Need Help!- XJ12 CNC conversion

[rnr107]

Hi all,
I am in the process of converting my XJ12 mill to CNC. Anybody done it on this model before?

wildwestpat,
I was searching the forum some help to convert my XJ12 to CNC when I found a post where you said you had an XJ12 that you converted to CNC.
Could you give me some details?
Part you used, where to get them from...
How did you do it? did you use a kit? did you follow a guide?
I am new at CNC conversion...Any help, link, pictures, would be really apreciated...

Ta,
RNR

[wildwestpat]

Hi

Yes I have a CNC project that has stalled due to the cold weather and house renovations. I have purchased ball screws on ebay from Marchantdice and from Linearmotion (China). You might also consider Zapp Automation. I am using double row angular contact bearings to support the 16mm diameter ball screws. These bearings avoid most of the complexities associated with angular contact bearing pairs.

I have drawn up the parts as now that I have been retired I will have to make the parts on the manual mill instead of using my employers machine shop. I am proposing to mount the stepper motors directly to the ball screws and keep the bearings and ball nuts out board so as not to compromise X&Y travel. The Z axis will use the same basic motor / bearing mounts as X&Y and be mounted on the back of the mast using two arms to apply the ball nut motion to the head aka the X3.

The XJ12 construction is a bit better than the more popular X2 from Seig mini mills. For this reason I am going to use one piece motor and bearing supports machined out of 70mm sq alli stock. The motor screws to one end and via an 'Oldham' type coupling to the shaft assembed to the bearing. This assembly is the same for all three axis - oh for the cnc!

The three PDF drawings will give you an idea of what I am making but it will be a long time before I have made all the parts.

Hope this does not put you off having a go at a home brew rather than taking the kit route.

Regards

Pat

[rnr107]

Hi wildwestpat,
Thank you for your time & drawing!
Don't worry, I do not get put-off by chalanges... :-)
I have plenty of time to try and fail before I succeed.
When I was looking for a mill I esitate for a while between the Seig X2 and the XJ12 because the X2 CNC kits are available but as you said the XJ12 has a better build quality. I am happy whith this machine, it works very well manually.

If you ever complete that project please let me know. I would be very interested in seeing pictures.

Ta,
RNR