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As far as I know IH won't sell you a kit unless you buy one of their manual mills...
Hello, I'm a long time reader and a 1st time poster. Anyhow, I have recently purchased a 12z mill and I'm contemplating on purchasing the IH cnc kit and of course installing it myself. I'm trying to reach others whom took on this project ,using only the parts and materials provided from IH with the snags and pitfalls that were encountered during the build. I'm just trying to get an idea of what I'm diving into! Seems that once you start,there's no turning back!?
Any input/advise will be much appreciated.
Thanks, L.T.
As far as I know IH won't sell you a kit unless you buy one of their manual mills...
I wouldn't want to buy one of their kits personally. Look at the threads in this section and you can see why.
It is a IH 12z millOriginally Posted by Shev
L.T.
I attempted to purchase a kit, putting in my order around this time last year. I ended up with a partial kit, so had to make up the rest. For the parts I got, this is the issues I had.
The spacers for the ball screws wouldn't fit on the turned down ballscrews. Easy fix on my lathe though. One of the six total fit out of the box. The other five got reworked.
The Z axis ballscrew pulley was the wrong tooth count and I ended up ordering that from SDP/SI and threading it on my lathe.
Doing the electronics for the first time was somewhat intimidating. You get the main power supply and have to come up with the other parts that make up the electronics. No suggestions covered in the manual that I found. There are plenty of wiring schematics out there to help though. And I guess that the electronic is wide open as far as you want to take it. Could have just been a rats nest of wires, but I didn't want that. I would include a break out board right out of the gate though. Figure on anywhere from $100.00 to $500.00 additional for electronics, depending on how nice you want it. I added a 5v and 12v power supply for the mill control and a 24v for cooling fans. I also used rivnuts to mount all the components to the panel, so had to buy a rivnut puller too.
The spacer for the Y axis mounts needed to be twice as thick as the one I got and no spacer was sent for the X axis. I ended up milling one after the fact to get back to the original travels the mill had as a manual mill. I added to the Y axis spacer, then notched out the web under the saddle to clear the Y axis ball nut mount. Needed to cut off the one tab on the same mount to clear at the back end of the saddle travel. Then drilled through the hole in the saddle into the mount and tapped it out. That should have been drilled and tapped in the part already and could have been used for initial location to the saddle. I recall needing to make some shims to move that same mount down to match the hole through the base where the old acme screw came out of.
I had read that there would be a support for the free end of the X axis ballscrew, but I got nothing. But since I added a three inch spacer at the other end, the free end is now shorter and I tend to not worry about it whipping around.
I didn't see any advantage to having the ends of the ballscrews extending through the encoder covers with those stupid plastic knobs on them, so I cut them off and plugged the hole in the covers with some rugged tape. And having those things hanging out there in the open constantly turning looked like an accident waiting to happen.
Ended up adding a small capacitor to each encoder to settle the motors down. They should be part of the kit for no more than they cost.
The lexan covers on the motors aren't really coolant proof. Mine are broken in the corners now from trying to tighten the middles down to the gaskets to keep the chips out.
I added a one shot oiler to my mill and had to drill and tap for all the fittings. IH could have pre-drilled their three nut mounts for that and included some threaded plugs if they weren't going to be used.
I didn't get the motors, a couple of pulleys, limit switches, software or manual so can't comment on those things. I've gone to a lot of work getting the motors and limit switches installed and working correctly. Matter of fact, still working on the Z switch as it failed for some reason last weekend.
Some of the problems could have been due to my mixing and matching parts to get it done, but I really doubt it. It shouldn't matter what motor or breakout board a guy runs, within limits, so it all should really play well together. Took a number of weeks or months to get that to happen.
Bob
Wow Bob, seems like a lot of issues. Did you get any support from IH?
"I didn't get the motors, a couple of pulleys, limit switches, software or manual so can't comment on those things. I've gone to a lot of work getting the motors and limit switches installed and working correctly. Matter of fact, still working on the Z switch as it failed for some reason last weekend."
So you're not using the servos, pulleys or limit switches from IH?
Well, consider that I knew about the electronics (more or less) going in. So I started there and built my enclosure while I thought parts were shipping. IH leads you to believe there's an additional $100.00 to spend there. I passed that up with the break out board. I wanted a nice enclosure to house it all and that added more, then the power supplies, wires, switches, breaker, etc.
The encoders I learned about by having to deal with a crazy Z motor. I carried that fix over to the other two and they settled right down as well. The tip on the caps came from Marris from Gecko drives. I'm also using the same small caps on the limit switches to flush the noise out of the low voltage signal. Works like a champ. I also modified the end of the ballscrews to use a little longer setscrew in the encoders by cutting a flat for them to sit on. That really helped as well. Had to buy a box of 100 #4 x 48 tpi x 1/8" long set screws, but it was worth it in the end. I never contacted IH again after going my own way to build the rest of the kit.
Nope, I used servo's from two different suppliers, pulleys I either bought or built and limit switches were designed by me and a friend and I designed and milled the housings and brackets. The servo's I used have 1/2" shafts. Try to find a small pulley to fit that. I didn't. Could have turned down the motor shaft, but I didn't like that option.
Bob
Did you even receive those parts?
Thanks for your info. Maybe I gotta rethink this project.
L.T.
No, never did and that story is in one of the posts from back in the middle of the year about IH failing to deliver. I won't get into it here.
Bob
I forgot to mention I couldn't get the ball nuts to thread into the nut mounts IH sent me. Fortunately I had the correct tap to rethread them. I thought they were most likely full of paint, but I took out some aluminum when I ran the tap through. I did my own Z axis mount modification and it fit perfectly.
Bob
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