old PC's out in the hall for anyone to grab what they wanted. I picked up enough pieces and parts to make something usable from it. Unfortunately most of the PC's were Win 98/Pentium 3 machines, but even if I can't make one of them run on Win XP, I at least have plenty of (free) enclosures to work with now. The black one is(was) a Pentium 4 with XP Pro installed on it, but when I opened the case everything was already removed. The large case with all the sides off is a server case with a dual Pentium 3 CPU motherboard still in it from what I can see.


In addition to the PCs, I also picked up a few old clickety clackety PS2 keyboards and some CRT monitors. I was hoping for flat LCDs, but I'm not going to complain. Free is free.


Once my meds kick in and my back recovers from lugging those heavy pieces around, I'll start tearing into them to see what I have to work with. I'll probably use either the black Dell P4 case or the server case to mount the electronics in and then try to get one of the other P3 machines up and running to run Win XP on.

 

[angelfj1]

You can think of the SX2 as a "Super" X2. The table is larger (X & Y axis) and the motor is stronger AFAIK. I'm not sure if there is more travel in the Z axis. You could ask OakRidgeGuy, as I believe he is building his CNC conversion on a SX2 from LMS. Mine is the standard X2 sold by Harbor Freight (part #44991) with the R8 spindle.

While I was out in town running some errands today I got a text from one of my classmates. The IT guys put a bunch of old PC's out in the hall for anyone to grab what they wanted. I picked up enough pieces and parts to make something usable from it. Unfortunately most of the PC's were Win 98/Pentium 3 machines, but even if I can't make one of them run on Win XP, I at least have plenty of (free) enclosures to work with now. The black one is(was) a Pentium 4 with XP Pro installed on it, but when I opened the case everything was already removed. The large case with all the sides off is a server case with a dual Pentium 3 CPU motherboard still in it from what I can see.


In addition to the PCs, I also picked up a few old clickety clackety PS2 keyboards and some CRT monitors. I was hoping for flat LCDs, but I'm not going to complain. Free is free.


Once my meds kick in and my back recovers from lugging those heavy pieces around, I'll start tearing into them to see what I have to work with. I'll probably use either the black Dell P4 case or the server case to mount the electronics in and then try to get one of the other P3 machines up and running to run Win XP on.

GoMopar440: Thanks for the explanation regarding X2 vs SX2! I'll have to read OakRidgeGuy's posts.

You should have No problem running XP on those old boxes. However, try to install the maximum amout of RAM that the motherboard will hold. I just upgraded an old machine for my 10 year old grandson. The difference in performance between 512Mb vs 2Gb was dramatic! The RAM upgrade, 2 x 1Gb cost only $30!

Regards,

Frank