Lagun Mill (BP clone) CNC conversion How To?

[mxtras]

Originally Posted by Kerry Harrison Thank you for your kind consideration of my receding hair line and eyebrows which, by the way, are still intact.

Hey - don't mention it! (you brought it up!!)

Originally Posted by Kerry Harrison What breakout board?.

I used an individual BOB, speed control board for the spindle and a relay board from http://www.cnc4pc.com . At the time, they did not offer a combo boards, but now they do.

If I had to do it over again (you said you wanted to hear that), I would go with this combination board: http://www.cnc4pc.com/Store/osc/prod...products_id=46

I have had no problems from these components and would definitely purchase from this company again.

I am currently planning on expanding my I/O with either a second BOB or a completely different arrangement to allow for more remote push buttons for simple machine operation control. I want to get away from the keyboard and mouse except for editing.

Originally Posted by Kerry Harrison What motor drivers?

I am using Gecko 212s for X and Y and a 201 for my Z (the 201 was the first driver I bought to get my feet wet and I liked it. The 212s run the motors a lot smoother. I have never had a single issue with the Geckos. AND - they are on sale now! http://www.geckodrive.com/product.cfm?pid=12
The designer of these drives (Mariss) posts here on the Zone and is a very stand-up guy.

Originally Posted by Kerry Harrison What size stepper motors?

Well, I design automation machines for a living and I replaced a coating system, so I was fortunate enough to obtain the old motors from the replaced installation. They are 42 frame size and I believe they are in the neighborhood of 950 OzIn motors.

For the Z axis, I chose to drive the quill through the original quill handle. Long story short – I am happy with it for the most part but it does have quite a bit of backlash. When I am doing something which requires tight depth control tolerances, I have to be careful. I see about .022” of slop in the quill but a lot of what I do is profiling of plate and through drilling so it works fine. It is extremely fast! Not to mention, it leaves the knee for use as a manual Z axis which is handy for proving out new programs - I can back it down to run the program and sneek up as the editting progresses. I have only once crashed my mill during and since the build.

You will need to review my build thread (wherever it is…) for the details of the Z drive, but I went through two, 6:1 reductions for a total of 36:1 reduction with a 276 OzIn stepper from www.automationdirect.com.

Originally Posted by Kerry Harrison What power supply?

I am using two of the following set up in series to provide 48 volts for the steppers only: http://www.solaheviduty.com/products.../sdn/index.htm

I am also using two or three other power supplies to provide control voltages – all are very heavy duty, regulated, industrial duty. I have about $1800 in power supplies in my control console but again – they were all recovered from machine builds so my out of pocket cost was nothing. I know, I know – I suck!

I think I would look at some of the terroidal (sp?) transformers if I had to buy one. Keep in mind that the higher the voltage, the better the torque. I would run higher voltage if I had more free power supplies!

Scott

[mxtras]

Here are a few links to some of my picture-rich yet incomplete threads:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15600 (VFD info)

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42337 (More on VFDs)

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14398 (moving the mill)

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14398 (MXtras Shop build)

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10535 (BP CNC thread)

I have also included a few photos - one is of the steppers I used for X and Y, one is of my pull out electrical tray in the control cabinet and I have no idea how the unrelated pic got attached. Sorry.

Scott

[mxtras]

Originally Posted by bluechips On the geckodrive servo drivers (amplifiers): These drives require an oscilloscope to be tuned (according to gecko's user manual).

You do not need a scope. I could see where it would come in handy for the 201 Geckos (older) but it is not required.

Scott

[bluechips]

Kerry,
Philosophically speaking (in shop terms),
You need to have an idea of whether you want a mill that makes one part repetitively, or on the opposite end of the scale ,a mill that makes one part, then another new,different part (one-off). This is the production shop vs. job shop argument that cnc has complicated. If you are a 1 man (one person) shop then you can avoid the majority of the problems that come with multiple-operator shops. On the other hand, if you are running a business, and you expect your employees to operate this converted logan machine, then you need to be very confident that the system is absolutely id**t proof. This requirement is absolutely critical if you have employees.
If you were too find the highest priced PC based software (I'm just guessing, but maybe ah-ha systems?) I would guess they have a disclaimer that puts the blame on you in case of a software caused accident.
You stated you're only going to have one mill, so i assume the previous warning probably doesn't apply.

[bluechips]

hi mxtras,
Sorry, I probably should apologize, since I didn't make it clear that the the gecko servo drivers (320's. 340's) seem to require (per gecko documentation) an oscilloscope to "tune" (set-up). I should have been more clear that the stepper drivers do not (as far as I know) require a scope to tune or set-up.
I should be more clear on my posts, my bad. thanks for the correction.