Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)


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    Default Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)

    Well, I guess 4 years late is better than never. I need some help guys. I bought the HF X2 clone literally 4 years ago. Unfortunately, my youngest son became very ill shortly after the purchase and was in and out of the hospital. He was sick for months. I had unpacked the mill but that is as far as I got before I tucked it away on a shelf where it has sat for the last 4 years untouched. He became my priority so everything else was on hold.

    Anywho, I’m back at it. My major problem is that all the research I had done back then has completely left my head. I want to finish this project up pretty quickly this time so my oldest son can spend the summer tinkering. I was trying to do a full CNC conversion. I have the following items sitting on the shelf with it.

    1. HF 44991 Milling Machine
    2. Reinforced Column
    3. Belt Drive
    4. CNC Fusion 3-axis conversion kit with backlash couplings
    5. Lots of tooling/endmills

    I hate to even ask for help but my wife travels all the time and I work crazy hours now so my time it getting limited. I’d like to spend some of my free time with the kids and less of it researching everything again so I figured it doesn’t hurt to ask. What I was wondering is should I buy a 3-axis CNC kit? If so, what kit should I buy? I just can’t remember what I was getting next. I do remember I was leaning towards 382 oz NEMA23 motors and I was getting dual shaft. Past that, I don’t remember much. I have a PC to run it but was also interesting in trying to use a Raspberry Pi to control it if that can be done. I have my son’s 3D printer setup using Raspberry Pi and I really like having that to load the gcode without having to have a PC attached directly to the machine. It saves space in the workshop. Where the heck do I go from here? I don’t have to go the Raspberry Pi route. I just need to get something up and running ASAP.

    Thanks for the help...

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    Default Re: Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)

    The holding torque rating on the motors isn't the most important number - look at the inductance. The more inductance they have, the more DC voltage you need to feed them. But the drives need to be considered, because there's a maximum amount of voltage they can handle before they blow up. Amperage matters too - the more amps they can draw, the more running torque they'll have. So look for motors with low inductance. The consensus choice around here for a drive system is the G-540 from Geckodrives. It can handle 3.5 amps and 50 volts. That's in the sweet spot for motors with 2.3 mH inductance and enough torque to run your mill. The arduino-based solutions I've seen all fall short of that, but some people have made them work to some degree.

    I hope your son's feeling better now, and that you can have fun in the shop together. Don't make him watch you tear your hair out trying to get one of those crappy ebay driver kits to work...

    [FONT=Verdana]Andrew Werby[/FONT]
    [URL="http://www.computersculpture.com/"]Website[/URL]


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    Default Re: Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)

    Thanks for the info, I do seem to remember something about the GeckoDrives being recommended. I actually found a bookmark saved on my system that was a cnc kit that had the G540 included. Should I consider getting a kit like that or does it make more sense to spend the time to piece together every thing separately. I'm one of those people that refuses to buy most of the cheap Chinese junk the exception in this project is the actual milling machine. I just have no idea if the complete kits you can buy online are worth a darn. If they are, it sure would help me out to get up and running quickly. It's from a vendor and not ebay. I actually don't shop on ebay. I'm probably the only person on here that doesn't so I'm probably missing out.

    My son is doing much better now. Took him a couple of years to recover but he's back to playing sports and you would think nothing ever happened to him. My goal is definitely to get him and his older brother in the shop more. They need some worthwhile skills past their school work.



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    Default Re: Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)

    I agree that lower inductance motors are better, but even higher inductance motors can work well depending on your budget and the performance you are looking for.

    I am currently working on a machine that uses a X-Y table with a Z axis on V-rollers. Why is this relevant? Well the XY table is larger than the HF mill table and it may give a little insight into what can be made to work. You can see a short video of it



    The machine above uses 425 oz-in 2.8 amp, 6.8 mH motors that I bought from Automation Technologies. HERE is a link. They go for $32 each. They have 6.8 mH inductance, so aren't what I would consider "low inductance", but they work well enough for my needs. I run them from a 48V 7.5A switching power supply with the output voltage adjusted down to 42V. In the video above the machine is running off a 24V power supply I had since I had not received the 48V PS yet.

    It also uses cheap TB6600 stepper drivers off of e-bay that I got for $18 for 3 of them. The ones I used are the lowest cost ones you find on e-bay and don't have a case over them The circuit board with mounted components and heat-sink is all that there is. I personally recommend this one because many of the others have design problems that are difficult to overcome. The ones I use also have problems, but not if you don't exceed 3.0 amps current. HERE is a link to the type I bought, and a picture since the e-bay link will die at some time. A higher cost/quality driver might get better performance, but the performance I get from these is good enough for what I intend this machine for.

    Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)-tb6600-png

    My machine also uses a freebie netbook computer and an Arduino for the control system. The Arduino is loaded with the grbl firmware and although it has limitations, I find it quite capable. Fusion 360 CAM has a postprocessor that overcomes many of the limitations grbl has. The netbook is used to feed a simple serial stream of g-code via USB connection. You could also use a RPi since there are GRBL compatible user interfaces that will run on a Pi. I also wrote a sketch for a second arduino that used a LCD/SD shield and would read g-code from the SD and stream it to the arduino that has GRBL on it. It worked very well and the LCD was used as a simple interface. I abandoned that when I was given an old netbook for free though.

    My machine shown above achieves about 40 IPM rapids using the stock acme lead screws, which is pretty respectable for this small machine. I plan to put ball screws in it and based on my past experience I should be able to easily triple that speed but likely will set it at about 60-80 IPM max..

    In terms of the Arduino capability, I also have a G0704 mill thar I originally built and use LinuxCNC with. This machine uses 570 oz-in motors at 5A and 48V. I eventually decided to try GRBL running on an Arduino, so made an adapter to interface the Arduino to the parallel port BOB (if you only use Arduino you don't need a BOB). The machine performs very well on either LinuxCNC or GRBL. On either I can push the max rapid rate up to about 200 IPM. I performed a head to head comparison of a sample g-code running on both GRBL and on LinuxCNC. GRBL was faster than LinuxCNC v2.6, but v2.7 has a new planner and the run times between GRBL and LinuxCNC v2.7 are virtually identical. You can see a video of the head to head below.



    So, for my small machine my control system costs were as follows

    Netbook - Free
    Arduino Uno clone (make sure to get one with a 16U2 USB to serial chip, not the CH340) - $4
    Stepper drivers - $18 for 3 of them
    Stepper motors - $92 for 3 of them (the $26 ea 282 oz-in motors would also work well)
    Power supply 48V 7.5A switching - $25 or so if I remember right

    I don't see a way to come in with lower cost than this and am really happy with GRBL on the small machine. I still use LinuxCNC on the G0704, but also use GRBL on it because it intrigues me. I probably run about 50% LinuxCNC and 50% GRBL on the G0704. On the small machine it is totally GRBL.

    Hope this helps.



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    Default Re: Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)

    Quote Originally Posted by mercdv View Post
    Thanks for the info, I do seem to remember something about the GeckoDrives being recommended. I actually found a bookmark saved on my system that was a cnc kit that had the G540 included. Should I consider getting a kit like that or does it make more sense to spend the time to piece together every thing separately. I'm one of those people that refuses to buy most of the cheap Chinese junk the exception in this project is the actual milling machine. I just have no idea if the complete kits you can buy online are worth a darn. If they are, it sure would help me out to get up and running quickly. It's from a vendor and not ebay. I actually don't shop on ebay. I'm probably the only person on here that doesn't so I'm probably missing out.

    My son is doing much better now. Took him a couple of years to recover but he's back to playing sports and you would think nothing ever happened to him. My goal is definitely to get him and his older brother in the shop more. They need some worthwhile skills past their school work.
    You posted this while I was writing my post. I guess most of mine doesn't apply since the pricing I listed is for e-bay stuff. I find that most of the stuff I have bought on e-bay has worked as expected, but if that's not your thing I understand.



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    Default Re: Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)

    Quote Originally Posted by 109jb View Post
    You posted this while I was writing my post. I guess most of mine doesn't apply since the pricing I listed is for e-bay stuff. I find that most of the stuff I have bought on e-bay has worked as expected, but if that's not your thing I understand.
    Actually, what you posted has me intrigued for a side project. I was just talking to my oldest and he had a good point. His point was that we already have a Raspberry Pi setup using a RAMBo (based on Arduino) with the small stepper motors on the 3D printer so why not use the Gecko setup for us to learn something a little different. He did agree with you and said I need to get over my aversion to all things ebay. I do see a side project in our future using the information you posted. I definitely want to tinker around with some of those things you speak of.

    For now I probably should stick with the "gold standard" since this is my first CNC build. I don't want to get frustrated with this project. I've got enough of that in that life right now so keeping it simpler is probably the best thing right now for me.



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    Default Re: Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)

    You could also check out the new MASSO controller, it is an all in one package that really simplifies installation and had its own control software. Pretty nice setup and for what you get is very reasonable at $515 considering it's a motion controller, computer, breakout board, across an encoder feedback for Spindle for rigid tap, has automatic tool changer control capabilities and is super easy to setup!

    Give it a look, may be worthwhile since you want to donate using a full pc.

    Sent from my QTAIR7 using Tapatalk



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    Default Re: Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)

    Quote Originally Posted by lcvette View Post
    You could also check out the new MASSO controller, it is an all in one package that really simplifies installation and had its own control software. Pretty nice setup and for what you get is very reasonable at $515 considering it's a motion controller, computer, breakout board, across an encoder feedback for Spindle for rigid tap, has automatic tool changer control capabilities and is super easy to setup!

    Give it a look, may be worthwhile since you want to donate using a full pc.
    Thanks for the tip on that one, the concept does look pretty darn cool but so far I'm yet to find someone that has one that isn't a little frustrated with it. I might be searching the wrong places but the few posts I've seen were recent and they were complaining. I'm a little hesitant to jump on board without finding some good reviews even though it does look like a potentially nice product. If you know of any place that has a decent discussion going on about the product, let me know. I'm not finding a whole lot out there on the new version.



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    Default Re: Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)

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    Default Re: Need help finishing CNC conversion (it's been on hold far too long)

    I bought a 44991 in September, bought the LMS belt conversion, LMS Tormach TTS collet and TTS ER16 and ER32 collet holders. Now I'm saving up for the CNCFusion $619 3 axis kit. I'm going to be running JMC-MOTOR.com iHSS60-36-30 Closed Loop Steppers (CLS). I already have 3 iHSS57-36-20 CLS on my cnc3040 engraver. Haven't lost a step yet. I'm using a ebay parallel Break-out-board (BOB) and the power supply out of the original cnc3040 black control box to drive everything. Working on getting a Arduino Mega ethernet BOB working from LinuxCNC. Running the 285 oz in (2Nm) CLS on the CNC3040 at 27volts. The CNC3040 has horrible deflection, so I bought the 44991 (X2) to do AL and steel. Michael at jmcxx@jmc-motion.com has been really helpful. I got one iHSS60-36-30 (NEMA24 425 oz in) motor with their tuner for around $123ish. Buddy is getting the Harbor Freight RongFu-31 clone and we'll be CNC'n that as well.

    Quote Originally Posted by mercdv View Post
    Well, I guess 4 years late is better than never. I need some help guys. I bought the HF X2 clone literally 4 years ago. Unfortunately, my youngest son became very ill shortly after the purchase and was in and out of the hospital. He was sick for months. I had unpacked the mill but that is as far as I got before I tucked it away on a shelf where it has sat for the last 4 years untouched. He became my priority so everything else was on hold.

    Anywho, I’m back at it. My major problem is that all the research I had done back then has completely left my head. I want to finish this project up pretty quickly this time so my oldest son can spend the summer tinkering. I was trying to do a full CNC conversion. I have the following items sitting on the shelf with it.

    1. HF 44991 Milling Machine
    2. Reinforced Column
    3. Belt Drive
    4. CNC Fusion 3-axis conversion kit with backlash couplings
    5. Lots of tooling/endmills

    I hate to even ask for help but my wife travels all the time and I work crazy hours now so my time it getting limited. I’d like to spend some of my free time with the kids and less of it researching everything again so I figured it doesn’t hurt to ask. What I was wondering is should I buy a 3-axis CNC kit? If so, what kit should I buy? I just can’t remember what I was getting next. I do remember I was leaning towards 382 oz NEMA23 motors and I was getting dual shaft. Past that, I don’t remember much. I have a PC to run it but was also interesting in trying to use a Raspberry Pi to control it if that can be done. I have my son’s 3D printer setup using Raspberry Pi and I really like having that to load the gcode without having to have a PC attached directly to the machine. It saves space in the workshop. Where the heck do I go from here? I don’t have to go the Raspberry Pi route. I just need to get something up and running ASAP.

    Thanks for the help...


    Robi


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