Folks,
After getting jealous of the “fancy” CNC that Coy and crew have built, I would like to start looking into converting the manual Enco mill to a CNC machine.
I was told that some people donated some parts that would help do this. Could people respond to this thread with what was donated (or what they would be willing to donate)? And where those parts may be?
I think we will have to replace the ancient leadscrews on the X and Y. Apparently there are nice not so expensive versions available.
Of course we would need some motors and a controller.
I’m leaning toward more 2D CNC. Doing full 3D requires some major spindle mods. Baby steps.
Sounds like a nice Hive13 project . . . .
Jon modified the area warden role and now I’m in charge of machining . . . . (bwuhuhuhaha, my empire is expanding, Excellent - {folded hands with index fingers pointed})
You are evil! But in the good evil way!
Do you think it makes sense to convert our manual mill or get another one that is better suited for conversion? There is something to be said for having manual tools available as well as CNC ones IMHO. Would the mill remain able to be used manually after conversion? (I’ve used some bridgeports that were like this and could be used purely manually or with a CNC controller to automate things.)
-D
Yes it should be totally be still “driveable” after the conversion.
The mechanical upgrade is to get rid of the ancient leadscrews which would greatly help the manual operation. The rest is just motors to turn the cranks. If the motors have too much resistance we could design it so the belts could be removed easily, returning it to a nice manual mill.
I agree that sometimes it is nice to just chuck something up and take off a few thousandths without having to program a tool path. I’ll keep that in mind as we develop the conversion.