Hey, please checkout my new CNC X&Y motor mounts for the MicroMill, including bearing block and stepper mount. This is for X1 mills. NOT X2. I have attached 2 jpegs with dimentions, and the CAD file. Pressfit 8x20mm bearings in the bearing block. Use 1/4-20 screws to attach the motormount to bearing block, and use spacers to space the two out. 8-32 screws are used to mount the nema 23 stepper to the motormount. This is direct drive. A 3-1 belt drive version will be released soon. Please check this out and add comments or modifications and LMK what you think of it. - Zack

Very nice drawings and extremely nice of you to share. These are going to save some people a lot of trouble.

Thanks very much Zack, these are going to save me quite a bit of time!

-Jim

Just to let you know...
Someone made me a set of my design, and it works beautifully, but where the original handle block would be able to slide towards the collum past the front part of the dovetails, my design is too tall, and you loose a little bit of travel unless you file down the casting of the base, infront of the leadscrew nut. I didn't realize this until I made them. Its very easy to file down the base (it won't affect anything, as there is nothing attached to the place where you file down.).

To solve the problem, either file the base (doesn't affect anything, or file down the bottom of the bearing block a little (won't affect the strength or anything). I am comming up with and updated version that will go around the file problem. Tommorrow I will take pictures of the final product. You will be impressed.
-Zack

What thickness material should be used? and could you post a couple pics of your assembled unit so i can have a 3d looksy.

Any word on an update and some pics of your finished product. I've got the design built up in CAD. I've got a question on the motor plate. How thick should that plate be? It seems if your going to have the 1/4-20 cbore inside the cbore for the motor, then the plate would have to be pretty thick... I moved the mounting bolts outside the motor cutout to allow for a thinner mount, 1/4'' I think..... perhaps I'm missing something in the drawings? I can't see the need for more than 1/4'' plate.

-Jim

Ok, took some photos.
Here are my notes:
1)Look at the photo named "hit".
I noticed after making these that my bearing block is too low. Either A: Shave the block at the bottom, or B: Cut out a little bit of the base casting. Or, you can use only two screws to hold the stepper mount onto the bearing block, and make the bearing block shorter, and mill off the two lower screw holes. The block is PLENTY strong. In the photos I had it on 1 screw, and i could not move the stepper mount. 4 screws is overkill.

2)If you look at the photo "overall", you will notice that my design is very stiff (I am only using one screw to hold it since i don't have any others. Use atleast two, or 4), and short. It will not hang 6 inches off the side. Both pieces are .75in steel. (You can use aluminum if u want).

3)On the "front" photo, someone asked if they could make this out of thinner material. I would reccomend no less than .5in thick material. The counter bore for the screw is probably 1/8" longer than the top of the screw. Also, their is probably 1/8" extra material past the counter bore, so you could get away with .5" material if you wanted.

4)On the photo named "stepper", you can see how the stepper mount looks. That hole in the middle is 1", so you can use up to about .95 or less diameter couplings.

The only thing that I would change would be to cut off the bottom two mounting holes in the bearing block, so that the block could move the whole travel distance. Overall I am impressed with this. As soon as I buy my oldham couplers and some longer 1/4-20 screws to hold the stepper block to the bearing block, I will take some more photos. You will want some spacers to go between the stepper block and the bearing block, that will ride on the 1/4-20 screws. If you see mine in the photos, that is just what I had laying around. Use real spacers, not what I had.

-Zachery

Well, i suppose cnczone doesn't display the photo names.
1st photo = front
2nd photo = hit
3rd photo = overall
4th photo = stepper

Also, i am currently using a belt drive reduction so DO NOT USE the pulleys and belts on this. It wasn't made for it (only direct drive).

hiyA
I want to convert a sieg C1 to CNC do you no of any suppliers for motor mounts?
regards dave
email mervanam@aol.com

Hi, I am the designer of the mounts. I had they custom made by someone. There are no "known" suppliers, but I and going to try and make them my self on my sieg x1 in the next week or so. I'll report how they do. After the design was made, I relized a few problems. Its an easy fix though... The bottom edge of the bearing block needs to be cut up about 3-4mm to provide enough spacing to clear the castings, so you get the full travel on the x and y axis. I will fix this problem, and gladly send you the design in either autocad, solidworks, or via a jpg with dimentions if you would like. I'll keep you updated. - Zachery

For your 1.181 dimension, when I measured it out myself on the stock Sieg "bearing" block, I got 1.176. Small difference, but worth noting.

Hey, i took that dimention from the yahoo groups. That wasn't my dimention, but they seem to have agreed that the dimention was correct. How did you measure yours?

Well, just with some digital calipers. I measured the block, then measured the distance from block to edge of hole, then measured diameter of the hole. And then I was able to model the whole thing in CAD and then I pulled out that dimension. I doubt it really makes much of a difference because the holes are probably a few thou bigger than the bolts anyhow right?