Well guys, Hiya, this is my first ever post, ive been reading these forums for a few months, reading up on stuff that people have done, do's and donts, what works and what doesnt, so Ive bitten the bullet and decided to do a x2 cnc conversion. Ive never owned a milling machine, never done a cnc conversion, but thought why not.

I have a background in office engineering, i.e im not shop floor but a desk bound mechanical design enginner who uses autodesk Inventor 2008. I design vehicle mounted hydraulic access platforms by trade.

Ive made this post as a start of my project to log my success's and the failures in a hope that at least somthing from my posts will help someone else doing the sort of same thing.

First off I will list the parts I have bought, where I got them and what it cost (hope the wife does'nt find this post), I will go back in time and add and update the list.

A) PRODUCT
B) BOUGHT FROM
C) COST
D) P&P

A1) Seig X2 Milling machine.
B1) Axminster.co.uk - bought on a Wednesday and got it next day, excellent service.
C1) £ 411.00
D1) Free

A2) 4 Axis CNC Driver Board
B2) Ebay = 330304735606 - Hector has a good website and its a very easy board to work with. (www.easy-cnc.com (http://www.easy-cnc.com/))
C2) £ 78.05
D2) £ 10.00

A3) 3 x Nema 23 Stepper Motors (Part No: FL57STH56-3008B) - Dual Shaft
B3) www.slidesandballscrews.com (http://www.slidesandballscrews.com)
C3) £ 42.98
D3) £ 8.00

A4) DANTECH DA377 24V AC 4 AMP POWER SUPPLY UNIT
B4) Ebay - 220353668143 - can get them from http://www.securitysales.org.uk/acatalog/Dantech_DA377.html for £41
C4) £ 12.50
D4) £ 8.94

A5) 8A Bridge rectifier 100v (To convert the above AC supply to DC)
B5) Ebay - 270314229523
C5) £ 0.99
D5) £ 1.30

A6) Electrolytic Capacitor 22000uF 35V (to smooth out the new DC voltage wave)
B6) Ebay - 120218280637
C6) £ 1.99
D6) £ 1.50

A7) Clamping Kit 58 Piece M10 Stud : 12mm Slot
B7) Ebay - 360121804948
C7) £ 28.95
D7) £ 8.00

A8) New ER40 MT3 Milling Chuck Holder lathe ER40 MK3
B8) Ebay - 160291395036
C8) £12.22 (converted from Australian Dollars)
D8) £7.72



RUNNING TOTAL = £634.13

Things I need to buy
1 2 3 Blocks
V Blocks - magnetic
X Axis DRO
y Axis DRO
Z Axis DRO
Rotary Table
4 Jaw Chuck
Nema 17 Stepper Motor for Rotary Table
ER40 Collets
Belt Driver Conversion (www.harrisson.biz (http://www.harrisson.biz))


Addition things I bought that most members all ready have.

2" engineers square, Self Striking punch, Micrometer, 8% Cobalt Drills, Millers 100mm vice, 22 Square meter floor area workshop shed, Taps,

Hi Lukey. Welcome to the Zone!

Congratulations for starting this project. I wish I could have advised you BEFORE you started though.

I'm worried about the tiny 1 Nm (142 Oz in.) motors you have chosen. They may be able to struggle and move the X/Y axes painfully slowly, but are definitely not powerful enough for much heavy lifting of the head on the Z.

One of those motors WOULD probably be strong enough for a rotary table though.

I like the 3 Nm (425 oz in.) motors. While more powerful than needed for X/Y, they ARE perfect for Z. They are only 57V motors, so are Voltage compatible with G540. Running at 3.5A and 48V, they will still deliver top speed and about 2.5 Nm of torque.

Of course, then your controller board and PSU become too small.

If you can return the electronics, I would recommend scrapping the controller and PSU and going to three of the 3 Nm Zapp motors and a Gecko 540 with 48V 7.3A PSU.

http://geckodrive.com/product.aspx?c=3&i=14469

Keling has both G540 and PSU and will ship internationally.

http://kelinginc.net/index.html

You are going to have a CNC mill. Why do you want DROs?

CR.

ive got a friend who has these motors on an x2 and for what he uses it for seem really good. any hoo, its no biggy if I need to upgrade a motor later if i really need to. But for the purpose of my little project, i will stick with em and see how they fair, I can allways just fit a head counterbalance, do that alot with access platforms.

I want dro's as well because I dont want to do full cnc, i want to learn to mill by hand as well, and fitting dros on the machine will help

Hi Lukey

I agree, I think the 1Nm motors will work, but might struggle on anything but very gentle cuts.

The things you are missing from your kit IMHO...

a good set of 1/8" or 1/4" parallels (often come up on ebay)

a dial gauge indicator (for setting your vice square to the bed and your spindle vertical)

for more info and some good tutorials on setting up and using a mill go look at videos 4 through 7 of the MIT Machine Shop (http://techtv.mit.edu/tags/336-prototype/videos) series

well, 4:30 today the boss's left the office, so i dropped the urgent work i was doing, and turned round and had a little play on the mill, got a few weired looks from the other office workers as i set up some aluminium, put in a 10mm cutter, and squared off the aluminium lol. Shes a little cracker of a mill. I looked up and before i knew it, it was 6:30. Better go home before the wife thinks ive dumped the car in the snow filled ditch. Well atleast I made a start making the y axis bearing housing and stepper mount. Will take a few pictures later and upload my version of the Y mount.

http://www.allanaccess.co.uk/images/cnc/Image1.gif

http://www.allanaccess.co.uk/images/cnc/Image2.gif

http://www.allanaccess.co.uk/images/cnc/Image3.gif